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, Tybee Blues Band, Famle' and the Hip Hop Kids.
The event is intended to foster a sense of pride within the community.
"I love encouraging and connecting people," Morton says. "There are so many beautiful, amazing, kind people doing good work in Savannah.
"I know there is a lack of money," she says. "But in the volunteer sector, we can keep growing the way we want to keep growing."
With the success of the Earth Day and Food Day festivals, Massive Events wanted to create a new fest.
"We know July is hot, but at the same time, there are not a lot of events in summer like there are in spring or fall," Morton says. "� This might become a new Fourth of July tradition. Daffin Park is great to do events in. We're going to be underneath the trees in the shade."
The festival's organizers want it to be as diverse as possible.
"We chose the name Southern Family Festival because family is the glue that holds the community together," Morton says. "There are so many types of families who all love food and music.
"This year, we've got six food trucks coming. Four will have food and one will have cupcakes and another will have Kona Ice. We really want to support the food trucks.
"We'll have local bands and we're going to Art Rise and Loop It Up Savannah to make a giant American flag," she says. "We're going to have a cornhole competition and games people can play. The Savannah Art Association will bring plein-air painting."
Sales of draft beer will benefit the Ogeechee Riverkeeper.
"We'll have almost 60 vendors who are going to be selling and demonstrating," Morton says. "We've got lots of jewelry, an herb apothecary and candy sellers.
"Alice and Pearl is a local woman who sells aprons. She just bought a vintage Airstream trailer and is going to set up as a shop at the event. Traveling Chic Boutique is bringing a trailer, too.
"There are so many amazing vendors with talent and a level of commitment," Morton says. "I've worked with these people at all three of our events."
Planning for the Southern Family Festival has been underway for some time.
"We started planning this right after Earth Day," Morton says. "We want to show what it means to be working together as a community.
"If everything goes well this year, it will be an annual event," she says. "A lot of families have family reunions on the Fourth of July, and we think of this as Savannah's family reunion."
IF YOU GO
What: Southern Family Festival
When: 1-7 p.m. July 1
Where: Daffin Park
Cost: Free admission and parking
Info: southernfamilyfestival.comGet more out of your online browsing experience by choosing the right Chrome Extensions
I would personally like to thank tipsoftech.com for letting me guest post on this incredible website. Something that really caught my eye when searching through the site was the article on reasons for creating a successful blog, if you need that boost of confidence give it a shot.
With the advancement of technology, us humans tend to create things to simplify our daily lives more and more. I feel the extensions Google Chrome provides fall into the same category, they are there to completely make everything easier on you. I love that about the browser and that is why I will be sharing my experiences with these tools and explaining which are a must have for your browser.
Ad Block
If you like to visit a lot of ad sustained websites, or even video sites like YouTube, you might find yourself sitting there having to go through an ad for every video. What Ad Blocker does is exactly what the name says, block ads, and with ease might I add. The best part about it is you can allow ad traffic on certain domains if you would like to help support the site, but if not, you just add it to the list it’s as simple as that.
The icon will be located on the address bar for easy access to the options settings. They keep the extension updated and undetectable by sites so they can’t counter. I highly recommend this for anyone who spends their time browsing.
Panic Button
This extension works as stated, a Panic Button. Whenever you are looking at sites you shouldn’t be browsing at work, or a home full of family, all you need to do is bind a special key or click the icon to hide all the tabs available. Once nobody is around and you feel safe to browse again, you hit the button and all the tabs return just like you left them. The Panic Button extension is convenient enough to make the list, I personally have used it and feel everyone needs that tad bit of added privacy.
ZenMate
Having a virtual private network can be great if you are always on the move. Public Wi-Fi networks are available almost on every corner and can be risky when connecting with a computer or mobile device full of personal data. One of the dangers is fake networks or “Evil Twins” as some would call them. They are posted as “Open Wi-Fi” or “Cafe Wi-Fi” and fool users into connection, then when you do, they snatch data from your computer or mobile device without your notice. Taking the precaution of installing a VPN on your device will allow for a safer connection. What a private network does is encrypt the information going into and out of your computer securing it to the highest level and making it unreadable to people with malicious intentions. There are many other VPNs on the market and you can start your search for the best one for you at http://securethoughts.com/best-vpn/.
Awesome Screenshot
There are times you run into awesome pictures or important information you wish you can capture in seconds, this is the tool for that. You can screenshot, save web pages, and add captions to it all seconds before uploading them to your favorite social media site or your desktop. As a data collector I find this to be really useful in my research.
Google Dictionary
There’s been plenty of times when reading articles or blogs where I’ve felt bothered by not knowing a certain word and then having to manually look it up. With Google Dictionary all you have to do is double click any word you run into and get a nice clear definition pop up right there. I found this to be extremely useful and also saved me a lot of time.
LastPass
Sometimes creating passwords can be a rather tedious and difficult task. I personally have problems when it comes to this and it has resulted in my accounts being taken over by hackers. What LastPass does is help you create incredibly strong passwords that will help you counter account theft. All the passwords can be uploaded to a cloud program and will not be touched by other hands. I definitely find this extension unique and a good choice for fighting cyber-crimes.
I hope you have been able to find a few useful extensions from this list as I handpicked the best for you. The market is full of great content if you are willing to explore deeper into the world of extension.The most talented and bighearted soul I've ever had the privilege of calling my friend has passed away. Kairo Gudino, AKA CHALK., was a producer with releases on Nervous Records, Mr. Nice Guy, Loveless, and other labels. He was a DJ, singer, rapper, artist, designer, and all-around creative human. He was 23.
Kairo was born April 29, 1993, in Caracas, Venezuela. His family soon moved to Miami, where he grew up, went to school, made friends, and found his calling. Kairo's whole world was music. He produced his first beat at the age of 15, and by 19, he was making waves around town, playing venues from Blackbird Ordinary to the Electric Pickle, moving people to connect with one another through his mixes and original productions.
Kairo was one of those rare souls inherently gifted with the spirit of rhythm and the feeling of an age. His music overflowed with a sound both nostalgic and futuristic. He dressed like the cool dude in a vintage cartoon, like he'd time-traveled from 1993 and stepped into some multicolored, hallucinogenic future we still have yet to experience.
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He was heavily inspired by Larry Levan, J Dilla, Lou Reed, the people of Overtown, and weirdos who existed at the edge of time and insanity. He was so easy to like. He wasn't a perfect man. He did bad things, and he hurt people, but he believed in the good nature of all. That trait made him naive, and it opened him up to corruption and pain. He was too trusting. Everything that was his ruin was what made him beautiful.
He didn't graduate from high school. He left home at a young age and wandered into the gritty, glamorous, dangerous, lavish, drug-fueled world of South Beach. He found a lot of attention with a track called “Tropical Boy.” He fell in love. He collected a wall of records and rainbow-print jackets from thrift stores. He moved in with a good friend in Edgewater and made seven beats at a time while living on his friend's couch.
I was on Holy Ship in 2013, and I remember staying up the last night until the ship emptied. I was on the deck with friends when someone came up and started talking about how he'd been in the room with Claude VonStroke and the Dirtybird crew listening to some kid's demo. It blew everyone away, and VonStroke kicked the lot of them out of his room so he could listen intently. One guy said, “The kid is basically homeless in Miami; his friend was passing out the demo. It's fucking insane.” I asked who the music was by, and he told me: “Some guy named CHALK.” I exploded with pride.
I wrote him up as the Best Young Talent for Miami New Times' Best of Miami issue a few months later. I remember hanging out with Kairo on my balcony while reading emails from Claude VonStroke asking him to rework certain tracks. It never panned out. I think that's around the time things began to change, around the time he started using heroin.
I didn't know he was using. I didn't know by that October, during the first III Points. I think everyone who was there will forever fondly remember the Boiler Room party he and his friends hosted at a Wynwood loft. The place was packed with hipsters. Jamie XX was drinking beers in the kitchen. Kairo was trippin' out that he'd lost his USB and was going on in 20 minutes. He was just going to have to do an all-vinyl set. Most DJs today don't even know how to do that.
I saw him do it again a year later at III Points 2014. I got this call from him about 30 minutes before his set: “Kat, I can't find my USB. Can you take me to my place so I can get my records?” We rushed over, he grabbed two crates, and we rushed back. He set up, he started mixing, the tiny crowd in front of the small DJ booth outside slowly swelled into a sizable audience. People were hooting and hollering, and I remember just standing and watching, so happy. I had learned at some point in the past year about his addiction. I knew he was struggling when I saw people rush him after the set, thanking him for an amazing time, surrounding him like some kind of underground star. The next day, he took to Facebook:
It hit me only yesterday when I heard of his death how that was the last time I ever saw him perform. I hate to admit it, but it might even be the last time I saw him alive. A month later, he was homeless. He spent the last year and a half of his life in and out of jail, in and out of shelters, in and out of halfway houses. His family did not abandon him. His mother would meet him, feed him, take him to places to get better, but he would leave the next day.
Even though he was sick, even though his mind was twisted by an overwhelming and destructive urge, he was free to live his will. We kept in contact via Facebook and text. Every few months, I'd get a message, a sign of life. At times he sounded insane. I felt so helpless. It got very dark. I didn't know what to do or say. I just told him that I cared — that I would never stop believing in him. I know he knew that.
I talked to Kairo Friday, July 15. He'd just gotten out of jail. I told him about Pokémon Go. He sounded like his old self. He was sober. His friend Ariel had just died of drug abuse days earlier. I didn't know Ariel, but he was another beloved member of Miami's music scene, and Kairo was saying he didn't want to go like that. “Fuck drugs,” he told me. I told him our conversation was the best start to my day. We said we would get coffee together soon.
Kairo died Monday, July 18. He isn't my only friend struggling with heroin. He's not the only person I know to die from heroin abuse. His story is not unique, but his spirit is unmatchable, his talent inarguable, and his death should not be in vain. We as a community are in dire need of a discussion about drug abuse and the toll it is taking on our loved ones. We need to make our voices heard by our city officials. We need to have more programs for those suffering. My friend shouldn't have spent the last year and a half of his life on the street. I should have been writing about his music for years, watching his ascent through his talents. I should not be writing his obituary, but I am.
I once told him his style captured those weird, silent moments in life when you've been partying all night and the sun is up, and there's that one guy still talking a million miles a minute, but you're just trying so hard to fall asleep in spite of all the chemicals running through your brain. Those are sticky, raw, real moments. They're awkward, silent moments people don't talk about. Whenever I see a sunrise, I'll hear his laid-back, syncopated beats; his lazy, raspy flow. In my heart, those are the moments where Kairo existed, where he still exists, where we will sit together in spirit, just being chill from '93 till infinity.
RIP, my friend.
Kairo Gudino's family will host a funeral service Saturday, July 23, from 8 to 11 a.m. at Vista Funeral Home, 14200 NW 57th Ave., Miami Lakes.One result of the European Union’s policy of leaving domestic drug policy to individual member states is that each one chooses its own path to medical cannabis, creating a variety of different regulatory schemes across the continent. In Poland, the Parliament has begun debate on new legislation that would make cannabis available to tens of thousands of Poles with a wide range of health issues.
A parliamentary commission had its first meeting on the matter last month, a response to the tireless efforts of recently formed political movement Kukiz’15 as well as activists from the NGO Wolne Konopie (Free Cannabis Association) and the Coalition of Medical Marijuana, which consists of doctors, lawyers, patients, and patients’ families.
Kukiz’15 is a somewhat controversial political movement created and led by punk rock musician Pawel Kukiz. It currently occupies 36 seats in the Polish Sejm, the lower house of Parliament that consists of 460 deputies. The party’s most vocal proponent of medical cannabis is Piotr-Liroy Marzec, a famous rapper-turned-MP. The day before the commission’s first meeting on Oct. 20, Liroy met with Health Minister Konstanty Radziwiłł to discuss a draft of the new medical cannabis bill. The minister, however, said proposition—which would, among other things, allow patients to grow their own cannabis—goes way too far. Home cultivation is unnecessary, he claimed, nothing that certain cannabis-based medicines are already available to Polish patients.
Jakub Gajewski, director, Wolne Konopie (Free Cannabis Association) “It is a good sign that all the assembled members agreed they are willing to work on the bill.”
Liroy then appeared on TV and heavily criticized the health ministry. “The situation is unbearable,” he said. “People are dying every day because of the current laws. I am attending their funerals and you should start attending them, too, talk to their families and tell them face to face what you keep saying to media.”
The proposed new law would allow patients to grow cannabis at home and produce their own preparations. Patients would require permission from a regional pharmaceutical inspector and medical authorization by a physician, listed in a special register of the health ministry.
Although the minister of health didn’t attend the first committee meeting himself, his first deputy, Jaroslaw Pinkas, was present through the whole session. The discussion made clear that this ministry strongly opposes domestic cultivation and only supports cultivation by the government.
The chairman of the commission, former Health Minister Bartosz Arłukowicz, of Civic Platform, has set a deadline of five weeks, during which nine deputies will take a closer look at the draft and proposed changes. According to Jakub Gajewski, the director of NGO Wolne Konopie, “it is a good sign that all the assembled members agreed they are willing to work on the bill, yet we are afraid that five weeks are not enough for the members to learn all the necessary facts and make the right decisions.”Sir Alex Ferguson has been handed a four-match ban, two of which will be suspended, and fined £20,000 for his comments made about the referee Alan Wiley last month.
The Manchester United manager has also been warned about his future conduct after he met with an FA regulatory commission to explain his claims that Wiley was not physically fit enough to referee, which were made following United's 2-2 draw with Sunderland.
Ferguson will now be forced to watch United's next two matches from the stands, at home to Everton and away to Portsmouth, while the suspended sanction will be automatically activated should Ferguson be found guilty of a similar charge before the end of the 2010-11 season on top of any sanction imposed for that offence.
The commission's chairman, Peter Griffiths QC, said after the hearing: "Each member of the commission recognised Sir Alex Ferguson's achievements and stature within the game. Having said that, it was made clear to Sir Alex that with such stature comes increased responsibilities.
"The commission considered his admitted remarks, in the context in which they were made, were not just improper but were grossly improper and wholly inappropriate. He should never have said what he did say."About
Fox Clearing is a feature length documentary film that follows Patrick Semales', who cured his depression by embarking on a photographic road trip across the US in 2012. He is gearing up to do it again, this time he is heading into the great white north of Canada to photograph the Aurora Borealis. Patrick will drop everything and escape his 9-5 work life to seek out adventure and serendipity.
"When asked what inspired his decision to travel 10,000 miles in 100 days, and to do it all alone, Michael Patrick Semales answers with admirable honesty, "I didn't really see a reason for living anymore. So I had to go find one." He explains further, "Everybody has their reasons for depression whenever it hits. Mine got to me so much that I decided to spend 100 days alone. Somewhere during those 10,000 miles of traveling by myself, I came back..." (From Yahoo Article written about Patrick in 2012 )
Patrick's story reflects a greater archetype of our modern age—the need to escape from the monotony of a 9-5 work life that doesn't necessarily inspire the imagination. What we will witness in FOX CLEARING is someone who is deliberately stepping outside of a lifestyle that so many in our modern culture consider to be a necessary evil—the 9-5 job that is “just a job.” We spend about 33% of our lives sleeping and another 33% working, but for the majority of American's, work life is a necessity that is begrudgingly endured until the weekend. Patrick will leave his work life behind and trust serendipity at every fork in the road with little to no plan as to how long he will stay in one spot or what path will ultimately lead him to his goal of photographing the Aurora Borealis during this 11 year-visibility peak. His ultimate goal is to become a top tier adventure photographer (and to get paid to do it!). This project is your opportunity to be in the driver seat with Patrick as he hits the road for adventure and to achieve his dreams.
The Route
In 2012 Patrick Semales went on a 10,000 mile road trip across the continental United States, resulting in a body of photographic work that went viral. His need to escape a 9-5 lifestyle that didn't inspire him pushed him to make a lonesome and adventurous trip, resulting in a series of self-portraits that reflects his state of isolation and the release of a bottled up playfulness and need for novel adventure. Patrick's photo's have developed an underground online following.
In December of 2013, Patrick intends to quit his new 9-5 lifestyle, working at a juice bar in Austin, TX to embark on an even more ambitious road trip. His home being primarily his Ford Focus, "Trusty." This time, he intends to navigate from Austin Texas through the southeast US, moving up the northeast and into Canadian territory, where he will shift west and plans to end up in the Yukon to witness and photograph the Aurora Borealis. The Aurora Borealis is at an 11 year viewing peak, where it is expected to be one of the most fantastic displays of natural light phenomenon in recent history. Where exactly his journey will take him is unknown.
Along the way, we will explore his personal escape from the 9-5 mentality while also exploring modern work life from a birds eye view. What is your personal dream and what is stopping you from "hitting the road" and seeking out your dream life?
Patrick
Will Patrick be able to turn his love for travel and photography into a career? Will this be a success story or simply a story of escape from practical reality? Do you think you would be able to quit your own job and begin seeking your dream life?
Join the adventure and get yourself some awesome rewards! This kickstarter will fund the production costs for the film.
Some fabulous rewards!
http://bit.ly/18wy0JF (Article written by Ford Cars)In our second Super Series article we are going to be looking at another aggressive deck in Monored. Now you may remember at the beginning I said that these articles will be based on decks that Khans of Tarkir has inspired and Monored Aggro is a long standing archetype in Magic the Gathering; however with the release of KTK I felt that four cards were real and true game changers for the Monored archetype moving into standard. First of all, it is important to note that at pre rotation you had the monored that was purely creature or purely burn and for the most part the combination decks truly didn’t work. This deck won’t be a work off of devotion, and blends both efficient creates and efficient spells together. I truly believe that KTK monored is at the most powerful it has been in quite a while. So without further ado let us take a gander at the build.
Monored Aggro
This is exactly what you would expect from a monored deck, small quick creatures that can rely on a pure mana base, which plays fast and aggressive. Red decks have always been known for their inconsistency or their ability to burn out, and I feel this deck is able to get around it better than most, it has a consistent mana base, a low mana curve, and the mana base doesn’t punish you in anyway. With the likely mana bases about to take over Standard, this type of strategy will be very effective, more so early on in the format while people are still trying to figure everything out. If you like to play fast and lay the pressure on your opponent this is the deck for you; why don’t we take a deeper look into the deck itself.
Creatures
In the early going (turn one) this deck is running twelve creatures that are dropping in for one mana. Two of them were regulars in our last standard rotation and have proven their worth in Foundry Street Denizen and Firedrinker Satyr. FSD managed to do its work because red was so fast and dropped a lot of creatures, it became great friends with Goblin Rabblemaster when M15 came out and the new card it will take advantage of is Hordeling Outburst which drops three creatures into play making it a 4/1 instantly that turn. Satyr similarly found success because of the 2/1 body, and because of the firebreathing pump ability which gave it added value when your hand ran dry or in the late game, even with the drawback of it dealing damage to you based on the damage it takes.
But the new addition from KTK is the highlight of the one drops; Monastery Swiftspear is a 1/2 creature with Haste and prowess (gains +1/+1 whenever you cast a noncreature spell). This creature might be the best one drop red has had since Goblin Guide was legal in Standard, and it also gave us an excuse to add in noncreature spells that will help us be successful. With two toughness and the ability to get bigger at instant speed, this card provides a serious threat to your opponents and is hard to chump block and kill. Mark my words that this card will stand as an all-star in the format.
The very efficient and well liked Borderland Maurader comes down as one of the two slot options, being a 1/2 on defense and a 3/2 on the attack this creature is efficient and punishing. The all-star here once again comes with KTK and that is the War-Name Aspirant! The War-Name uses one of the other new KTK mechanics, and that is Raid; regularly she is a 2/1 body that can’t be blocked by creatures with power 1 or less, but if you attack and then play her she becomes a 3/2 body with the same ability. Her only drawback in the deck comes with having a bad interaction with our Foundry Street Denizen, but with 8 other one drops to choose from this doesn’t hurt too much, and later game doesn’t matter. She provides a nice advantage when running into weenie decks, tokens, mana dorks, or walls.
Our end game cards are quite obvious, Goblin Rabblemaster and Purphoros, God of the Forge which are both stars and interact very well with each other. Rabblemaster can get big and make constant token threats. Combine that with our wonderful Hordeling Outburst and you are just getting more value. Purphoros himself can be a big creature, deals damage whenever another creature comes into play, and finally can pump all of your creatures late game when your mana has nothing better to do. Just a very efficient cards for the deck once again.
Notable Exclusions: For this article, I am running all of the creature exclusions together as I don’t feel there are as many. I will openly admit I am not brave enough to run Eidolon of the Great Revel in the mainboard as all our spells pretty much deal us damage, and we don’t know if it hits the opponent. The card provides a good sideboard option for possible mirror matchups where you are all racing anyway. Mardu Heart-Piercer was a consideration from KTK also, but this type of deck with the Denizen couldn’t invest too much into raid, and the Hearth-Piercer was just too high up the curve. The Valley Dasher as a 2/2 with haste for two also drew my attention, but the fact it must attack each turn, and didn’t really have any other abilities made it quickly outclassed.
Akroan Crusader and Satyr Hoplite were considered, but only four spells triggered Heroic while Forge Devil was too much of a risk in an unknown setting. I considered an Archetype of Aggression in the deck and it may still find its way into the sideboard as a good way to pile damage through, or take away your opponents ability to pile on damage, but in the early testing it didn’t live up to the hype. Fanatic of Mogis and Flame-Wreathed Phoenix were also cards I thought to include, and if I wasn’t running with spells they may have made it. But as it stands Mogis was lucky to do 4-5 damage and wasn’t consistent enough. The Flame-Wreathed Phoenix might still make it later on; I really do not think this card has received enough love or attention and maybe a rotation might change that. I had briefly considered a build with Generator Servant, Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, Stormbreath Dragon, and Ashcloud Phoenix for some major flying punishment, but at the end of the day this wasn’t the build for it.
Noncreature Spells
I’ll start with the All-Star of the three that I have included and that is the Hordeling Outburst; three mana for three 1/1 goblins which is a card I can get behind. This card is also good because of the insane synergy it has with the deck, it can deal 6 damage when Purphoros is on the field, pumps the FSD three times, gives three more goblins for Rabblemaster, and activate Prowess for the Monastery Swiftspear. If you are keeping track, every card in the deck that relies on another card to activate it, is activated by Hordeling Outburst which is synergy at its finest.
Our other two spells were at first burn spells, Lightning Strike and Stoke the Flames to be exact, but I opted for something a bit more direct in pump spells. Titan’s Strength is a great pump card both offensively and defensively with a wonderful scry cantrip. Turn one FSD, turn two Monastery Swiftspear and a Titan’s Strength is dealing out 7 damage on your second turn and you won’t even be trading with any chump blockers. Trumpet Blast was another good KTK card that I liked in the deck, more so in a deck that has Rabblemaster and Hordeling Outburst in it, but I also like it because it is a very easy card to side out after game. +2/0 to your attacking army of red dudes can be a game changer. If your turn three was a Hordeling Outburst, followed by a turn four Trumpet Blast, that sequence with the one above is game almost 100% of the time.
Notable Exclusions: There are far too many options to discuss and honestly this part is very subjective, you can choose to run burn in here, choose to cut some and run more creatures, even choose to run a few efficient enchantments to help you out. I could talk all week about the options alone here, so my suggestion is to figure out your play style and build to where you are comfortable, this combination is just the one I happen to feel the most efficient. I will note that I tested Hall of Triumph and didn’t like it, it was far too slow in the deck and didn’t do enough to get past Anger of the Gods.
Sideboard
I love sideboards in red decks as I always find them the most simple. You’ve got a burn/control suite and a card for a mirror match. If you run into a control match up, Burst Lightning and Stoke the Flames go right into the deck to start getting extra damage to the face, or holding back to deal that extra damage to one of big creatures. In these match ups your Trumpet Blast and War-Name Aspirant can slide right out and improve your deck. Magma Spray is great against other weenie decks or against recursion cards and will be such an important card when dealing with Bloodsoaked Champion.
Eidolon of the Great Revel is a great card against the mirror match or cheap aggressive deck as a matter of fact your whole sideboard should just come in with you in this case. Dropping Trumpet Blast, Titan’s Strength, Firedrinker Satyr, two War-Name Aspirant, and one Foundry Street-Denizen. Being able to control their creatures, increase your direct to the face damage and understand that Eidolon is going to mess you up as well and your goal is to find a way to advantage yourself in the race at this point. This is the only time Eidolon is a good card, and honestly I still think him a bit risky and would be the ONE sideboard card I would consider replacing, with perhaps a flying finisher or something along those lines.
Overall my excitement level isn’t as high as it is for my Warriors build, but this is the type of deck that can do damage and can always find itself being competitive and I still like it more than the Monoblack aggro counterpart. The deck is very efficient, rocks a lot of synergy, and has some pretty powerful early kill potential and overall is actually pretty cheap to assemble if you are looking for a deck that is quick to assemble and win you some FNM’s or even some bigger tournaments.
Until … well tomorrow!Jalopnik Reviews All of our test drives in one convenient place.
The BMW M3 is faster. The Mercedes-AMG C63 has over 150 more horsepower. And yet, all I would ever really want is a big, bright blue, absurdly wonderful Volvo S60 Polestar. It’s the car that left every racing pretension back at the track, and finally remembered what fun is.
(Full Disclosure: Volvo wanted me to drive the S60 Polestar so bad... you know what? This is the same car we used for the fun little video we did a couple of months ago, and this review is based on the week that I had it then. I talked a little bit about it when I solicited all of your burning questions about this ice-blue grej, and you can read what happened there.)
Yeah, fun. You insufferable jokers out there, who think you’ve all been saying original things these past 25 years, are probably dribbling out something about “Volvo, fun? Hibbledybibble box flork boring beige Swedish box honklonk BLORT!” but the truth of the matter is that while they are very much a company in transition, Volvo happens to be firing on all cylinders right now. All five of them.
Seriously. It really is amazing that they’ve been able to do it, despite all that the company’s been through. After a decade and change of Ford ownership, no one really knew what would happen to Volvo after their sale in 2010 to Chinese firm Geely.
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But then the floodgates opened. First a new XC90 dropped, and it’s pretty much the hottest SUV there is right now. Then Volvo announced it was doubling its marketing dollars, and it was opening up an entire factory, right here in America to help it build the nine new models we’re supposed to get by 2019, including what looks to be the gorgeous 2017 Volvo S90.
Like Lazarus, Volvo is rising from the near-dead. But this time around, Lazarus is still a bit sleepy, so these things take time. Because the company’s been focused on the new XC90 and the new S90, an entirely-new-from-the-ground-up S60 (and it’s wagon stablemate, the V60) is going to take a little longer.
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But the S60 is very much Volvo’s sedan bread-and-butter, so something had to be done to keep it in the running.
And that something was to funkify it. First we got the Volvo S60 Cross Country, which is hilarious and fantastic and wonderful because it looks like someone but hiking boots on a regular car. But then, we got another S60. A good S60. A great S60.
The 2015 Volvo S60 Polestar, and I mean it when I say it’s one of my favorite cars this year.
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I will say, from the get-go, that it’s not like most performance cars. It doesn’t have some sort of special nuclear device for an engine. It has 345 HP from its twin-scroll turbo inline six-cylinder engine, a bump of only 20 from the regular S60 T6 R-Design, and it pumps its 369 pound-feet of torque through the same automatic transmission you find in the run-of-the-mill Volvo.
It even puts that power down with the same all-wheel-drive system you find available in most Volvos, albeit with a touch more rear-bias. It doesn’t have an extra 114 horsepower like the Cadillac ATS-V does, or the choice of a six-speed manual or a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission like a BMW M3 does.
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And you know what? I don’t care. And I don’t think the Volvo does, either. Because it’s not about wagging your genitals about, or screaming “TRACK DAY BRO!” until your lungs burst. It’s about fun, and that’s something too many automakers have forgotten in the pursuit of top numbers above all else.
Let’s start with that paint, because it’s impossible to avoid.
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I mean it’s just so, so, so blue. Really, really blue. Bluer than blue can be. The sort of blue which only the unhinged and the deranged demand. Which is exactly how seriously a car like this should be. Deride it as “smurfish,” or, if you’re being very obtuse, “a skittle,” but the truth of the matter is that it immediately sets itself apart. It turns heads, if for nothing else than it’s just the bluest Volvo anyone’s ever seen.
Yes, it signifies it’s a Polestar, but since very few of the people that freaked out about it seemed to know what that is, it doesn’t matter very much. It’s not some hellacious, menacing shade of red. It’s not a Very Serious Maroon.
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It’s just, well, blue. Like the guy who shows up to your party wearing a LET’S PARTY shirt, you know it’s not there because it’s idea of a good time is a rousing debate on the greater merits of affine geometry. It’s there because it loves you, and wants you to have the time of your life.
Not that there’s anything wrong, per se, with affine geometry, and not that the Volvo is by any stretch of the word a bit dim. It’s just that there’s a time and place for everything, and right now everyone seems to be enamored with it at parties.
But even if you don’t like the blue – or “Rebel Blue,” as Volvo calls it, the car was available in black as well, if you really wanted it, for 2015, and for |
provides now a very competitive framework for private investment in production. The ELG recommends exploring the use of the new state-aid instrument on important projects of common European interest. This capacity build-up will respond to and anticipate demand in the identified areas of “smart connected objects”, in European areas of strengths, as well as in mobile convergence (between computing, mobile communications and wearable electronics).
Background
During the 1990s, the European share of semiconductor production increased to more than 15% of world production. However, in the last decade, it has fallen back to below 10% (Japan 22%; South Korea 18%; Taiwan 17%; the US 13%).
On 23 May 2013, the Commission announced the Electronics Strategy for Europe (IP/13/455) to bring the EU back to the driver's seat. The strategy aims, by 2020, to facilitate industry investment of €100 billion; double the value of EU micro-chip production to reach 20% of worldwide production; and create 250 000 jobs in Europe. The Electronics Leaders Group (ELG) – which brings together the leaders of Europe's eight largest semiconductor and design companies, equipment and materials suppliers and of the three largest research technology organisations – was set up to devise ways to achieve these objectives, in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders.
The ECSEL JTI is a key action of the strategy. It was proposed by the European Commission in July 2013 (IP/13/668 – ECSEL factsheet – MEMO/13/673), adopted by the European Parliament in April 2014 (MEMO/14/304) and by the Council in May 2014 (newsroom).
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Electronics Strategy
ECSEL MEMO
ECSEL Website (Work Plan under Documents)May 28, 2016; Atlanta, GA, USA; Fans participate in the Atlanta United fan festivities prior to the match between Paraguay and Mexico at the Georgia Dome. Mandatory Credit: Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports
Wasting no time Atlanta United have secured all three of their designated players for the 2017 season, and clearly they have been studying MLS history.
The start for a new MLS expansion team typically follows one of two paths. Either an existing club from USL or NASL is elevated (can’t say promoted) or an entirely new organization is started. Atlanta United is taking the second path, but with heaps of resources and having studying their MLS history books.
The position of Designated Player is one that can bring excitement, hope, victories, disappointment and/or frustration. Some clubs use all three almost every season, while others tend to avoid that more expensive route. For year one Atlanta is electing to spend big, fill all three, and do so following a tried a true method in American soccer.
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The South American superstar has been a part of the fabric of MLS since it’s inception. Carlos Valderrama was the first ever league MVP. Since then successful clubs have been built around the addition of a South American player maker. Think Guillermo Barros Schelotto at Columbus or David Ferreira at Dallas in years past, or most recently Diego Valeri and Nico Loderio leading their clubs to MLS Cup victories.
Clearly setting up to win in year one, Atlanta has developed a squad full of MLS veterans and exciting young DPs. First they signed Hector Villalba, an Argentine winger, and then Miguel Almiron, an attacking midfielder from Paraguay.
Then last week they announced their third DP, on loan for the season from Torino, Josef Martinez a striker from Venezuela. All three are either 22 or 23 years old, with Almiron and Martinez already appearing for their senior national teams.
Expect all three on the field in the club’s first match. Along side MLS vets such as Jeff Larentowicz, Michael Parkhurst, and Tyrone Mears, the team will have the talent to win. The question will be how team chemistry has developed by that point.
Will all three DPs end up successful for Atlanta? History tells us no. But if even one is a hit and the club make the playoffs in 2017, Atlanta’s big splash will have paid off. The team kicks off their season hosting the New York Red Bulls on March 5th.Here's how the Bowles-Simpson, Obama, and Republican fiscal cliff plans match up
(Reuters)
If you're reading this, it's probably too late to save yourself. We're already over the fiscal cliff plan cliff. That's a lot of cliffs, but it's not nearly as many cliffs as there are plans. From Domenici-Rivlin to Bowles-Simpson to just Bowles, there's a dizzying array of blueprints. It's bad enough that 25 percent of respondents told PPP polls they had an opinion about the Panetta-Burns plan. There is no Panetta-Burns plan. (At least not yet.)
But you know what they say: the first $2 trillion is the easiest. It's the next $2 trillion or so where things get tricky. That's where the "plan" part of the plan comes in. The Note: All amounts are in billions). It's not hard to imagine what Panetta-Burns would look like, if it actually existed. Like all the other debt plans, it would include the $1 trillion in discretionary spending savings from the Budget Control Act (BCA), aka the debt ceiling deal, and the $800 billion in savings from not fighting the wars anymore.But you know what they say: the first $2 trillion is the easiest. It's the next $2 trillion or so where things get tricky. That's where the "plan" part of the plan comes in. The Center for American Progress and Domenici-Rivlin have both offered good blueprints, but let's focus on Bowles-Simpson as a model, because of its totemic status inside the Beltway. The chart below, courtesy of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, looks at the savings from Bowles-Simpson over the next decade that haven't already been enacted -- in other words, excluding the BCA. ().
then embarking on the "fundamental tax reform" of lowering rates and broadening the base. And boy, do they broaden the base. Bowles-Simpson would turn the mortgage interest and charitable giving deductions into 12% nonrefundable credits, phase out the employer healthcare exclusion by 2038, tax municipal bonds, cap tax-preferred retirement contributions to $20,000 or 20 percent of income and eliminate all other tax expenditures. Oh, and they would tax capital gains and dividends as ordinary income. Even with a top marginal rate of 28 percent, that's a lot more money coming into the IRS -- especially compared to President Obama's plan.
As you can see in the chart below, which is scaled to the Bowles-Simpson chart, Obama raises just over 60 percent as much revenue as those centrist, That's a lot of new taxes. Bowles and Simpson get their $2.6 trillion in new revenues by first assuming the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire -- that adds $800 billion or so to their baseline -- and onlyembarking on the "fundamental tax reform" of lowering rates and broadening the base. And boy, do they broaden the base. Bowles-Simpson would turn the mortgage interest and charitable giving deductions into 12% nonrefundable credits, phase out the employer healthcare exclusion by 2038, tax municipal bonds, cap tax-preferred retirement contributions to $20,000 or 20 percent of income and. Oh, and they would tax capital gains and dividends as ordinary income. Even with a top marginal rate of 28 percent, that's a lot more money coming into the IRS -- especially compared to President Obama's plan.As you can see in the chart below, which is scaled to the Bowles-Simpson chart, Obama raises just over 60 percent as much revenue as those centrist, Gangnam-style dancing deficit cutters. Shariah socialism ain't what it used to be.
Washington Post points out. Obama would actually raise $1.6 trillion in new revenue, but that nets to $1.4 trillion after you include the $200 billion or so of additional stimulus he wants -- everything from extending unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut to new infrastructure projects and mass refinancings. The $1.6 trillion in new taxes would come exclusively from high earners, and it would come in two steps. First, it would let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, and then it would limit the size of deductions they can take. This is about as much money as Bowles-Simpson would raise from the rich, with their plan getting $1.25 trillion from the top 1 percent and $220 billion from the rest of the top 5 percent. On the cuts side, most of Obama's cuts come in healthcare spending, and most of those come from letting Medicare negotiate better drug prices and limiting payments to facilities like nursing homes, as Sarah Kliff of thepoints out.
The Republican plan is about the same size as Obama's plan, but tilted more towards spending cuts -- and vagueness. The chart below, also scaled to the Bowles-Simpson one, breaks down Boehner's counteroffer.
Washington Post points out. There's not much more specificity on the spending side. Republicans wants $600 billion in healthcare cuts, but they've only identified $100 billion or so of them -- that's how much money the This looks like a real plan, but it's more like a facsimile of a sketch of a real plan. Republicans say they're willing to increase revenues by $800 but they aren't willing to say how exactly. A $50,000 deduction cap like Romney proposed during the campaign would get them most of the way there, if they kept rates where they are now. But Republicans don't want to keep rates where they are now. They want to cut rates. That likely takes their tax plan into the realm of mathematical impossibility, as Greg Sargent of thepoints out. There's not much more specificity on the spending side. Republicans wants $600 billion in healthcare cuts, but they've only identified $100 billion or so of them -- that's how much money the Congressional Budget Office estimates raising the Medicare age to 67 would save over the next decade.
The chart below puts all of this together into one chart to rule them all, breaking down each of these three plans side-by-side. Let's see if we can make out the glimmer of a grand bargain.
There are three big questions, or stumbling blocks if you prefer, here.
1. How much revenue? Taxes will go back to their Clinton-era levels for everybody if January 1 comes and there is no deal. (Actually, they'll be a bit higher for high earners thanks to the 3.9 percent Obamacare surtax on capital gains). Will the Republicans really block a bill that extends the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of households? And if not, will they sign off on cutting deductions for top earners?
2. Any more discretionary cuts? Republicans want more discretionary cuts. Obama thinks the BCA had all the discretionary cuts we need.
3. Which inflation? Republicans want to use smaller, chained CPI to calculate, among other things, Social Security benefits. In other words, cuts. The left-leaning Republicans want to use smaller, chained CPI to calculate, among other things, Social Security benefits. In other words, cuts. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has tentatively endorsed this as part of a broader debt deal, so it's possible Obama might sign off on this.
It's not too hard to see the outlines of a grand bargain. A deal that raises $1.2 trillion in revenue -- halfway between Obama and Republicans, cuts $400-500 from Medicare between lower drug prices and means-testing, and adopts chained CPI for budget and benefit calculations -- without cutting discretionary spending anymore -- could get the job done.
Call it Panetta-Burns.
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Bonus chart time! Here's the quick side-by-side of the Bowles-Simpson, Obama and Republican plans, scaled, of course.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.When I was about ten, I got a Far Side page-a-day calendar for Christmas. Of course I couldn’t wait a whole year to read the cartoons, so I sat down and flipped through the entire thing. I adored the gags, but I couldn’t understand many of them. My poor parents had to set a rule that they would explain only one joke per month, to minimize my pestering them with questions. That left me to research the others on my own, plunging me into books on prehistory, microbiology, and ecology.
So I learned a lot from Gary Larson. Inspired, I copied his style in my own attempts at humorous line drawing. As the child of two schoolteachers in rural Alaska, I spent a lot of time in classrooms both before and after the other students had to be there, which gave me plenty of access to barren blackboards. Day after day I illustrated scientific puns with chalk. I like cartooning, but my freehand skills are limited. I will never create gorgeous scientific sketches on par with Bird and Moon, American Beetles, or Stated Clearly. Still, I’ve always loved using simple whimsical pictures to share truths about nature.
A quarter-century later, I had a Twitter account. I tried my hand at nerdy wit, but the majority of my tweets, mostly notoriously the taxonomy-based limericks, remained rightfully ignored. While scrolling through my feed, I occasionally saw tiny images alongside the words. Of course these were emojis, text characters in the form of pictures rather than letters, numbers, or punctuation. Originating in Japan, emojis have no relation to emoticons, the little faces that people make with punctuation marks like :-). Some emojis are faces, but most are not. They are animals, symbols, buildings, whatever. They can be added to any string of text like this: 🐼🍒💡🗽. I was vaguely aware of them, though I didn’t realize their potential at the time.
Then I saw this:
It was genius. A funny joke, teaching a real scientific concept, attractive to view with its charming little heavenly bodies, and understandable in the half-second attention span of the Internet. And if for some reason you didn’t get it, a quick googling of any of the three phrases would help clear things up. It was art that didn’t require any artistic skill. Plus, as a tweet, it was easy to share, and it had been retweeted thousands of times, probably viewed by millions. Nine emojis had taught a mini astronomy lesson to the entire Web. I had to try it. Of course, my field is biology, not space. I adapted a figure from my dissertation defense slides about types of natural selection. You could fit so much information into 140 characters this way! I even had room left over to throw in a joke about camels and bimodal distributions.
It was an instant hit, more popular by far than any of my previous tweets. I tried again…
…and thus produced my second-most-popular tweet ever. Over the next few months, I tried a few more, and they were almost always well received. I had stumbled upon an easy and entertaining way of conveying complex concepts. It was much less work to compose a tweet than, say a write a blog post. I was reliving my chalkboard cartoon days, but with a public audience, and in a way that fit into my busy schedule as an assistant professor and father. According to Twitter Analytics, the most successful tweets were reaching upwards of 100,000 viewers. If I spent my career teaching full classrooms of students, I could never match that number. So if one of my professional goals is pedagogy, surely I should be spending a little more time on this strategy that works so well. It baffled me that few others were trying it. I mostly saw Twitter scientists saying things like, “I study giraffes, and there’s no giraffe emoji, so I can’t explain my work that way.” Sure, but you’re presumably using giraffes as a model to illuminate something like biomechanics, population structure, or nutrient cycling, and those concepts can be illustrated with emojis.
I needed a dedicated account. Not everyone who likes emoji science wants to see my own personal tweets about whatever departmental seminar I just attended. And I suspected some of my own followers might not want to get inundated with emojis. So last Thanksgiving weekend I created @biolojical, devoted to emoji-based tweets about biology. I try to put out a new one every two or three days. I haven’t run out of ideas yet.
Is it successful? Well, in four months I’ve attracted over 900 followers, a feat that took me four years on my regular Twitter account. That’s still not huge by Twitter standards, but it’s a lot more than, say, the typical read count for these blog posts. Besides, it’s just the beginning. A more important question is whether I am reaching an audience that could use the information, or just my fellow biologists who already know this stuff. A lot of my followers are PhDs or grad students. But I try to include a few obscurities that even most scientists don’t know. And hopefully I’m giving other scholars ideas for their own classes and outreach activities. It’s a balancing act: I don’t want to dumb it down so much that diehard biology fans are bored, but I want to be as accessible as possible. The solution is to follow Gary Larson. I learned a lot from the Far Side, not because Larson skimped on the science but because he didn’t. I wanted to get every joke, so I was inspired to read up on the relevant subjects. Similarly, one goal of @biological is to make people want to google things. Indeed, that’s the heart of my academic teaching philosophy. The most important thing I can do as an instructor is to get students excited about a subject, such that they are inspired to value and retain what I’ve taught them and to keep learning about it long after they have left the classroom. Teach your students to fish, and they’ve learned one thing they may forget. Intrigue them with some evolution-themed fishing pictographs, and you just might spark a curiosity that lasts a lifetime.
One last point: Twitter is a community, not a publishing platform. @biolojical would not have succeeded without retweets and promotions by its fans, including @am_anatiala, @mwilsonsayres, @carlzimmer, @johnlogsdon, @WhySharksMatter, @biotweeps, and many others. Thanks!
A few popular @biolojical tweets:
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Click here to read more information about Dr. Rohrich and his approach to revision rhinoplasty.Now, that’s not Sauron’s eye. Pictured above is the most highly detailed photo of a sunspot ever taken at present date, captured and recently released by the Big Bear Solar Observatory, CA. The whole event was captured by Big Bear’s New Solar Telescope (NST), which has a resolution covering about 50 miles on the Sun’s surface.
“This photo of a sunspot is now the most detailed ever obtained in visible light,” according to Ciel et l’Espace. In September, the popular astronomy magazine will publish several more photos of the Sun taken with BBSO’s new adaptive optics system.
Scientists believe magnetic structures like sunspots are very important to understanding space weather. Space weather, which originates in the Sun, can have dire consequences on Earth’s climate and environment. A serious solar storm can disrupt power grids and communication, destroy satellites and even expose airline pilots, crew and passengers to radiation. The NST data will be fundamental for future research in the field.
Enjoyed this article? Join 40,000+ subscribers to the ZME Science newsletter. Subscribe now!During the first class of a doctoral-level course sequence on education research, my professor mentioned that he wished researchers would refrain from writing policy implications when reporting on their research findings. Just do the study, tell 'em how you did it and what you found, he said. The policy implications section is invariably the least defensible part of any research paper, the place where researchers' inherent biases emerge. Let your readers decide--or argue about--what the results mean, in terms of policy-making and practice applications.
Folks in my Ed Policy cohort were appalled--why would you go to the trouble of investigating an important research question if you couldn't follow through with policy suggestions based on the Truth and Wisdom your study uncovered? The more studies we read and analyzed, however, the more his observation resonated with me.
It's remarkable how many well-done research studies present credible evidence, then go off on an implications bender. Even when evidence is shaded or questionable or very limited, the boldness of the associated policy recommendations would often make your head spin. If you were a practitioner, that is, thinking about how this would play out in an actual school.
Here's an example of what I mean, clipped from Mathematica's recent study on the effectiveness of TFA math (note: not literacy) teachers:
Although TFA is often criticized for the fact that its teachers make only a two-year commitment to teaching, the findings suggest that over the long term, continuing to fill a position with TFA teachers who depart after a few years would lead to higher student math achievement than filling the same position with a non-TFA teacher who would remain in the position and accumulate more teaching experience.
In what parallel universe--given what we know about the financial negatives of hiring and inducting new teachers, the damage to teacher collaboration caused by constant staff churn, the point at which any teacher hits her instructional stride, and so on--would we imply that it's ever OK to fill any school department with revolving temps? That's not how responsible school leaders build a focused academic climate in a building, or what parents are willing to invest in or support.
And then, there's the apparently never-ending research debate over learning styles, which bubbled back up again this week in Scientific American, with an article exploring whether addressing learning styles in instruction was a "bogus idea." The usual wrangling ensued, with dueling experts splitting semantic hairs over whether a cognitive strength or preference (which, everyone seems to agree, do exist) can be called a learning style. Psychologists, professors and a pediatric optometrist weigh in, citing research evidence or lack thereof, turning the piece into a "my research is better than yours" battle.
Notice anybody missing in this discussion?
On the same day the Scientific American article was published, Sarah Darer Littman posted a thoughtful blog from her practitioner perspective, about how she alters her approach to individual learners, in teaching writing. She questions the idea that there is no measurable value in teaching to students' innate preferences, or "styles," using an example from her own practice. For her trouble, she gets pushback about "scientific" research, trumping her own reflections. Littman says: "what informs my teaching most is parenting a child who thinks, processes and learns very differently than I do."
Welcome to the club, Sarah. I have produced several blogs (here, here and here) exploring my own years-long investigation of learning styles in teaching music, concluding that we privilege certain instructional techniques and learning modes in music performance classes.
In doing so, we often leave out kids who could really enjoy and benefit cognitively and socially from being part of a school musical group or activity. Simply by allowing students to learn to play a musical instrument by listening and imitation, rather than beginning with note-reading, I engaged lots of students with identified learning disabilities in the band program.
Were those students "auditory learners?" I don't know. And I don't think it matters. I found a way to teach them, playing to their strengths. And that was good for everyone in the music program.
That's the sticking point in utilizing research findings to make grand pronouncements about how schools should operate, or how teachers should teach. We leave out the most important voice, that of the people doing the actual work, and the ideas they find useful.We just pointed out that DC Comics are republishing every individual issue of Watchmen as a hardcover volume and then collecting them all together in a box set for Christmas.
And speculated that this may have the fingerprints of John Cunningham.
Well, looky here, they’re doing it to the original issues of The Dark Knight by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson as well. The four volumes, The Dark Knight Returns, Hunt The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Falls and Dark Knight Triumphant.
All in hardcover, all in a box set, all for $50.
I can see this a little but more, in that the originals were published in prestige format. But it still feels a little silly….
The anniversary celebration of Frank Miller’s epic interpretation of the Dark Knight’s future continues with this new slipcase edition that reprints each issue of the original DARK KNIGHT RETURNS miniseries in its own hardcover volume, all in a beautifully designed slipcase. It is ten years after an aging Batman has retired, and Gotham City has sunk into decadence and lawlessness. Now, as his city needs him most, the Dark Knight returns in a blaze of glory. Joined by Carrie Kelly, a teenaged Robin, Batman takes to the streets to end the threat of the mutant gangs that have overrun the city. And after facing off against The Joker and Two-Face for the final time, Batman finds himself in mortal combat with his former ally, Superman, in a battle that only one will survive.
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
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None foundMahendra Singh Dhoni, away from most of the attention-grabbing roles in Indian cricket, is obviously pretty relaxed and enjoying himself in his lower-profile status. Named skipper of the Jharkhand state team on Tuesday for the Vijay Hazare Trophy, beginning February 25, the Dhoni is evidently enjoying doing things he has not done for a long time, including a train trip, after 13 years.
Dhoni, who was removed as captain of Rising Pune Supergiants in the Indian Premier League, decided to travel with the rest of the team by train for their first match with Karnataka on February 25 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
On Wednesday, he took to Instagram to share a rather interesting photo of himself.
A post shared by @mahi7781 on Feb 21, 2017 at 6:08pm PST
The former India captain travelled in AC 1st-Tier from Hatia to Howarh.
"I am travelling in a train after 13 years. It is a long route and I will enjoy it. I'll talk to my team-mates and enjoy," Dhoni was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
Dhoni owns quite a number of vehicles at his home in Ranchi. One of his prized possessions is a Humvee.
During India's ODI series against New Zealand last year, Dhoni drove to training in his Hummer, leaving the likes of Tom Latham and Ross Taylor astonished.
Dhoni and Co will play their second match against Chhattisgarh at Eden on February 26.
The wicketkeeper-batsman has played for the state side in the last couple of seasons, but had not taken up the captain's role.
The Jharkhand team boasts of a strong squad, with the explosive Ishan Kishan and top domestic spinner Shahbaz Nadeem in their ranks.
Ishank Jaggi and Varun Aaron, both of whom had landed IPL contracts, are also there in the team with the burly Saurabh Tiwary. Young Virat Singh is also there in the squad.Fenway Sports Group president Mike Gordon is flying in to attend Liverpool's Premier League clash with Huddersfield Town at Anfield.
At the end of a week when the club's American owners once again knocked down rumours that they were involved in talks to sell up, Gordon will be in the directors box as Jurgen Klopp's side look to get their season back on track.
Gordon is the senior figure in the FSG hierarchy who is involved in the day-to-day running of Liverpool.
His phone is Klopp's direct line to the Boston-based owners and their relationship is strong.
After such an underwhelming start to the season, it would have been easy for the manager to shift responsibility elsewhere at Melwood on Friday afternoon.
He could have played to the galleries and talked about how Liverpool can't expect to compete with the greater riches of Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea.
He could have bemoaned the club's failure to land his top targets last summer, having personally convinced Virgil van Dijk and Naby Keita that Anfield was their destination of choice for the 2017-18 campaign.
But, instead, Klopp insisted: "I am 100% responsible for all this. I know I am. I cannot blame the owners."
(Image: John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Klopp has always been adamant that it was him who decided not to pursue a Plan B at centre-back after missing out on Van Dijk. He was prepared to wait 12 months for Keita rather than buy an inferior alternative.
It's undoubtedly been a tough few months for the German coach. Liverpool haven't kicked on from last season's top-four finish as he expected.
He's been hampered by injuries to the likes of Sadio Mane, Philippe Coutinho, Adam Lallana and Nathaniel Clyne.
Klopp's ability to develop talent is what convinced FSG to break the bank to secure his services - but he's stood accused of placing too much trust in players who repeatedly fall short of expectations.
Klopp on going up against his best friend David Wagner
August was packed full of promise with the rollercoaster draw at Watford, followed by a resounding Champions League play-off triumph over Hoffenheim and contrasting league wins over Crystal Palace and Arsenal.
September was miserable with the thrashing at the hands of Man City, a couple of European stalemates which felt like defeats, a scrappy draw with Burnley and a League Cup exit to Leicester, which was unconvincingly avenged in the Premier League.
October hasn't been much better. Dominance going unrewarded against Newcastle and Manchester United before going from the sublime in Maribor to the ridiculous against Tottenham.
Just five days after registering the biggest away European win in the club's illustrious history, the Reds were embarrassed under Wembley's giant arch. Their weaknesses were glaringly exposed.
It's difficult to make sense of Klopp's Liverpool. They can be box office at one end and car crash at the other.
This is a crucial stage of the season. Talk of transfers at the moment is pointless.
Liverpool face 15 games between now and when the window opens in January.
Their top-four status and whether they make it to the knockout stages of the Champions League will be determined by the current crop.
For all the focus on Dejan Lovren and Simon Mignolet last weekend, Liverpool were outclassed in every department.
Neil Mellor believes Dejan Lovren will still be heavily involved in Liverpool's season
Klopp may have taken full responsibility - but it's time a few more leaders in the dressing room stepped up and shouldered the burden.
There was a managerial change on the other side of Stanley Park this week - but Klopp's position is as secure as ever.
He's under no added pressure. He remains FSG's man and their faith in the long-term project they embarked on together is unwavering.
The hope is that Gordon will witness a spirited response on his visit to Anfield on Saturday.
FSG and Klopp are going nowhere - but it's time for Liverpool to start climbing that table.Questions? Ask Tom Kacich here
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis said today he supports the Trump administration’s temporary ban on travel from majority-Muslim counties, adding that “to call it a ban on Muslims is dangerous.”
“I don’t know how anyone is surprised that Donald Trump has instituted an order like this when he said throughout his campaign that he was going to go further. This is actually a lot less than what he said he wanted during the campaign," said Davis, a Taylorville Republican whose congressional district includes Champaign-Urbana. “But to call this a Muslim ban is completely false and frankly is dangerous because it fuels the terrorist rhetoric.
“I am not against putting a pause in any of these refugee programs — and I’ve said this before — until we are able to properly vet them. If you look at the executive order it calls for ensuring that we have better biometric capabilities to track individuals who come in and who leave our country from these seven countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen).”
But Illinois’ two Democratic senators denounced Trump’s executive order.
“History will judge where America’s leaders stood today. Faced with the humanitarian crisis of our time, the United States cannot turn its back on children fleeing persecution, genocide, and terror,” said Sen. Dick Durbin. “During the Holocaust we failed to fulfill to our duty to humanity. We cannot allow mindless fear to lead us into another regretful chapter in our history."
Added Sen. Tammy Duckworth on Twitter: “This attempt to prevent our neighbors from coming home is a betrayal of who we are as Americans. It endangers Americans who are traveling abroad and American troops who are deployed overseas. This #MuslimBan must end.”
But Davis disputed that the executive order was a Muslim ban and said it “affected less than a couple hundred individuals, and I’m glad that this administration took the time to clarify that this does not apply to green card holders and does not apply to people who already have gone through a pretty extreme vetting process that my office helps people through on a pretty regular basis.”
Asked if immigrants weren’t already being properly vetted, Davis said, “Yes, there have been problems. Yes, the Obama administration said that they could not guarantee that the programs and the protocols in place are going to ensure that the terrorists don’t come into our country and take advantage of these programs.
“I agree with the Obama appointees that there wasn’t proper vetting measures in place for refugee programs.”
Davis defended his office’s record on aiding Muslim constituents.
“To call this a Muslim ban and to attack me on that is just insulting to what we’ve been able to accomplish in the last four years, helping so many Muslim-Americans go through the proper legal channels,” he said. “If rhetoric like that is believed it becomes a recruiting tool for jihadis and is very dangerous. This executive order is a pause from the most dangerous countries in the world where our intelligence shows us that most jihadi activity wanting to hurt Americans comes from.”
Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, said he also stands by the administration’s executive order.
“My record on this issue is clear, and has not changed: I support a vetting process that ensures every refugee, migrant or foreign national is not a security threat prior to his or her admission to the United States. That’s why I supported bipartisan legislation to stop the resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees until our nation’s top security officials can be certain that each individual poses no threat to our homeland,” said Shimkus, whose district includes parts of Champaign County, and all of Vermilion, Douglas, Coles and Edgar counties.
“The reality is our world has grown more dangerous, and our enemies more emboldened in the last eight years,” said Shimkus. “It would be irresponsible to ignore these threats, and to allow our inadequate screening of those entering our country from unstable or hostile regions to continue as is. This temporary halt will give Congress and the new administration time to evaluate and improve the vetting process, and in the meantime gives (Homeland Security Secretary John) Kelly authority to grant exceptions to the ban as needed. One of those exceptions must be to green card holders, who have already undergone extensive screening.”
Specifically about Syria, Shimkus said the United States has “contributed more resources to help Syrian civilians than any other nation, more than $4.5 billion since the start of the crisis. We should continue to provide humanitarian assistance, not only together as a nation, but individually to any of the dozens of non-governmental and faith-based aide organizations doing important work there. Finally, as I’ve said for months, the most immediate way the U.S. can help refugees fleeing Iraq and Syria is to establish and guarantee safe havens within the region where they can receive vital humanitarian assistance.”
And U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, whose district includes parts of Ford County and all of Iroquois County, said that Trump’s “executive order has caused confusion among those asked to enforce it, and recent media reports have muddled facts and fiction.
“I urge the Administration to clarify the specifics on what should and should not be done to best protect our homeland, our people, and our communities.”
Kinzinger, R-Channahon, said that he supports “a comprehensive look at our vetting process, and I believe it’s something every new administration would be expected to do. However, reports of green card holders and those who assisted us in the war on terror being denied or delayed entry is deeply concerning. Such detention is unacceptable and must be remedied immediately.
“We are in a generational fight against radical Islamist terrorism. Winning the war on terror cannot be done by America alone. We must be joined by allies in the Muslim world, and with the support of other freedom-loving nations.”The CCG report found the Federal Government's plan was lacking in 33 key areas, including in its protection of the south-west of WA. In this area, the report found that of 165 biologically important areas mapped in the region, 163 failed to meet minimum scientific benchmarks for protection, including providing protection for the feeding grounds of the endangered blue whale. The report also stated that of the proposed marine sanctuaries, less than 5 per cent occurred on the shelf and upper slope, which is where scientists report the marine life as being most threatened. Critical feeding and breeding areas for the southern right whale, the Australian sea lion, |
in eye witness detail, with 120,000 Tamils being herded into an ever shrinking “no-fire zone”, in which the UN itself believes at least 40,000 – possibly more than double that – were slaughtered in the final three weeks.
Our film showed men, women and children shelled by Sri Lankan artillery, and field hospitals deliberately bombarded soon after their locations had been passed to government forces by the International Red Cross (a provision of the Geneva Convention requires that both sides in conflict should inform each other through the International Red Cross the whereabouts of their field hospitals to spare them bombardment).
The World Bank has estimated that perhaps as many as 100,000 Tamils are still unaccounted for after the war.
A new, feature length film, No Fire Zone, narrates this criminal enterprise and humanitarian catastrophe in graphic detail – and updates our original reportage.
The UN secretary general himself, Human Rights Watch, and many others have charged that war crimes, and crimes against humanity were committed by the government in the closing stages of the war. The president, Mahinda Rajapaska, and his brother, the Secretary of Defence Gotobaya Rajapaska have both been identified as suspects.
Indeed, Mr Ban used his platform on the opening day of this UN general assembly to hold up the Sri Lankan civil war as an example of the “systemic failure” by the UN system and member states to prevent the “disastrous consequences” of human rights violations.
He called for the UN to renew our commitment to the “United Nations’ founding principles.”
‘Tinkling glasses’
But all this was a far cry from the tinkling glasses and warm ministerial speeches that graced the townhouse in this New York side street last night. Ms Bishop talked warmly of her visit to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s Professor Peris talked of Sri Lanka’s economy having “turned a corner”. Mr Hague was both humorous and expansive in his praise for the Commonwealth, but managed diplomatically to say all but nothing of Sri Lanka.
No one mentioned the estimated 40,000 dead Tamils, or the World Bank figure of 100,000 missing. No one mentioned the military’s artillery and aerial bombardment of the “no fire zone”.
I and a tiny handful of New York based journalists were put on the guest list, but we were told we could not bring our cameras in. The atmosphere was strangely awkward. Those that knew each other, spoke to each other, those who did not know each other avoided doing so.
Britain’s Development Secretary, Justine Greening, looked in. So did the UN’s Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Valerie Amos.
The deputy head of the Sri Lankan mission to the UN is a former General, Shavendra Silva, who commanded the military’s infamous 58 Division during the final assault. He is accused of war crimes but was given this prominent diplomatic posting as a reward by the regime.
Not once during the evening did I hear talk of war crimes, or crimes against humanity – beyond my own attempts to alert my seemingly relatively unknowing New York based journalist colleagues.
My shouted question to the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister from across the street – “When are you going to address the killing of the thousands of Tamil civilians in the closing moments of the war?” – went unanswered.
Unanswered questions
This was an early taster of what is to come. An institution – the British Commonwealth – is to play a macabre role in securing the re-entry into the family of nations of a country which has unaddressed blood on its hands on an horrific scale.
Commonwealth countries will be greeted and facilitated by a president, and a government, against whom evidence exists of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which we have screened and which the UN itself has substantiated.
The reform programme underway inside the Commonwealth is centred on human rights. On the basis of the prickly charm offensive conducted last night, a terrible pact has perhaps been entered into not to mention Sri Lanka’s war crimes.
Last night in New York, a dimly lit side street witnessed an event which did not feel compatible with the high ideals that are etched within the UN headquarters which towered above it in the night sky.
Last night left many questions unanswered.
Why is Britain prepared to co-host even a drinks party with Sri Lanka’s government so long as those horrifying closing weeks of Sri Lanka’s civil war, and the war crimes that flowed from them, remain unaddressed?
Why was the UN’s own point person on these matters prepared to grace the event?
Why is the British Commonwealth prepared to blind ahead with this vast meeting of heads of government in Sri Lanka so long as the continuing human rights crisis there remains unaddressed?
Why is President Mahinder Rajapaska to be allowed to remain, for the next two years, the chairman of a movement that claims human rights at the very core of its being?
And why is British tax payers money being used even to fund either a drinks party, or any of this?
Follow Jon Snow on Twitter.Yesterday, just a few hours before Charlie Crist was set to deliver what would be damning testimony in a US Senate hearing on the 2012 voting debacle in Florida, Rick Scott appeared on CNN and suddenly reversed himself on the issue of early voting.
Recall that the Florida legislature passed a horrible bill shortly after Scott narrowly won the 2010 election, cutting early voting days from 14 to 8, restricting registration efforts and purging voter lists so dramatically that the Department of Justice intervened on several issues in the law. Scott stood firm in supporting it. Just a few days before the election, as ridiculously long lines were reported in early voting, AP had this report:
Florida Democrats say they’ve filed a federal lawsuit asking for the state’s early voting period to be extended. Republican Gov. Rick Scott has stood firm against giving Florida residents more time to vote before Tuesday. On Saturday, some Floridians waited for hours on the last day of early voting. State officials say nearly 4 million early and absentee votes have been cast. Scott and state officials have insisted there were no reasons to keep polls open beyond the eight days authorized in state law. The GOP-controlled Florida Legislature last year cut the number of early-voting days from a maximum of 14 days to eight. That reduction was upheld by federal courts.
As can be seen in the video above, Scott avoided mentioning his role in passing and signing the bill that created this year’s fiasco until called out by Soledad O’Brien. He tried to sound like a reasonable person proposing reasonable changes that will improve the situation, completely ignoring his role as an extremist who was instrumental in attempting to suppress the votes of hundreds of thousands of minorities in Florida.
Also yesterday, a Quinnipiac University poll provided some context for why Scott would find it necessary to reverse himself. His approval rating is strongly negative, while Charlie Crist, who recently joined the Democratic Party, retains an overall favorable rating, as does Alex Sink, who narrowly lost to Scott in 2010 but has already faded from voter recognition. From the poll:
Florida voters disapprove 45 – 36 percent of the job Gov. Rick Scott is doing, continuing his almost two-year run of negative scores, and, as he enters the second half of his term, voters say 52 – 30 percent that he does not deserve a second four-year term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. /snip/ “Gov. Rick Scott’s ratings with voters are just plain awful. The numbers cannot be sugar-coated,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “When voters in a politician’s own party want him to be challenged in a primary by another candidate, it’s difficult to see it as anything but outright rejection. /snip/ Crist, elected governor in 2006 as a Republican, has a 47 – 33 percent favorability rating from all voters, including 65 – 10 percent among Democrats and 48 – 33 percent among independents, with a negative 28 – 56 percent among Republicans. By comparison, Scott is viewed favorably by 31 percent and unfavorably by 43 percent of all Florida voters. His ratings by party are 55 – 18 percent among Republicans, with negatives of 16 – 60 percent among Democrats and 25 – 48 percent among independent voters. Ms. Sink is viewed favorably by 27 percent, and unfavorably by 14 percent, with 57 percent who haven’t heard enough about her to form an opinion.
Marc Caputo, in the Miami Herald, reports on Crist’s appearance later Wednesday in the Senate:
In a prelude to a long and bitter campaign, former Gov. Charlie Crist pointedly criticized Gov. Rick Scott during a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday over an elections law that led to voting troubles and helped turn Florida into a “late-night TV joke.” /snip/ Crist suggested that Scott was the one to blame because he signed the election law in 2011 and, this year, the governor refused to extend in-person early voting hours despite lines that stretched for hours and discouraged many South Floridians from voting. Crist contrasted that record with his own as governor in 2008, when he extended early voting hours. “As Gov. Scott refused to take action to ease the lines, in some cases, those lines extended to six and seven hours,” Crist testified. “The outcome of these decisions was quite obvious,” Crist said. “Florida, which four years earlier was a model for efficiency, became once again a late-night TV joke.”
Writing in the Gainesville Sun, Lloyd Dunkelberger brings us a prominent Democrat’s reaction to Scott’s sudden reversal:
Scott’s comments stunned Democrats, who had been harshly critical of Scott and the Republicans for the shortened early voting period as well as other provisions in the 2011 election law that they said were designed to suppress Democratic voters at the polls. “It’s bordering on an alternative reality,” said former state Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who wrote Scott urging him to extend the early voting hours after witnessing lines of voters waiting six to seven hours in Miami-Dade County. “He and his colleagues in the Legislature created precisely what happened. “It was done purposely and willfully and now to pretend like they were surprised by it is utterly ridiculous.”
Given the polling on Scott’s popularity, it would appear that many Florida voters join Gelber in blaming Scott for the voting fiasco last month.As design school grads launch into their chosen professions, it’s a good time of year to remind all design professionals that your career is the one design project that you control. There is no single right path, no single right direction. There is an array of options, and the choice is entirely up to you. But keep in mind that designers can take on important leadership roles in all types of companies.
Designers can take on important leadership roles in all types of companies.
Just consider the dazzling career trajectories of the following industrial design grads. Mark Parker started as a footwear designer and is now the CEO of Nike. Designer Bob Schwartz became the General Manager of Global Design for GE after heading up the Industrial Designers Society of America. Mauro Porcini, a long-time designer at 3M, became a SVP Chief Design Officer at PepsiCo. In the tech world, Jonathan Ive joined Apple as a young designer in 1992—his second job following a stint at Tangerine in London—and the rest is history. Meanwhile, Steve Kaneko was designing the mouse at Microsoft, ultimately becoming Director of UX Design for the company.
But other industrial designers successfully forged very different paths. Nathan Shedroff, designer turned entrepreneur, now leads California College of Art’s MBA Design Strategy program. Former IDSA chief Cooper Woodring has gone on to become an expert witness in design patent litigation. Brian Cheskey, a RISD alum, co-founded and is CEO of Airbnb.
And what about former visual and communication design students? David Butler is now the VP of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Coca-Cola. Dana Arnett became the CEO of VSA Partners. Kate Aronowitz rose to the Director of Design at Facebook (and has since joined a finance startup), and Shelley Evenson became Director of Organizational Evolution at Fjord.
What’s your own professional destination, and how will you get there? To answer that question, a savvy designer might apply design-thinking methods to his or her career and treat it like a design problem. Here are a few challenges that might arise between your first job and your dream job.
Design Problem #1: You Don’t Have a Direction
What should guide you in career planning above all is your passion. Ask yourself these questions: What do you believe in? What values influence your work? What is your vision for the future, what do you want to be known for in three years, in five years?
By shadowing and consulting with others you will learn more about yourself
There is nothing like contextual, user-centered research, even in career planning. Find two or three mentors and explore alternative design careers from their perspective. By shadowing and consulting with others you will learn more about yourself, which can help you decide what direction you want to go. For example, at one point in my career, I decided to shift from visual design to either product design or architecture. I couldn’t decide which until I shadowed an architect, a stint that made it very clear that architecture wasn’t for me. A new path only becomes clear if you are in motion, so break down the goals into bite size projects and get started.Cape Town – There's ongoing concern over the SABC's audience share which is flat at 53%, with the minister of communications, Faith Muthambi who cautioned that the public broadcaster will have to grow its audience.
Faith Muthambi told parliament last week that she's concerned that the SABC's audience share seems to remain stagnant at 53%.
The minister cautioned that new ways will have to be found for the SABC to grow its audience beyond this number.
SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago failed to respond to a media enquiry made last week asking the public broadcaster for comment as well as seeking any context and perspectives the SABC wants to share regarding its fight for audience share.
The SABC is however well aware that about its viewership challenges and finding and keeping audiences tuned in.
Channel24 has an internal memo, compiled by and send to SABC TV executives in June last year, detailing key findings of an audience analysis of the SABC's three terrestrial TV channels – SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 – against the broader TV industry.
The SABC's findings noted "the glaring conclusion of the level to which the network had been shedding audiences over the years".
It shows how the SABC went from 100% audience share in 1976 when the public broadcaster was the only TV player in the country, falling to 49% by 2013 as M-Net launched in 1986, MultiChoice launched DStv in 1995, e.tv launched in 1998, On Digital Media (ODM) started TopTV (now StarSat) in 2010, Sabido started OpenView HD in 2014, and community TV stations like SowetoTV sprang up over the past few years.
Some of the interesting findings of the SABC's audience analysis was that "the SABC2 schedule only survives on two pillar programmes – 7de Laan at 18:30 and Muvhango at 21:00. Other than that the prime time schedule is weak".
On SABC3, the "the soaps Days of Our Lives and Bold and the Beautiful provide strong lead-ins into prime time," the internal memorandum noted.
According to the memo, "the essence of the SABC2 and SABC3 strategies are to reverse the audience declines over the last couple of years, by introducing compelling local content mixed with relevant international content that compliments and is aligned to the channels' new focused value propositions" through better scheduling and content.
In November last year the SABC released its 9th Request for Proposals (RFP) book to South Africa's TV industry, calling for specific local productions.
According to the SABC, the value of the latest RFP book is R600M, making it the largest RFP book issued by the public broadcaster for local content yet.Think you would stick to a diet if someone paid you for it? Would you be more likely to exercise if you were fined each time you bailed on your scheduled workout?
Research in recent years suggests—and a handful of new businesses are betting—that you might. The Web-based company StickK.com lets users sign commitment contracts to lose weight, exercise or quit smoking—and pay up if they default. Members of the Boston-based start-up Gym-Pact are charged for every day they pledge to work out but do not.
Financial incentives have made their way into health reform, too. The 2010 Affordable Health Care Act allows employers to offer rewards—or to exact penalties—worth up to 30 percent of health insurance premiums for employees who meet certain health targets, such as quitting smoking or getting their blood pressure below a certain measure.
But scientists are just beginning to tease out the circumstances in which financial incentives work best—and why. Different health behaviors might call for distinct incentive schemes, as might certain populations. And tacking on social or moral incentives could add to the impact of monetary incentives.
Depending on whether the incentives are positive (such as payment for good behavior) or negative (fines for bad behavior), they are thought to play on different psychological processes.
Positive reinforcement schemes provide an immediate reward for a behavior whose benefits would not be obvious for months or years, accelerating the rate at which a person adopts that activity, says Theresa Marteau, director of the Center for the Study of Incentives in Health at King's College London.
Financial incentives might also work if they are in the form of a lottery, because the small chance of a large reward is emotionally appealing, according to a 2008 study in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. On the other hand, pecuniary disincentives might play on loss aversion— the idea that we value losing something twice as much as gaining the same amount, which means we would have to have a chance of winning $20 to make up for the risk of losing $10—a behavioral economic principle that is likely at work, too, the JAMA paper notes.
Positive reinforcement schemes encourage one-time, good behaviors, such as showing up for disease screening or vaccination programs, according to a review Marteau published in 2009 in BMJ (the British Medical Journal). The reason? You only have to do them once, says Kevin Volpp, director of the Center for Health Incentives at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Long-term, the picture is unclear. For those looking for more sustained behavioral change, research suggests that financial incentives work best to help people stop smoking and exercise more. They also motivate kids to do well in school (pdf). The results, however, are mixed for weight loss.
Smoking
The prospect of a financial reward for stubbing out those cigarettes proved to be an effective incentive in a 2009 study Volpp published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Nearly 900 cigarette-addicted General Electric employees were divided into two groups: a control arm that received information about local smoking-cessation programs and a treatment arm that got that information plus the promise of payment if they accomplished certain goals during the study period. The treatment group received $100 for completing a smoking-cessation program, $250 if they quit within six months after enrolling in the study, and $400 if they continued to abstain for another six months. (Tests for cotinine, a nicotine by-product, confirmed whether they had actually quit.)
The windfalls significantly boosted the odds of keeping up with smoking-cessation programs and actually quitting. Nearly 15 percent of those in the incentive group had quit in nine to 12 months, compared with 5 percent of people in the control group. And whereas quit rates slipped to 9.4 percent for the incentive group 15 to 18 months after the study began, they were still significantly higher compared with the control group, 3.6 percent of whom remained smoke-free. Former smokers who remain abstinent for a year tend to stay off cigarettes.
"Part of what we're doing is getting people to more heavily weigh the delayed benefits," Volpp says. "It will be more painful this week to quit than not, and the benefits are so off in the future. In some sense we're trying to combat procrastination."
In another study people were incentivized to quit smoking by the promise of having their own money returned to them. Dean Karlan, an economist at Yale University and a co-founder of StickK.com conducted research published last October in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. In the study smokers in the Philippines were offered the chance to deposit money into a noninterest-accruing bank account while they tried to quit with the promise they would get it back if they passed a nicotine and cotinine urine test six months later. If they failed, the money would go to charity.
Those who were offered this "commitment contract" were about 38 percent more likely to pass a surprise urine test 12 months later than those in a control group, some of whom had received graphic photos of cigarette-damaged body parts to motivate them.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the more money smokers deposited into the accounts, the greater their likelihood of quitting and staying smoke-free for a year. "You're increasing the price of your vice," Karlan says. "When you increase the price, you consume less of it." Tax hikes on cigarettes, for example, have been associated with declines in smoking rates (pdf) across the country.
Poor study designs of earlier smoking trials may have missed the potential benefits of incentives, according to a meta-analysis of 17 studies in a 2008 Cochrane Review that found no difference in six-month quit rates. And for most smokers in the more recent studies, neither a windfall nor the threat of a loss trumped the promise of a nicotine fix. "The reality is that smoking cessation is really difficult," Volpp says. "Quit rates are 2 to 3 percent a year. We had a tripling of rates, but the rates are overall quite low. It highlights the promise of [this] approach but also how far we have to go."
Exercise
Dangling a financial carrot in front of the treadmill got couch potatoes moving in two studies published in 2009 in Econometrica.
In one study college students were divided into three groups: one that got a handout touting the benefits of exercise and two that received the handout plus $25 to go to the gym once that week. One of the payment groups received an additional $100 to work out eight more times over the following month.
In the seven weeks after the study ended, the students who had been paid the most went to the gym more than twice as often as those in the groups that received little or no money, scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and U.C. San Diego found.
In a separate experiment, tying payment to a specified number of workout sessions seemed to make the difference in whether participants kept up their fitness routines after the study ended. Those whose $100 payment was linked to a requirement to work out eight times over a month had significantly higher gym attendance rates later on than people whose $100 payment required them to exercise once over that month.
In absolute terms students in both studies went to the gym less than once a week before the experiments started, compared with a little more than once a week after they ended. The payment, the authors wrote, "appears to move some people past the 'threshold' needed to engage in an activity." If incentives get them to stick to a schedule, they add, "perhaps good habits will develop."
Weight loss
Beyond just going to the gym, for those people who want to drop pounds, both positive and negative financial reinforcements were associated with weight loss in a small, 16-week study published in JAMA in 2008. Some 57 obese people were split into three groups: one group received a scale and a one-hour-long, individualized consultation with a dietician. The second group was given the scale and consultation, along with the opportunity to win money in a daily lottery if their weight was at or below their weight-loss goal. The third, "deposit contract" group got the scale, consultation and could contribute between 1 cent and $3 a day to an account, all of which was refundable at the end of each month if they met or surpassed their weight-loss target.
Those in the deposit-contract group lost the most weight—6.3 kilograms on average—followed closely by the lottery group (5.9 kilograms). The control group lost an average of 1.8 kilograms over the four months of the study.
But money might not help people stay slim: A 2008 meta-analysis in Obesity Reviews found that incentives (which lasted eight to 18 months) made no difference in the amount of weight people kept off 12 to 18 months after the rewards ended. And in weight maintenance phases of other studies Volpp found that participants regained about the same amount whether they were in the incentive or control arms.
Nevertheless, he argues that incentivized weight-loss programs may work better than other methods in which dieters start to plateau or regain weight, even while they're supposed to be losing. In contrast, participants in the incentive studies put on pounds after the rewards or penalties ended.
"If we ran it for longer, we'd have a reasonable chance of achieving good, long-term results," he says. "Part of the reason people regain weight is that they get to a loss nadir and are there a relatively short period of time. They don't really have time to recalibrate, have their bodies readjust, buy new clothes. If you help people keep it off for an extended period of time, they have a much better chance of keeping it off."
Whether incentives work better than negative reinforcement is unknown; no head-to-head trials have been done, Marteau says. But loss-aversion suggests that negative reinforcement might be an even more powerful motivator.
StickK.com offers some supporting, if anecdotal evidence. Just 29 percent of members reach their goals if they have signed a contract without a referee or money on the line. The rate jumps to nearly 73 percent when they put up stakes, and to more than 80 percent when they have pledged their bucks to an "anti-charity"—a cause they do not agree with—says Sam Espinosa, the company's marketing director. (Although the site offers anti-charities on both sides of the political aisle, its most popular is the George W. Bush Presidential Library.)
If negative reinforcement truly works better, it might be because of a selection bias: People who sign up for punishment might be more driven to accomplish their goals than those who are working toward a reward, Karlan says. (Scientists could not ethically impose fines on research subjects without their permission, Marteau explains.)
Whatever their successes, individualized incentive programs might not be enough to alter epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes linked to cheap and widely available junk food, Marteau says. "There may be a role for incentivizing individuals to change behaviors, but at a population level, it's one small part of the piece," she says. "We need to change our environments."
Adds Karlan: "I think of incentives as a complement, not a substitute for other things. If you're going to lose weight, you need a plan for how to do it—the incentives help you stick to that plan. The trick is: How do you help people figure out what [kind of incentive] will work for them? That's the holy grail."Inspired by American, British and Italian cars and designed by the then 26-year-old Jan Wilsgaard, the Volvo Amazon debuted in the first weekend of September, 1956. Originally spelled "Amason," the car's name was changed to the more internationally recognized spelling prior to the launch of production in 1957. Unfortunately for the Swedish, the German motorcycle manufacturer Kreidler also happened to launch a moped called Amazone at the same time, which meant the name was unavailable in a number of key markets.
Volvo
Between 1957 and 1959, all cars featured a two-tone exterior. The combinations on offer were black, midnight blue or ruby red bodies with a light grey roof, or a light grey body with a black roof. From 1959, it became possible to buy a monochrome Amazon (or 121), with 1961 being the final year for the two-tone cars.
The Amazon Sport debuted in 1958 with twin SU carburetors and a high-performance camshaft, boosting the four-cylinder's output to 85 horsepower. Later on, there were also plans to put a V8 in the car, which would have been an evolved version of a truck engine. Five prototypes were said to have been built, but in the end Volvo's management decided against a V8 offering. For the second time.
Volvo
While Volvo patented the three-point seatbelt in 1959 and made it standard in the Amazon straight away, the cars also got faster thanks to the Swedish Police, who ordered a fleet of special rides with power disc brakes, radial tires, rear window defroster and a button by the steering wheel connecting the windshield washer with the fastest wiper setting. Volvo put some of these features into series production not long after.
In 1962, the wagon versioned joined the four-door, followed by the opening of Volvo's first foreign factory in Halifax, Canada. Later, an assembly plant was also opened in Durban, South Africa. However, Volvo's biggest investment was in the Belgian city of Ghent. As Sweden was outside of what was then the European Economic Community (a precursor of the European Union), it was important to get a foot inside the European customs union. In 1965, the factory opened with an initial capacity of 14,000 cars per year.
Volvo
In 1967, the Amazon got the new engine from the P1800S. Called the 123 GT, if offered 115 horsepower and overdrive. It also had its side mirrors attached to the front fenders, extra lights and a tachometer mounted to the top of the dashboard, just like on Carl-Magnus Skogh's Acropolis Rally-winning 122S in 1965.
Volvo
Volvo kept building Amazons despite launching the 140 series in 1966. Both the Amazon and the 140 got the new B20 engine for their respective 1969 models, with the last Amazon rolling of the line in Sweden in 1970 after a run of 667,791 units. That car is part of the Volvo Museum's collection.
What's fascinating is that around 8 percent of the approximately 297,000 Amazons sold in Sweden are still around, with 24,282 of them still registered today. The most popular seems to be the 1966 model year, of which 4,804 are out there showing minimal moose damage.
Volvo has been Sweden's number one car brand since 1958, with a current market share of over 30 percent.When I landed with my husband in Sydney, I had little idea what to expect. We knew we were leaving London for a sunny country, a place of obscurely dangerous animals, strong beer and robust humour, and a city with a very famous landmark. But we didn’t yet know what the people would be like and how – or whether – we’d manage to make friends here.
But we had a secret weapon. We are the sort of convivial geeks who like to get together in a room, roll dice and pretend to be wizards. It’s how we met each other, and it’s how we met many of our friends in London. So off we went looking for a game of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).
At its best, D&D is amateur dramatics crossed with fantasy fiction, created collaboratively among a group of friends. It’s a superb hobby for creative types who enjoy both systems and stories, who have the confidence and wit to respond quickly to unexpected things, who can give and take and negotiate time in the spotlight, who enjoy puzzles and the process of exploring a character, an environment or a scenario.
At its worst, it’s hours and hours of casting Magic Missile against goblins, rattling dice for every choice, and looking up complicated grapple rules because no one can ever remember what happens when you try to actually grab a monster. If the wizard can’t remember what spells they have, the rogue is playing Candy Crush on their phone and the games master can’t plot their way out of a wet paper bag, then chances are it’s not going to be a fun afternoon for anyone.
The core of tabletop games is always the other players. In the wake of D&D’s popularity, games have been designed to tell simple or complicated stories, with different emphases on setting, chance, improvisation or achievement. But every system is only as good or as bad as the people you play with. At its core, like every social hobby, it’s all about people.
So pretending to be a mildly psychic biker with a flamethrower for four hours in a custom game of Cyberpunk 2020 was, it turned out, the perfect way to make friends. As with sports and other social hobbies, playing together is a superb icebreaker, andan excellent way to introduce yourself to folks with whom you share at least one interest. It’s also a great way to feel welcome in a strange place; there’s something very comforting about shared jargon, shared cultural experiences, and those are hard to find 10,000 miles away from home.
Over time gaming becomes more than a bonding experience: it’s something that can be tailored, like a film night or a book club, to the shared desires of your group. You can explore darkness, horror and fear; you can explore the giddy heights of utter ridiculousness; you can do both, with the same people, at the same time. These days, it's a versatile hobby.
It wasn't always the case. D&D's co-creator Gary Gygax, with his insistence on the system’s inflexibility and his beliefs about the primacy of the game master, would barely recognise some of the games his work has spawned. His game has changed too; the hugely popular third edition has birthed a rival spinoff, Pathfinder, that remains more popular than its heavily redesigned fourth edition, which brought a more videogame-y feel to its class system and combat and in the process alienated players who loved the crunchy complexity and imbalance of earlier systems.
Now it’s striking out towards a fifth edition, D&D Next, which is going through a long testing process and receiving a decidedly mixed response from players. Alongside it is a blossoming game scene that is pushing in all directions. The internet has disrupted this world along with everything else, and one-page games and home-brew systems have joined mass-produced heavyweights to compete for gamers’ time. It’s hard now to envisage any one system regaining the supremacy that D&D once had.
But at 40 years old it’s still a cultural institution with fond memories for many people, and its legacy is not just measured in the games that cite it, explicitly or implicitly, as an ancestor. It’s in thousands of character sheets and campaigns, played out in homes, at schools, in pubs, in coffee shops. It’s in the friendships forged in made-up battles, the laughter and the stories and the fun. It’ll still be making me friends for many years to come.Lucknow: Justice Vishnu Sahai commission report on 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots says the mischievous circulation on social media of an old video clip of a Taliban controlled area in Pakistan - which falsely claimed that the two youths killed in the video were Hindus - was 'one of the potent reasons' for the violence.Based on submissions by police officials, Justice Sahai holds BJP MLA Sangeet Som and 229 others responsible for uploading and sharing this video. But he recommends no action as an FIR had already been lodged against them. Besides, it also says that until the case is disposed, the 'averment' in the FIR will 'only remain an allegation'.The video showed two youths being hacked in an area controlled by the Taliban in Pakistan. But those circulating it claimed it was shot in Kawal in the last week of August 2013, when two Hindu boys, Sachin and Gaurav, were being killed.Under one of the terms of reference, 'To fix accountability', the report puts 'Sangeet Singh Som and 229 others' on top of the list of individuals responsible for the riots. "The evidence of Brij Bhushan (then IG, Meerut) shows that sometime (sic) in late evening of 29.08.2013, it came to his knowledge that on 27.08.2013 a video on Youtube, the title of which was 'Its (sic) not the end of love', showing an incident of murder as that of Sachin and Gaurav, was flashed and it was being said: 'Dekho Sachin wa Gaurav ki hatya kis nirmam tarike se ki gayi hai' (Look how brutally Sachin and Gaurav were killed," the report says.The report further says: "He (Brij Bhushan) directed SSP, Muzaffarnagar and CO (city) Muzaffarnagar Sanjeev Bajpai to make enquiries and the latter, after making enquiries, informed him that the video clip was related to August 2012 and it was uploaded by one Shivam along with Sangeet Som, an MLA, and from the language it appeared the incident pertained to some western province of Pakistan.""In order to ensure that people do not get a wrong impression, the district magistrate and SSP had it conveyed through newspapers and TV channels that the said video clip did not pertain to Kawal incident (killing of Sachin and Gaurav)," the report says.By Dr. Mercola
Triclosan, a high production volume ingredient used as a bactericide in personal care products such as toothpaste, deodorant, and antibacterial soap, has been linked to heart disease and heart failure in a new study. Yet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that "Triclosan is not currently known to be hazardous to humans."1 What this means is that until action is taken to get this common additive out of your toiletries, you could be applying a chemical with proven toxicity to your body multiple times a day …
Triclosan Interferes With Muscle Function
Tricolsan impairs muscle function and skeletal muscle contractility, researchers report in a new study done at the University of California Davis. Although the study was done in mice, researchers said the effects of the chemical on cardiac function were "really dramatic." After mice were exposed to one dose of triclosan, heart muscle function was reduced by 25 percent, and grip strength was reduced by 18 percent. Fish were also exposed to triclosan – about the equivalent dose as would be accumulated in a week in the wild – and this led to poorer swimming performance. Researchers also exposed individual human muscle cells (from heart and skeletal muscles |
according to McCann Global Research the global complexion is changing, incorporating more darker skintones than ever before. So it’s no wonder that brands are taking note – it makes monetary sense. “Businesses don’t have moral obligations; they’re supposed to make money,” Kay Montano, make-up artist and Chanel ambassador explains. “But now they see that investing in darker skins is profitable. It may not always occur to them, for example, if there isn’t someone non-white on the committee. I saw a body product for ‘normal to dark skin’ recently. It wasn’t meant maliciously but there’s an element of ignorance.”
Traditionally it’s been the select few brands catering to the myriad skintones that fall between black and white, but now Estée Lauder, Benefit and Chanel are channelling their efforts towards ethnic skins with more shades and richer pigments.The Predators home playoff games have been a cavalcade of star power, with celebrities like Kelly Clarkson, Dierks Bentley and Trisha Yearwood singing the anthem, Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman just hanging out, Carrie Underwood doing both, and various Tennessee Titans abusing sea life, beer and each other on their way to the Stanley Cup final.
Now we can add one Charles Barkley to the list. Before the game, he crashed Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey’s press conference to talk about his love for the game. And at tonight’s NBC intermission show during Game 4, the NBA Hall of Famer and enormous hockey fan had the Islanders on his mind.
Here’s Chuck on with Liam McHugh and Mike Milbury at the second intermission. At about the 1:30 mark, Sir Charles talks about recently watching Big Shot, the ESPN 30-for-30 documentary directed by Kevin Connolly about the bizarre ownership saga of John Spano.
A transcript:
I was telling Mike, I don’t know him well. But I was watching the 30-for-30 on Spano, like, three days ago. And... maybe the greatest hockey story ever. Everybody should go out and watch that 30-for-30. That was one of the most amazing and crazy things that ever happened in sports.
Barkley, as usual, is one hundred percent correct. Islanders fans have lived with the still-unbelievable Spano saga as part of the team’s history for two decades now. Big Shot was not only a fun ride through an surreal time period, but it was made with a ton of love for the franchise by Connolly, a die hard Islanders fan who referenced the team all throughout his time on Entourage and can be seen at Barclays Center when he’s in New York.
Living down to his reputation as the NHL’s Black Hole of Fun, Milbury immediately derailed Barkley’s enthusiasm by asking him about his buddy, Jeremy Roenick doing stunts like catching catfish and alligators. It’s unclear why Milbury wouldn’t want to talk all the time about Big Shot, a movie in which his basically plays the same role as Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight and gets to tell the story about the time Spano invited him to an orgy at the Garden City Hotel.
But once again, Barkley rode to the segment’s rescue, saying he was hoping to see a video in which Roenick was eaten by a gator. Us, too, Charles.
It took us nine months, dozens of games and one Round Mound of Rebound to finally get an interesting intermission show during an NHL on NBC Game. Miracles can happen.Global carbon emissions from forests could have been underestimated because calculations have not fully accounted for the dead wood from logging.
Living trees take in carbon dioxide whereas dead and decaying ones release it. Understanding the proportion of both is important for determining whether a large area of forest is a source of carbon dioxide, or a ‘sink’ that helps to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Forestry, agriculture and land-use changes account for nearly 25 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, second only to the energy sector. New research led by Imperial College London on partially-logged tropical rainforests suggests that these forests are probably emitting more carbon than assumed, because they contain a high proportion of dead wood. The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, reveals that in these forests dead wood can make up to 64 per cent of the biomass, the biological material found above ground.
That such logged forests are not properly accounted for in carbon calculations is a significant factor. It means that a large proportion of forests worldwide are less of a sink and more of a source. – Dr Marion Pfeifer
In untouched forests, dead wood is created through natural processes and makes up less than 20 per cent of the total aboveground biomass. Previously, when estimating the carbon emissions from logged tropical rainforests, researchers have assumed that when live trees are cut down and moved out of the forest, the amount of dead wood is reduced proportionately.
However, the new research paints a clearer picture of the situation in selectively-logged forests where only high-value trees are removed. It shows that because selective logging leaves behind significant damage and tree debris, dead wood actually accounts for up to 64 per cent of the total aboveground biomass.
“I was surprised by how much of the biomass dead wood accounted for in badly logged forests,” said lead author Dr Marion Pfeifer from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial. “That such logged forests are not properly accounted for in carbon calculations is a significant factor. It means that a large proportion of forests worldwide are less of a sink and more of a source, especially immediately following logging, as carbon dioxide is released from the dead wood during decomposition.”
Selective logging is a growing trend in global forestry. “Selectively-logged tropical forests now make up about 30 per cent of rainforests worldwide. This means such global calculations are wrong at least 30 per cent of the time,” said Dr Pfeifer.
the largest ecological experiments on the planet
The researchers surveyed a large area in the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) site, a region of rainforest in Malaysian Borneo. One of the largest ecological experiments on the planet, SAFE takes advantage of the conversion of the region to oil palm plantation to assess the impact of change on the local ecosystems.
Dr Pfeifer and her colleagues assessed the deadwood contributions across a ‘disturbance gradient’ – a range of landscapes including pristine forest, logged forests of increasing severity, and oil palm plantation.
“This large and diverse landscape study provides a lot of field data backing up our research. We are confident in our conclusions,” said Dr Pfeifer. “However, more work needs to be done to apply the results to carbon emissions calculations, such as determining how fast the dead wood is decomposing.”
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'Deadwood biomass: an underestimated carbon stock in degraded tropical forests?' by Pfeifer et al. is published in Environmental Research Letters.Sesame Street Google is working on an alternative ad tracking system that could replace cookies, according to USA Today. The new system is called "AdID," and it would offer certain privacy and security enhancements over the cookie.
Cookies are little bits of code that advertisers and web sites drop into your browser as you surf the web. They track your web history, which advertisers use as a guide to your potential shopping interests.
Google has been slowly losing a war over the use of third-party cookies to track users on behalf of advertisers. You can see how gritty that was has become in this interview with executives from Mozilla, which makes Firefox.
Competing companies have lined up against cookies: Microsoft has made "do not track" the default setting in its Internet Explorer browsers. Apple's Safari browser blocks third-party cookies altogether. New versions of Firefox will block them, too. Part of the problem is that browser makers have very little financial incentive to maintain a robust cookie environment, and a much bigger financial incentive to make browsers that people love and trust.
Google's Chrome browser stands alone in allowing all cookies as the default setting. Chrome is now the most popular browser, but it easy to switch tracking off.
AdID would allow Google to abandon the cookie system altogether in favor of something that advertisers prefer, and thus skirt the cookie war.
If Google could prove that AdID was more useful for advertisers and more private for users than cookies, it could start a gold rush (in Google's favor) to use AdID.
It would also put Google's AdID in competition with Apple's cookie-substitute, the "identifier for advertisers" (IDFA or IFA). That cookie alternative is the default tracker on Apple's mobile devices running the new iOS 7 operating system.(CNN)—Ask teens the object of social media, and they’ll all tell you the same thing: to get “likes.” Whether on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, young users understand the coin of this realm, and are more than happy to do what is necessary to accumulate it. But is the currency value neutral, or does it come with an agenda of its own?
(CNN) Living for likes makes a teen's social career a whole lot easier, in some respects. Now there's a number letting kids know how popular they are, how well a photo is resonating with their friends, or whether their video stands a chance of vaulting them into the professional world of singing, skateboarding or twerking.
What they may not understand, however, is that this game of likes is not taking place on a level playing field. It was constructed by companies whose multibillion-dollar stock valuations are depending on little more than generating traffic -- more likes, follows and favorites -- and then selling the data that can be gleaned from it.
In a sense, major parts of our economy (or at least the inflated valuations on the NASDAQ exchange) are now depending on the social media activity of kids. I'm not sure that's a pressure worth putting on them
On the surface, it all looks pretty empowering. For the MTV generation, changing the channel via remote control was about as interactive as mainstream media got -- and that only brought a kid from one corporate media conglomerate's commercial programming to another’s.
Clearly, the social media universe, with its countless Facebook pages, YouTube channels, Twitter feeds and Instagram photos, offers a whole lot more choice. Instead of watching a TV channel, today's teens get to watch each other. That in itself amounts to power, freedom and agency, right?
Maybe. For while all these clicks and keystrokes and photos and videos may be free, they come with a price. Kids aren't paying with money, but with their attention and their hours of meticulous profile tweaking. They're paying with their likes, their favorites, and their follows. And they get paid back with a new path to popularity or even fame.
Sometimes, the exchange is explicit. Brands from soft drinks to automobiles ask kids to like an ad or promotion, all for the chance to be liked back or re-tweeted by the brand to its millions of followers. The teen gets more of those coveted likes. The companies get a real-time portrait of their potential customers and influencers, as well as all their friends.
And this isn't just some virtual game. Likes really do matter out here in the real world, too. New musicians and new writers alike must demonstrate that they have social media followings in order to find distribution and sponsors.
A new kind of talent agency, The Audience, has arisen to help young up-and-comers cultivate a social media presence, and then sell that network of followers to the appropriate advertisers.
It's actually a science. Thanks to the immense data pools created by social media users, a firm like The Audience can find the overlaps between fans of a certain pop star and those who have interacted with particular brands. That little venn diagram is marketer's gold. And, to be fair, The Audience is helping young musicians build careers in a landscape where there are no record labels left willing to develop talent -- and no one buying music, anymore, anyway. By pairing talent with sponsors, The Audience creates a new revenue stream for artists, or at least the ones with the most viewed selfies.
But it does create an oddly circular culture: Kids develop social media audiences in order to become "stars," which really just means having enough social media followers to sell out to a brand for sponsorship. Perhaps more amazingly, none of them seem to mind. When I asked kids what they thought about "selling out" for my PBS documentary on social media, none of them could even tell me what "selling out" meant. They thought it had something to do with there not being any tickets left for a concert.
The language barrier aside, young social media users today draw no distinction between art and commerce, culture and advertising. While kids engaged with social media have the ability to express themselves and their values to pretty much the rest of the developed world, they seem unaware of the extent to which these platforms shape the values they choose to express.
As I learned from a 13-year-old skateboarder who calls himself Baby Scumbag, you get fewer likes for making videos of board tricks than you do for getting gorgeous girls to pose for you in the near nude, or just doing crazy antics in the street. He's a massive success on YouTube, where his videos often generate more than a million views.
Another teenager, a girl from near San Diego, started making videos of herself singing, but is quickly learning that shots of her in her bedroom, or full body, or in a bathing suit, get her more attention. Her videos no longer include her vocals.
That's the part I don't think most teens grasp. Nor do most adults have enough of a handle on this whole social media universe to fully articulate our misgivings. We know something is amiss, but saying it out loud feels so, well, out of touch.
The reality here, however, is that it's our young social media users who are out of touch -- or at least painfully oblivious to the way the tools and platforms they're using in turn use them. They grew up with this stuff in their lives, and they accept these tools at face value, as features of the natural landscape. Not so. They were made by companies whose interests go far beyond helping kids express themselves and make friends. Our kids are not the customers here; they are both the product and the unwitting labor.
Our social media platforms are embedded with values that shape our perspectives and our behaviors. If we live in the social media landscape without an awareness of what it really wants from us, no one is really being empowered at all.
BeyondReproach, was also writing a futuristic SEUCK game for one of the Sideways SEUCK compos, and showed me some snippets of his game. Sadly the author didn't have enough time to write his game. Whether or not we'll see the this game actually finished (or a preview), or entered in this year's compo is very questionable, but the game graphics looked really good. Nothing else to comment and no snapshot to show either. :(An oldSEUCK game which originally was working on NTSC called "Space Pope" now sees a brand new version of the classic, written by Dov Sherman. The game now works on PAL and NTSC. This version of the game was updated and enhanced by "Priest Maxi" (No it wasn't me, honest). This release was made just for fun. You play as a space pope from a space vatican, having to eliminate all the evil monsters that lurk in each zone.
Carl did various games, such as the Strike Team series, Cleo the Dog a C64 version of Bottom and even some other amazing shoot 'em ups, like VIOS. Strike School was quite an original idea, in which Carl managed to bolt 2 player movements together with the aid of one joystick (I can also do this myself). POKE 16578,2 will link both players with the same joystick (PORT 2). The player could move around that the bottom of the screen, and the cross hair moved at the top and could shoot. The player man at the bottom was unable to shoot. The idea of the game was to point the cross hair on to the targets, and pick up medals that appeared at the bottom of the screen.Several years back I received a Sideways scrolling SEUCK game by JinxTengu / Bizarre Wound called The Hungry Dead. This was a game which was planned to be split into several parts. Sadly the game never got finished and is NOT available - yet. You played a hero who has to blast at zombies and zombie dogs in the street. The game has some very nice and smooth animation, and some clever action themes for example bodies thrown out of a smashed window and plummeting to the ground. Graphics were pretty good, and this would have made a great game. Whether or not Jinxtengu completes this game, we don't really know.:)
Back in the 1990's came this masterpiece of a SEUCK creation. It was possible to create new ideas using the SEUCK. Alf Yngve most certainly did some amazing things with it. The very first ever Operation Wolf style game, "Death Row" was a prime example. However Ryan Chenery surprised us via Binary Zone PD (and Commodore Zone fanzine) with "Speed Demon". A 3D looking racing type of game, with limitations. You are driving along a busy road, and various vehicles and helicopters are trying to stop you from getting directly to the other side of the road. Ryan limited the play area so that on one side of the road, player 1 was on the left, and the other side of the road, player 2 was on the right. The bullets were used to make it look as if the road was moving. It was a very clever game concept which deserves to be in SEUCK's history book.
The use of monochrome grey scale graphics for a World War 2 style game was surprisingly effective. Anthony Burns showed us what you could do with the use of grey scale and he came up with this amazing SEUCK blaster. Stormbird was a game inspired by the classic arcade coin ops, 1942 and 1943. There have been SEUCK clones of these games, but they were just not as good as this game. Stormbird made it through to third place in the 2011 Vertical Scrolling SEUCK competition. The game rewardingly got enhanced eventually, but only with a new front end. Whether or not I released that one, is questionable but guess what's coming on the Commodore Free cover tape #3 (Issue 67 this February? :)).
The use of monochrome grey scale graphics for a World War 2 style game was surprisingly effective. Anthony Burns showed us what you could do with the use of grey scale and he came up with this amazing SEUCK blaster. Stormbird was a game inspired by the classic arcade coin ops, 1942 and 1943. There have been SEUCK clones of these games, but they were just not as good as this game. Stormbird made it through to third place in the 2011 Vertical Scrolling SEUCK competition. The game rewardingly got enhanced eventually, but only with a new front end. Whether or not I released that one, is questionable but guess what's coming on the Commodore Free cover tape #3 (Issue 67 this February? :)).
In 1987, Sensible Software produced a utility called The Shoot Em Up Construction Kit. This program allowed people to write their own games without the aid of any programming knowledge. All you were able to do with SEUCK was draw your own players, enemies, create your own background and of course transform it all into a standalone game. SEUCK has been the main culprit for so many shoot 'em up games on the Commodore 64. If you take a look at Gamebase 64, and search "Created with SEUCK", you will get hundreds and hundreds of SEUCK games. Some good and quite a lot of terrible ones as well. SEUCK could only create vertical scrolling shoot 'em up games, but people even had original ideas for SEUCK games, which were made possible. In 2008, the Sideways Scrolling SEUCK was born. Here are some examples of standard SEUCK and Sideways SEUCK creations.Pour Le Merite was the winner of the 2010 Sideways SEUCK Competition. Probably because the main concept was based on a classic World War 1 game. Who remembers U.S. Gold's classic "Blue Max"? I remember that appearing on a magazine cover tape :). Blue Max was absolutely fantastic. Bamse created Pour Le Merite, as a tribute to such a classic game - although it isn't a diagonal scrolling shooter like Blue Max originally was. You could see how retro this game looked. I loved the way the game was designed as a move style sideways SEUCK game. You controlled a red plane which has to shoot down the enemies and rescue parachuters and collect flags. You had to fight through different zones of the enemy territory. You had to raid each zone before you were to achieve the coveted award, the Pour Le Merite (The Blue Max).The final version of the game was imported into the SEUCK redux source code, and turned out pretty well. The game also ended up with a brand new front end and music in the background also.Barakon was a fantastic vertical scrolling SEUCK game I was hoping to be the winner of the competition of the 2010 Vertical SEUCK competition. Fortunately it made it to second place, and was very close to win. Il Mago (The Mage) had won the 2010 Vertical SEUCK competition, and the game looked cute and good fun. Barakon was a cybernetic mech warrior, who had to save his city from being oppressed by and evil dictator. The Dictator sent her minions to try an cause havoc in Barakon's city. The cybernetic warrior had to attack his foes using his cybernetic power fists. The amusing side of the game was where Barakon had to eat pies as a bonus.You may have noticed that although Barakon won second place in the 2010 Vertical Scrolling SEUCK competition, it had no new front end for it. That is because it's going to be re-released on the next Psytronik Software Shoot Em Up Destruction Set some time later on this year.
The aim of this competition is to create your very own shoot 'em up / or whatever type of game you want using the normal SEUCK, or the Sideways Shoot Em Up Construction kit. (Visit the official Sideways scrolling SEUCK web site for the Sideways SEUCK. The vertical scrolling SEUCK for C64 is easy to find to buy from EBAY as tape or disk.The main aim of this compo is to design and create your own good quality looking SEUCK game. Your game can be anything, as long as it is 100% SEUCK with no enhancements programmed in to it - unless you want to make the use of the 2 players moving with one joystick (Action Replay POKE 16578,2). The theme for your game can be anything you like, as long as it does not bend the rules. It could something cartoonish, space blaster, combat, etc. However, we want to see really smart in game graphics which stand out and the game to play pretty well - not rushed graphics that look too basic. :)Like with the 2011 Sideways SEUCK compo. We'll be building an online vote sheet and the winner will be the game that scores the most points.
Q1. If I wrote a SEUCK game and wanted to update the game - before it gets uploaded on to the SEUCK compo page. Will I be too late? A1. No, you won't be too late. If your game hasn't yet been uploaded to the SEUCK Compo 2013 page then we will upload your later version on to the compo page. Q2. If I wrote a SEUCK game and wanted to update the game but the game has already been uploaded on to the SEUCK compo page. Will I be too late? A2. Unfortunately you will be too late, but we can reserve the updated version of your game for until after the competition has finished. Q3. If I write a SEUCK game, and add music to the title or in game music. Am I allowed to enter it into the competition? A3. Yes, although we tend to do that ourselves. If you want music, let us know if you want title or in game music - unless you have added it already. Even better, pick out a tune from HVSC and we'll add it to your game if we can relocate it. No tunes from commercial titles please. Demo tunes are okay, but must be JCH newplayer, Voicetracker, USA Music Assembler or Demo Music Creator format. :) Q4. Are we allowed to add additional enhancements to our games. For example 2 players being controlled by the same joysick, players respawn at the same place they died? A4. Yes, we accept those features for compo submissions. Q5. Am I allowed to use SEUCK Redux for the compo entries? A5. No that is not allowed. You are welcome to send me a SEUCK Redux version of your game, but it must not be for the compo. Q6. I just released my game on to my web site, and want to submit it to the compo. Am I allowed to do this? A6. You should add your entry to your web site *after* the compo entry has been uploaded. Sorry, but those are the rules. The idea of the compo is all entries must be exclusive. Q7. I write a new SEUCK game, but want to add my own intro/cracktro with my name/group for the entry. Is this allowed? A7. Preferably, you shouldn't really do that because the games usually get compressed and enhanced with music. We can re-link your game to the intro if you prefer us to do that. Please let us know. Q8. May I opt out of having music added to my submission for the compo? A8. Yes, please let us know if you want no music in your entry. Q9. I write a game and want to submit it via Snail Mail. Is this possible? A9. Sorry, but Email entries only. Q10. I write a game and saved in.tap using SEUCK. What concerns me however is that the game does not load on my real C64, using the blue/yellow stripes - even on 1541U2 or DC2N. Will our submission still count if the.tap works on Emulators, not real C64? A10. I get the same problem with this loader system as well. Don't panic. We'll be remastering all entries with one of our high speed tape loaders.
Q1. If I wrote a SEUCK game and wanted to update the game - before it gets uploaded on to the SEUCK compo page. Will I be too late? A1. No, you won't be too late. If your game hasn't yet been uploaded to the SEUCK Compo 2013 page then we will upload your later version on to the compo page. Q2. If I wrote a SEUCK game and wanted to update the game but the game has already been uploaded on to the SEUCK compo page. Will I be too late? A2. Unfortunately you will be too late, but we can reserve the updated version of your game for until after the competition has finished. Q3. If I write a SEUCK game, and add music to the title or in game music. Am I allowed to enter it into the competition? A3. Yes, although we tend to do that ourselves. If you want music, let us know if you want title or in game music - unless you have added it already. Even better, pick out a tune from HVSC and we'll add it to your game if we can relocate it. No tunes from commercial titles please. Demo tunes are okay, but must be JCH newplayer, Voicetracker, USA Music Assembler or Demo Music Creator format. :) Q4. Are we allowed to add additional enhancements to our games. For example 2 players being controlled by the same joysick, players respawn at the same place they died? A4. Yes, we accept those features for compo submissions. Q5. Am I allowed to use SEUCK Redux for the compo entries? A5. No that is not allowed. You are welcome to send me a SEUCK Redux version of your game, but it must not be for the compo. Q6. I just released my game on to my web site, and want to submit it to the compo. Am I allowed to do this? A6. You should add your entry to your web site *after* the compo entry has been uploaded. Sorry, but those are the rules. The idea of the compo is all entries must be exclusive. Q7. I write a new SEUCK game, but want to add my own intro/cracktro with my name/group for the entry. Is this allowed? A7. Preferably, you shouldn't really do that because the games usually get compressed and enhanced with music. We can re-link your game to the intro if you prefer us to do that. Please let us know. Q8. May I opt out of having music added to my submission for the compo? A8. Yes, please let us know if you want no music in your entry. Q9. I write a game and want to submit it via Snail Mail. Is this possible? A9. Sorry, but Email entries only. Q10. I write a game and saved in.tap using SEUCK. What concerns me however is that the game does not load on my real C64, using the blue/yellow stripes - even on 1541U2 or DC2N. Will our submission still count if the.tap works on Emulators, not real C64? A10. I get the same problem with this loader system as well. Don't panic. We'll be remastering all entries with one of our high speed tape loaders.
Battle your way through the darkest most fearful place imaginable your own mind clash with repressed memories, career struggles and personal vices to overcome the ultimate foe yourself so climb aboard the'mind craft' and prepare to face The Dark Within.- average- Too easy to finish, and the background graphics look too simplistic.- It looks like the author of this game doesn't have much experience with SEUCK... I hope to see something better in the future!- this one really kept me going- A tongue in cheek blaster about memories and life. :)- hmmm...- Looks OK, needed more work on the sounds. This style of game has been done before, so it wasn't for me.A shopping horror. Two worlds have clashed into a department store. While you're out shopping, you are having to fight against assorted demons from another dimension. Pick up bargains, and shoot the demons into oblivion. Get the hell out of the stores before it is too late.gives me headaches- A very original idea, but the game is slow paced and too easy to finish...- I like the strange and absurd sprites, though the game seems to be a bit rushed...- Graphics are not bad. The concept is hilarious, Imagine defending your shopping trips from horror creatures :)- hmmm -1- Pretty tough but works OK, with a little work on avoiding flicker it would be much betterSledgie has been captured by an evil monster and thrown into the cave. Dworina finally gets the piece of the action. She is on a quest to rescue poor Sledgie, but Dworina has to travel through treacherous grounds. Where the evil creatures and monsters lurk. Throw axes at the creatures to make them disappear, and pick up gold, and other collectibles (The original purpose for the other collectibles were for additional power ups, but that's not allowed in the SEUCK compo - as the prize involves those anyway :)).- Gold Quest is Gold Quest!- Nice atmosphere, it looks promising.- Though it's a demo (and that's not fair, in my opinion), I didn't like this game at all... I hope the complete version is better, with better and more varied graphics and less boring...- *didnt finish in time*- I usually am involved with Gold Quest, but this version of the game was completely done by some other people. Only my spider was used from the older Gold Quest- very good! sometimes is a bit difficult to see enemies bullets though- very good, I would like to see the final version- A little scruffy but nice to see the Gold Quest series continuing, will be interesting to see the final version with power-ups
Entry #4 - Sheer Earth Attack
Rank (1st Place - WINNER)
SEUCK Version: Sideways SEUCK
Game by: Gaetano Chiummo
Music: by Gaetano Chiummo
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
Comments
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Entry #5 - Spy Rider
Rank (6th Place)
SEUCK Version: Standard SEUCK
Game by: Alf Yngve
Music: by Richard Bayliss
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
Comments:
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Entry #6 - Realms of Midgard
Rank (3rd Place)
SEUCK Version: Sideways SEUCK
Game by: Anthony Burns (An unreleased game originally submitted for The SEUCK Vault)
Music: by Fredrik/Avatar
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
Comments:
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Entry #7 - Zombie Brain Eaters
Rank (4th Place)
SEUCK Version: Sideways SEUCK
Game by: Andy Vaisey, Playtested by Andrew Fisher / SEUCK Vault
Music: by Richard Bayliss
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
Comments:
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Entry #8 - Aufwaerts (Going Upwards)
Rank (7th Place)
SEUCK Version: Vertical SEUCK
Game by: Sonny Top (Bamse)
Music: by Richard Bayliss
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
Comments:
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Entry #9 - Dodo's Deep Doo-Doo (80% compo version)
Rank: (2nd Place)
SEUCK Version: Horizontal Scrolling SEUCK
Game by: Carl Mason
Music: by Decoy/Excess (Intro), Richard Bayliss (Title music)
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
Comments:
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Entry #10 - Synergy
Rank (5th Place)
SEUCK Version: Standard vertical scrolling SEUCK
Game by: Alan Simek
Music: by Drax (Intro music), Wacek/Arise (Title music), Fanta (In game music)
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
You were exploring the Space Station, "Synergy" until you were held captive by the alien forces. Luckily you managed to break free from the lazer powered cell, and found yourself a space craft to escape. Unfortunately the space station consists of deadly cargo. Being transported by the transporters. You find you have a mission, in which is to destroy the cargo carriers and fire those rockets at the aliens. Is there a way to escape from this hostile space station? Good luck pilot.
Comments:
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Entry #11 - Amazon Gold
Rank (8th Place)
SEUCK Version: Sideway SEUCK
Game by: IndyJR/FanCA
Music: by Shade/Flash Inc (Intro), Scortia/Bonzai (Title music)
Tape loader: Martin Piper + Richard Bayliss
Instructions:
It is the year 1933. You are Greg Troublynsky. An intrepid explorer who is having trouble. Trouble with money in fact. Until one day his old uncle sadly passed away, and left in his possession, a map. A map to the secret temple of gold. Your quest is to trek through the amazon to the temple in search for the missing gold. There are 3 levels in which you enter, but beware. Traps have been set, and also the bomber planes are out to stop you as well.
Comments
It is the year 2261. According to the prophecy, the Earth is going to be destroyed! The prophet didn't give many details, except that the menace will arrive from the sky. The scientists are gazing at the stars, but the army has got its eyes on a civilized alien race, which has started studying a new source of energy. They never threatened the Earth, nor any other civilized planet around, but what if this new energy has got the power to rule the universe? So, the army's sending a space ship (along with a rotating combat module) out to space, to seek and destroy this mysterious weapon. And, guess what!, the pilot is YOU! (Full instructions are in the production itself and.txt document) :)like it, don´t know why- Very playable, with lots of levels and enemies and a funny end sequence. It's my favourite!- A great, furious, entertaining, well balanced and very playable shoot'em up, with very good and varied graphics- I love Space sideways scrolling shoot 'em ups. This game reminds me of some of the classic C64 games of all time. The big bosses are awesome, and the game's ending is hilarious.- nice shooter! waves are good. First boss too static though- pretty good, but.- Some very nice touches and very polishedIt is a tough job being a spy. You successfully captured an assassin from the Swiss Connection and now he's banged up in a high security prison. Your mission was successful. You get back on to the plane from Switzerland, to North England and start driving back to your underground top secret HQ. Unfortunately you're not alone as the assassin, who you got banged up wants his revenge. He has sent out some of his best hench people to try and stop your getting home. By road and also airborne as well. Your mission is to survive through the whole journey and shoot down the enemy vehicles. While player 2 has to shoot the incoming airborne helicopters, who are out to gun the spy vehicle down. You got yourself into a big mess, now get yourself out of it if you can.I like new game concepts, nice two player mode!- The game uses a lot of tricks, but lacks playability.- I was expecting much more from Alf Yngve... This time he came out with a very unplayable and maybe rushed game... How can I switch to the crosshair in single player mode without having anyone driving the car? But, apart from that, I didn't have much fun with this game...- splitscreen bonus- This version was rushed to make the deadline. A much improved Version 2.0 has been made.(RICHARD'S COMMENT - The V2.0 is on my to do list for the Shoot Em Up Destruction Set 3. And will be the LAST game in the compilation. V2.0 is to feature on the next Commodore Free E-cover tape in end of May 2013, along with James Fly, Trac Troopa and Warspite).- The game concept would have done well if both players were linked to |
touch around the basket. During the NCAA tournament, James claimed eight points, nine rebounds, and five blocks in Florida State’s Sweet 16 overtime loss to eventual Final Four finishers VCU.
By this spring, he realized he belonged in the ACC and considered, for the first time, the possibility of a future in the game. “After Coach Jones talked to me, I took it that maybe I missed the boat,” James said. “I do have the talent for it. At that point, it was more me proving that if things had went different earlier in my life, then I could have been in the NBA. That would have been enough for me. I would have been OK with that. You can’t go back and change your mistakes. What happened, happened. Just knowing that that was a possibility, that would have been enough for me.”
Not anymore. He had 18 points and 11 rebounds in the second game of his senior season against Central Florida and followed that up with 15 points and 11 rebounds against Stetson. He shot 15-for-17 in the two games. He grabbed 14 rebounds in an overtime loss to no. 4 UConn and chipped in eight points and nine boards in a 90-57 thrashing of no. 3 North Carolina. Florida State captured its first ACC tournament championship before bowing out in the third round of the NCAA tournament. He averaged 10.8 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks for the season. “Once it all ended, I was like, ‘All right, what’s next?'” James said.
James didn’t work out with the Mavericks. He didn’t interview with them. He didn’t know he would land with them as he walked onstage to greet NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver in June. Relief swept over him with each step. He had worried in the past couple days that he wouldn’t be drafted after all. The Heat and Wizards, he said, had medically red-flagged him because of the kneecap he broke back in community college. The news surprised him. He’d played solidly on the knee through four college seasons.
James has come far, but nothing is guaranteed. He still has to make the Mavericks’ roster, and he is prepared to scrap for a spot. The Mavericks are prepared for him to make the team. “We’re fully expecting that he’s going to come into training camp and fight for a position, but based on what we see now, there’s no reason to think that when the dust settles, he’s not going to be there,” said Donnie Nelson, Dallas’s general manager.
Coach Rick Carlisle, on hand in Las Vegas, marveled at the progress James showed in just a handful of practices with the Mavericks. James posted numbers similar to his college averages in the five summer league games, with 10.2 points, nine rebounds, and 2.6 blocks.
“We followed him at Florida State and we’re clearly fans,” Carlisle said. “He’s long. He’s a shot-blocker. He plays the game with passion. That’s a big thing for us. He’s also the kind of character that we want inside of our locker room. He’s a big integrity guy. He’s had an unbelievable wealth of experience that we think is going to serve him well.”
Dallas rearranged their frontcourt this offseason in hopes of making a run at Dwight Howard in 2013. Lamar Odom, Brendan Haywood, and Ian Mahinmi are gone. The newcomers include Elton Brand and Chris Kaman. These Mavericks are not the championship team of two years ago — they’re still in search of players instead of projects. And as Carlisle put it: “Twenty-seven is still young for an older guy.” James’s legs are young in basketball years. There will be minutes to be had if he continues to progress.
“Maturity is important,” Mark Cuban wrote in an e-mail. “He has plenty of it. No question he will work hard. As a second-round pick, we want a player who can contribute, regardless of his age. We are excited to have him on the team.”
James’s family still worries that he keeps too much inside. “There are a lot of things that I learned about recently that I never knew in the past,” Reddick said. “Stuff that, as a big brother, he could have come and talked to me about. I guess him being a person who holds his emotions in affects the times he could have come and talked to me about things.” Most of his confessions to reporters are revelations to the family. “That concerns me because everybody needs to vent somewhere,” Beverly Cook said. “I’m hoping he’s venting with somebody.”
Still, her son is an inspiration, living proof that dreams can be realized no matter how late in life. Cook says she plans to resume school and finish recording a gospel album. “Whether it goes top of the charts, that’s not the point,” Cook said. “The point is to do something that is worth pursuing. I’m going to do it.”
Jones, James’s former associate coach at Florida State, believes that he will inspire others, too. “Here was a nerdy kid who didn’t really know where he fit on the planet,” Jones said. “School wasn’t really the place for him when he was younger. But the military gave him direction and discipline, and his genetics allowed a great opportunity on a super stage. How well he plays is yet to be determined, but he’s off to a great start.”
Before finding his way to the NBA, he had to see Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Tallahassee. You don’t think of Bernard James when you think of today’s NBA players. But you might soon.What It Is: An aggressive body kit, 18-inch wheels, and quad tailpipes caught our attention when photos of a track-testing Audi A3 came through from our spy photographer. This is almost definitely the upcoming hot Audi S3 model.
Why It Matters: On our shores, the S3 would be the flagship for Audi’s biggest push yet into premium compact cars. Being the first A3 variant to wear the “S” badging in the U.S., this new-gen car also will placate Euro enthusiasts who don’t have S4 money to spend.
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Platform: The S3, like the A3 on which it’s based, will ride on an all-new platform. Audi and VW call the architecture MQB, an acronym for German words with several thousand letters apiece. It’s super flexible, and will underpin everything from the next VW Golf to a big three-row VW SUV. (We’ve got a detailed description of MQB and how it works here.) Underpinning the S3, the MQB platform will be in one of its lighter, smaller guises. The car in these spy shots is a three-door hatch, but it’s the least likely of the three global A3 body styles to come to the U.S. An S3 sedan is a near lock, and a five-door S3 hatch is at least on the table.
Powertrain: A turbocharged 2.0-liter four should give the S3 about 300 hp. The engine is most likely an evolution of the 2.0-liter four powering at least a dozen other Volkswagen and Audi products. Some current versions of this engine make just 200 hp, but the motor is good for 265 in the Audi TTS. The EA888 engine will mount transversely in the S3’s architecture, and an all-wheel-drive system will distribute power to all wheels.
CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE
What transmission Audi will offer in the S3 is a question we’re sore to even have to ask. A dual-clutch automatic is almost guaranteed, but the availability of a genuine stick is unclear as of now. Enthusiasts at the Church of Manual Transmissions chant the hymnal “No Stick, No Buy,” but we’re not always enough to persuade the product planners. We won on the Golf R, which comes only with a stick in the U.S., and control-freak American investment bankers are the sole reason BMW is offering a manual for the new M5. But the Audi TTS only has a DSG transmission, as do many of Volkswagen and Audi’s hotter offerings over in Europe.
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Competition: BMW 135is, Ford Focus ST, Mini John Cooper Works, Subaru WRX STI, Volkswagen Golf R.
What Might Go Wrong: Prohibitive pricing could curb enthusiasm for a hot Audi hatch. So long as it starts at less than the 135i’s $40k-plus sticker, though, Audi should find takers. Potentially a bigger problem: Audi could well decide bringing the S3 to the U.S. isn’t worth the effort after all. Potentially tiny—in relative terms—sales numbers and a fluctuating euro could make the prospect of selling a small, premium performance car a daunting task.
Estimated Arrival and Price: We expect the S3 to make its debut at the Paris auto show this fall before hitting showrooms a year from now. The S3 likely will reside on the higher end of its non-BMW competition’s pricing scale, with a sticker in the $37,000 range.Early results following Sunday's national election in Germany showed a slight drop for the Left party, which won around 8.5 percent of the vote. Only a part of the vote has been counted so far.
In the last national election in 2009, the party polled 11.9 percent, now first results indicate that it has lost two percent. But with other smaller parties faring even worse it could overtake the Greens, and has already left the liberl Free Democrat FDP far behind.
Watch video 01:44 Gregor Gysi describes the Left Party's prospects
The Left has been one of the more outspoken critics of the coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Free Democrats.
The Left party formed in 2007 from remnants of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to the socialist SED party that ruled former East Germany. A group of trade unionists and former Social Democrats (SPD) members in western Germany also make up part of the party's leadership.
Given their ties to the former east and bad blood among the former SPD members in the Left party, the Left is seen as a coalition partner of last resort - and only on the federal state level.
The most likely path to a governing coalition – as the final piece to a SPD-Green party coalition – had been flatly rejected by both the SPD and the Greens ahead of the polls.
The party's campaign was led by a team of eight of the Left's top politicians, including Gregor Gysi and Sahra Wagenknecht.
The Left campaigned on a strict pacifist platform, calling for Germany to leave NATO, it also favored a ban on weapons exports, a 30-hour working week, higher taxes on higher earners, and a minimum wage of 10 euros per hour – higher than proposed minimum wages from the other parties.January 23, 2012 Santiago, Chile
With over 150 million registered users, the file sharing site MegaUpload.com is one of the most popular on the Internet. At least, it was.
The site has now been seized by the US government and its homepage converted to an FBI anti-piracy warning. Its founder, a high tech entrepreneur named Kim Dotcom (yes, he had it legally changed), was arrested in New Zealand after his homes were raided and assets seized.
These actions were all at the behest of the US government. And it's just the latest example of Big Brother overextending its authority across the entire world.
Last week, we discussed the grassroots efforts to stop passage of the SOPA/PIPA legislation that would give the US government jurisdiction over the Internet. Wikipedia blacked out its English language pages to raise awareness of the issue, and people went completely nuts.
Congress subsequently withdrew the bills amid popular outcry, and the public rejoiced that their efforts successfully thwarted further encroachment on their liberty. Or so they thought.
On the exact same day that everyone was celebrating victory over SOPA/PIPA, the US government simply used another set of regulations to nab Dotcom and seize his assets. The fact that SOPA was scrapped turned out to be completely irrelevant, they just found other rules to apply (or break).
As usual, it's probably not legal. But such technicalities don't matter in the 'guilty until proven innocent' system in which we live. Executive agencies exercise extreme latitude when confiscating assets, and victims often don't have the opportunity to address the matter in front of a judge for years, if ever.
In Dotcom's case, the man probably won't even successfully make it past the extradition process for at least a year… let alone bring the issue to trial. The government is using its bureaucracy to completely circumvent due process and make an example of somebody that they consider a nuisance.
So why should they care? What interest could the US government possibly have in a silly file sharing site? None. But the entertainment industry does.
You see, we don't live in a representative democracy. Democracy is an illusion to make people believe that they're free. Instead, it's blocs of large corporations who are really in control. If the entertainment business wants Kim Dotcom to go away, the government will invent or break any law necessary to make it happen. They're all in bed together.
What's more, it doesn't matter which group or party is in power. Democrat or Republican, Labour or Conservative, Liberal or New Democratic… they're all for sale. Citizens concern themselves with the outcome of elections, investing heavy emotional and financial support for 'their guy'. Companies just wait it out and buy off whichever candidates win.
Kim Dotcom, though a wealthy and successful entrepreneur, was essentially a lone wolf standing against the entire industry. Rather than find ways to work with him in what is clearly emerging as a dominant media platform, they chose to eliminate him… by having the US government send the New Zealand government to arrest him and seize his assets.
It's mind numbing when you really think about it.
Ultimately, Dotcom may successfully find his way back to a normal life after years in court and perhaps some time in jail. In the meantime, though, his case certainly makes a strong argument for flying under the radar. It's a stark reminder that, if they really want to get you, they'll apply, invent, or break whatever laws are necessary to do so.
Read more posts on Sovereign Man »May 15th-19th has been designated “National Infrastructure Week” by the US Chambers of Commerce, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and over 150 affiliates. Their message: “It’s time to rebuild.” Ever since ASCE began issuing its “National Infrastructure Report Card” in 1998, the nation has gotten a dismal grade of D or D+. In the meantime, the estimated cost of fixing its infrastructure has gone up from $1.3 trillion to $4.6 trillion.
While American politicians debate endlessly over how to finance the needed fixes and which ones to implement, the Chinese have managed to fund massive infrastructure projects all across their country, including 12,000 miles of high-speed rail built just in the last decade. How have they done it, and why can’t we?
A key difference between China and the US is that the Chinese government owns the majority of its banks. About 40% of the funding for its giant railway project comes from bonds issued by the Ministry of Railway, 10-20% comes from provincial and local governments, and the remaining 40-50% is provided by loans from federally-owned banks and financial institutions. Like private banks, state-owned banks simply create money as credit on their books. (More on this below.) The difference is that they return their profits to the government, making the loans interest-free; and the loans can be rolled over indefinitely. In effect, the Chinese government decides what work it wants done, draws on its own national credit card, pays Chinese workers to do it, and repays the loans with the proceeds.
The US government could do that too, without raising taxes, slashing services, cutting pensions, or privatizing industries. How this could be done quickly and cheaply will be considered here, after a look at the funding proposals currently on the table and at why they are not satisfactory solutions to the nation’s growing infrastructure deficit.
The Endless Debate over Funding and the Relentless Push to Privatize
In a May 15, 2017, report on In the Public Interest, the debate taking shape heading into National Infrastructure Week was summarized like this:
The Trump administration, road privatization industry, and a broad mix of congressional leaders are keen on ramping up a large private financing component (under the marketing rubric of ‘public-private partnerships’), but have not yet reached full agreement on what the proportion should be between tax breaks and new public money—and where that money would come from. Over 500 projects are being pitched to the White House.... Democrats have had a full plan on the table since January, advocating for new federal funding and a program of infrastructure renewal spread through a broad range of sectors and regions. And last week, a coalition of right wing, Koch-backed groups led by Freedom Partners... released a letter encouraging Congress “to prioritize fiscal responsibility” and focus instead on slashing public transportation, splitting up transportation policy into the individual states, and eliminating labor and environmental protections (i.e., gutting the permitting process). They attacked the idea of a national infrastructure bank and... targeted the most important proposal of the Trump administration... —to finance new infrastructure by tax reform to enable repatriation of overseas corporate revenues....
In a November 2014 editorial titled “How Two Billionaires Are Destroying High Speed Rail in America,” author Julie Doubleday observed that the US push against public mass transit has been led by a think tank called the Reason Foundation, which is funded by the Koch brothers. Their $44 billion fortune comes largely from Koch Industries, an oil and gas conglomerate with a vested interest in mass transit’s competitors, those single-rider vehicles using the roads that are heavily subsidized by the federal government.
Clearly, not all Republicans are opposed to funding infrastructure, since Donald Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan was a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, and his Republican base voted him into office. But “establishment Republicans” have traditionally opposed infrastructure spending. Why? According to a May 15, 2015 article in Daily Kos titled “Why Do Republicans Really Oppose Infrastructure Spending?”:
Republicans – at the behest of their mega-bank/private equity patrons – really, deeply want to privatize the nation’s infrastructure and turn such public resources into privately owned, profit centers. More than anything else, this privatization fetish explains Republicans’ efforts to gut and discredit public infrastructure.... If the goal is to privatize and monetize public assets, the last thing Republicans are going to do is fund and maintain public confidence in such assets. Rather, when private equity wants to acquire something, the typical playbook is to first make sure that such assets are what is known as “distressed assets” (i.e., cheaper to buy).
A similar argument was advanced by Noam Chomsky in a 2011 lecture titled “The State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival”. He said:
[T]here is a standard technique of privatization, namely defund what you want to privatize. Like when Thatcher wanted to [privatize] the railroads, first thing to do is defund them, then they don’t work and people get angry and they want a change. You say okay, privatize them....
What’s Wrong with Public-Private Partnerships?
Privatization (or “asset relocation” as it is sometimes euphemistically called) means selling public utilities to private equity investors, who them rent them back to the public, squeezing their profits from high user fees and tolls. Private equity investment now generates an average return of about 11.8 percent annually on a ten-year basis. That puts the cost to the public of financing $1 trillion in infrastructure projects over 10 years at around $1.18 trillion, more than doubling the cost. Moving assets off the government’s balance sheet by privatizing them looks attractive to politicians concerned with this year’s bottom line, but it’s a bad deal for the public. Decades from now, people will still be paying higher tolls for the sake of Wall Street profits on an asset that could have belonged to them all along.
One example is the Dulles Greenway, a toll road outside Washington, D.C., nicknamed the “Champagne Highway” due to its extraordinarily high rates and severe underutilization in a region crippled by chronic traffic problems. Local (mostly Republican) officials have tried in vain for years to either force the private owners to lower the toll rates or have the state take the road into public ownership. In 2014, the private operators of the Indiana Toll Road, one of the best-known public-private partnerships (PPPs), filed for bankruptcy after demand dropped, due at least in part to rising toll rates. Other high-profile PPP bankruptcies have occurred in San Diego, CA; Richmond, VA; and Texas.
Countering the dogma that “private companies can always do it better and cheaper,” studies have found that on average, private contractors charge more than twice as much as the government would have paid federal workers for the same job. A 2011 report by the Brookings Institution found that “in practice [PPPs] have been dogged by contract design problems, waste, and unrealistic expectations.” In their 2015 report “Why Public-Private Partnerships Don’t Work,” Public Services International stated that “[E]xperience over the last 15 years shows that PPPs are an expensive and inefficient way of financing infrastructure and divert government spending away from other public services. They conceal public borrowing, while providing long-term state guarantees for profits to private companies.” They also divert public money away from the neediest infrastructure projects, which may not deliver sizable returns, in favor of those big-ticket items that will deliver hefty profits to investors.
A Better Way to Design an Infrastructure Bank
The Trump team has also reportedly discussed the possibility of an infrastructure bank, but that proposal faces similar hurdles. The details of the proposal are as yet unknown, but past conceptions of an infrastructure bank envision a quasi-bank (not a physical, deposit-taking institution) seeded by the federal government, possibly from taxes on the repatriation of offshore corporate profits. The bank would issue bonds, tax credits, and loan guarantees to state and local governments to leverage private sector investment. As with the private equity proposal, an infrastructure bank would rely on public-private partnerships and investors who would be disinclined to invest in projects that did not generate hefty returns. And those returns would again be paid by the public in the form of tolls, fees, higher rates, and payments from state and local governments.
There is another way to set up a publicly-owned bank. Today’s infrastructure banks are basically revolving funds. A dollar invested is a dollar lent, which must return to the bank (with interest) before it can be lent again. A chartered depository bank, on the other hand, can turn a one-dollar investment into ten dollars in loans. It can do this because depository banks actually create deposits when they make loans. This was acknowledged by economists both at the Bank of England (in a March 2014 paper entitled “Money Creation in the Modern Economy”) and at the Bundesbank (the German central bank) in an April 2017 report.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, money is not fixed and scarce. It is “elastic”: it is created when loans are made and extinguished when they are paid off. The Bank of England report said that private banks create nearly 97 percent of the money supply today. Borrowing from banks (rather than the bond market) expands the circulating money supply. This is something the Federal Reserve tried but failed to do with its quantitative easing (QE) policies: stimulate the economy by expanding the bank lending that expands the money supply.
The stellar (and only) model of a publicly-owned depository bank in the United States is the Bank of North Dakota (BND). It holds all of its home state’s revenues as deposits by law, acting as a sort of “mini-Fed” for North Dakota. According to reports, the BND is more profitable even than Goldman Sachs, has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase, and has seen solid profit growth for almost 15 years. The BND continued to report record profits after two years of oil bust in the state, suggesting that it is highly profitable on its own merits because of its business model. The BND does not pay bonuses, fees, or commissions; has no high paid executives; does not speculate on risky derivatives; does not have multiple branches; does not need to advertise; and does not have private shareholders seeking short-term profits. The profits return to the bank, which distributes them as dividends to the state.
The federal government could set up a bank on a similar model. It has massive revenues, which it could leverage into credit for its own purposes. Since financing is typically about 50 percent of the cost of infrastructure, the government could cut infrastructure costs in half by borrowing from its own bank. Public-private partnerships are a good deal for investors but a bad deal for the public. The federal government can generate its own credit without private financial middlemen. That is how China does it, and we can too.
For more detail on this and other ways to solve the infrastructure problem without raising taxes, slashing services, or privatizing public assets, see Ellen Brown, “Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure,”a policy brief for the Next System Project, March 2017.
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Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, a Senior Fellow of the Democracy Collaborative, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.The Congressional Budget Office’s long-awaited report on the American Health Care Act, released Wednesday, is on one level kind of irrelevant. The GOP-controlled Senate has already said it will write its own bill, dismissing the plan House Republicans passed this month to repeal and replace parts of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
On another level, though, the report does not look good for the GOP’s current approach to reforming the health care system. According to the CBO, an estimated 23 million more people would be uninsured under the House bill in 2026 compared with current law, though the federal deficit would be cut by $119 billion during that time. The CBO score suggests that the last-minute changes to the Republican plan would mean less government savings and more insurance coverage than previous versions — but would result in a system that prices out many with pre-existing health conditions and eliminates much-promised “access” for some people with low incomes.
The CBO report provides important insight into some of the key questions the Senate is grappling with as it crafts new legislation. For the last several months, Republicans in both chambers have been debating three core challenges in U.S. health care policy: How can they wind down Medicaid, which was vastly expanded under Obamacare? How can they bring down the cost of premiums in the private insurance marketplace for people who don’t get insurance from their employer? And what kind of protections should they offer to people with pre-existing health conditions?
By giving a sense of how the House bill performs when it comes to these three core challenges, the report provides a rough roadmap of the tradeoffs Senate Republicans are likely to make as they write a new bill.
The Republicans have a big pre-existing condition problem
The biggest news of the report is how it assessed a controversial amendment added late in the process to win the support of the most conservative Republicans, which wasn’t included in two previous reports from the CBO. That amendment would allow states to seek waivers on various insurance regulations, including financial protections for people with pre-existing health conditions. The move caused public outcry, as it could allow insurers to price some people with health issues out of the marketplaces that target people without employer-sponsored insurance. It also made the task of scoring the bill challenging for the CBO. Among other things, the agency had to estimate how many states would take up the waivers and how many people they would affect.
The CBO’s findings align with what many health policy experts expected: Many people with pre-existing conditions would be priced out of the marketplace where the waivers are used. The CBO doesn’t say where exactly it thinks that will happen, but it estimates that the waivers would affect areas where about one-sixth of the U.S. population lives.
Republicans have said that people with pre-existing conditions wouldn’t necessarily be left uninsured, because the bill also called for a return to high-risk pools, subsidized plans that would isolate people who are expensive to treat, as well as other funding to reduce costs for that group. The idea is that insurance premium costs will go down for everyone else if the most expensive patients are separated out. But critics say the key to successful high-risk pools is sufficient funding, which many have argued is not in the GOP bill. The CBO report backs up the argument that the funding isn’t adequate to curb costs for many with health concerns.
How the Senate handles legislation for people with health problems, arguably those most in need of insurance, will likely be one of the most controversial aspects of its bill. Some in the chamber have signaled that they are likely to pursue policy along the lines of what the House did, allowing greater variations in insurance costs based on health status and age, while allowing insurers to sell plans that offer less coverage. The CBO report’s findings will give more fuel to pushback to this approach from Democrats and patients, as well as Republicans.
The bill is still projected to put a big hole in Medicaid
And while the handling of people with pre-existing conditions is among the most controversial aspects of the law, the biggest change to the uninsured rate would come from cuts to Medicaid enrollments, according to the CBO. The report estimates that about 14 million fewer people would be enrolled in the public insurance program in 2026 under the House plan. The CBO’s estimate of the previous version of the AHCA estimated similar declines in Medicaid enrollment.
That’s why one of the most complicated negotiations for senators will be over what to do with Medicaid. The program has long covered pregnant women, children and people with disabilities, but it was expanded under Obamacare to also cover everyone earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line. The AHCA would slowly deflate the expanded part of the program, by freezing its enrollment and simultaneously reducing federal funding for enrollees.
Even before Wednesday, there was substantial division among senators over Medicaid, between those from states that expanded the program (such as Ohio’s Rob Portman) and senators who don’t want more Americans on government-funded health care, such as Utah conservative Mike Lee. Portman is reportedly looking either to delay the unwinding of the Medicaid expansion or limit the cuts.
Will the individual markets be more affordable?
The House bill seeks to lower the cost of insurance by reducing regulations and removing expensive patients from the general insurance pools, two approaches that are popular among Republican legislators. The changes from current policy would reduce premiums in most places but would also make coverage less comprehensive. Costs would also vary much more widely between groups than they currently do — and still be so high that they would price out some of the poorest and sickest people in the country.
The CBO estimates that for about half the population, marketplace regulations would stay the same, and premiums would go down by an average of 4 percent in 2026 compared with what they would be under current law. Another third of the population lives in states that would invoke some regulatory changes and see a more dramatic reduction of 10 percent to 30 percent. The CBO estimates that the remaining areas would adopt the full set of waivers, which would make their insurance among the cheapest in the nation for young, healthy people — but unaffordable for many of those with health conditions. And, as the CBO notes, those averages obscure dramatic differences in premiums between age groups, since the GOP bill would allow older enrollees to be charged five times more than younger enrollees.
Like today, those costs would be offset by subsidies, though they would leave more of the poor without insurance, even if premiums decreased in most states. That’s because the subsidies would be based solely on age, not income or geographic cost variations, as is the case under Obamacare. Overall, there is likely to be an increase in coverage among healthy middle-class enrollees who currently receive fewer subsidies and have been priced out by rising costs. And even if what people pay for coverage drops, health care costs would go up for some people in states that chose to let insurers sell skimpier policies.
All this adds up to 10 million fewer people using the individual markets in 2020, and 6 million fewer in 2026, than would be expected under the current law, according to the CBO.
The Senate has signaled that it may seek to offer greater financial support to people with lower incomes, which would likely increase coverage compared with the House bill. Current subsidies are generous for the lowest earners, which has substantially increased coverage for this group. It’s unclear how much those subsidies can be reduced before people will start forgoing coverage.
How much will it all cost?
The CBO estimates that the House bill would reduce government revenue by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years, mostly by eliminating the taxes that the ACA imposed on high-income households. But the bill would also cut government spending on health care by $1.1 trillion, mostly by cutting spending on Medicaid. On net, the AHCA would save the government money, reducing the deficit by $119 billion over 10 years.
The bill’s savings are chump change compared to the $8.6 trillion deficit that the federal government is expected to run during that time and are a third the size of the savings that the earlier version of the bill would have provided (per CBO’s estimates). But Republicans avoided the worst-case scenario: a bill that would have cut the deficit by less than $2 billion, which for procedural reasons would have been virtually impossible for the Senate to pass.
Politically, though, the deficit cuts may be a harder sell. In effect, the bill would cut government spending for the poor (Medicaid) in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Democrats hammered that point after the CBO released its earlier report, and the new estimates won’t do much to snuff out that talking point.
What’s next?
These are some of the key questions a 13-man group of GOP senators (none of the five Republican women senators were included, though the GOP meetings have since been opened to all GOP senators) has been debating behind closed doors for weeks, trying to hash out differences between conservatives who want a major rollback of Obamacare, such as Lee, versus Portman and others who want a more measured approach.
The political divides on the Senate bill are already emerging, even before it is fully written. Republicans must earn the votes of 50 of the 52 members. And Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy and Maine’s Susan Collins have already expressed doubts about the legislation.
“I don’t know how we get to 50 (votes) at the moment. But that’s the goal. And exactly what the composition of that (bill) is I’m not going to speculate about because it serves no purpose,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters on Wednesday morning, before the CBO report was released.
Ben Casselman contributed to this article.Rocket League, Psyonix’s phenomenally successful soc-car game, is on the way to Nintendo Switch, the company announced during its E3 2017 Nintendo Spotlight presentation today.
The Switch version is scheduled to be released this holiday season. It will include all the features and modes that are available on other platforms, as well as some special additions for the Switch. For instance, local wireless multiplayer will be available, so you can play with multiple Switch units in the same room. Psyonix is also including exclusive vehicles and Nintendo-themed customization items, such as Mario and Luigi hats for cars.
Rocket League supports cross-network play across each console and PC (i.e., PlayStation 4 and PC, and Xbox One and PC). The same feature will also be available across Switch, PC and Xbox One — not PS4, Psyonix said in its announcement post.
Psyonix originally released Rocket League in July 2015 on PC and PS4. The studio brought the game to Xbox One in February 2016.Only one additional Bill Cosby accuser will get to testify in the comedian's sexual assault trial involving a former Temple University employee instead of the 13 prosecutors wanted, a county judge ruled Friday.
Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill granted the Cosby defense team the rare motion victory in his upcoming trial, the Philadelphia Daily News reported. Prosecutors have said they needed the alleged victims' testimonies to establish Cosby's reported history of misconduct.
The trial pits the longtime entertainer, 79, against Andrea Constand, who charged in 2005 that Cosby had drugged and assaulted her a year earlier at his suburban Philadelphia mansion.
Prosecutors said that 13 women were selected out of the more than 50 who have publicly accused the once entertainment giant of assaulting them in an effort to show he was a serial sexual predator, the Daily News wrote.
Cosby's defense team vigorously fought the prosecutor's efforts, charging that all of the allegations against him were unproven and some, dating back five decades, were too old to disprove, according to the newspaper.
O'Neill agreed to allow the testimony of one victim who alleged that Cosby assaulted her in 1996 in Los Angeles, The Associated Press reported.
In an earlier ruling, O'Neill ruled that jurors will be allowed to hear Cosby's deposition from Constand's 2005 sexual battery lawsuit, the AP reported. The deposition, which was originally sealed, covered the entertainer's extramarital affairs and sexual encounters dating to the 1960s, the news agency said.
The married Cosby, best known for the hit 1980s television series "The Cosby Show," claimed that his encounter with Constand, a former Temple basketball team employee, was consensual. But she told police in 2005 that Cosby gave her three unmarked pills, then she drifted in and out of consciousness as he assaulted her, the AP reported.
The Daily News reported that Pennsylvania law allows for testimony about so-called "prior bad acts" if it establishes a common scheme or pattern, but judges must weigh the value of such unproven claims against the threat of unfairly prejudicing a jury.Public sector data breaches exposed some 28 million identities in 2015, but hackers were responsible for only one-third of those compromises, according to new research.
Instead, negligence was behind nearly two-thirds of the exposed identities through government agencies, the Symantec 2016 Internet Security Threat Report concluded.
In total, the report suggests 21 million identities were compromised accidentally, compared to 6 million by hackers. In other words, officials at the local, state and federal government levels were sometimes the public’s own worst enemy when it came to data breaches in 2015 |
Scala programming languages that run on the Dalvik VM.15 In this instance, these software applications are converted into a set of intermediate instructions i.e., Dalvik "bytecode" or files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format through the use of the "dx" tool included with the Android platform.16 These.dex files can be executed on any mobile device with a Dalvik VM.17 6 (9) The Dalvik VM is a custom-built system that has been optimized for running programs on battery-powered mobile devices that are more limited than desktop computers in terms of computing and memory resources.18 The Dalvik VM relies on the open-source Linux kernel for underlying functionality such as threading and low-level memory management.19 The Dalvik VM was independently developed by Google and the OHA. The class libraries of the Dalvik VM incorporate a subset of Apache Harmony, a clean- room, open source implementation of Java developed by the Apache Software Foundation and released under the same permissive Apache license under which the OHA has released most of Android.20 3. Oracle's Copyright Claim Oracle alleges in the Complaint that it purchased Sun Microsystems ("Sun") in January of 2010 and at that time became the owner of Sun's patents and copyrights in the Java "platform." Compl. ¶¶ 8-9. As to Oracle's copyright claim, the Complaint alleges that "Oracle America owns copyrights in the code, documentation, specifications, libraries, and other materials that comprise the Java platform" and that "Oracle America's Java-related copyrights are registered with the United States Copyright Office, including those attached as Exhibit H." Compl. ¶ 11. Exhibit H to the Complaint consists of certificates of copyright registrations obtained by Sun for two identified works, named "Java 2 Standard Edition 1.4" and "Java Standard Edition, Version 5.0" (the "Asserted Copyrights"). Compl. Ex. H. These registrations 7 (10) appear to relate to versions of certain Sun Java materials that were released as open-sourced software in 2006 and 2007.21 Count VIII of the Complaint the copyright infringement claim alleges generally that "[t]he Java platform contains a substantial amount of original material (including without limitation code, specifications, documentation, and other materials) that is copyrightable subject matter." Compl. ¶ 38. The two operative paragraphs of Count VIII then state as follows: 39. Without consent, authorization, approval, or license, Google knowingly, willingly, and unlawfully copied, prepared, published, and distributed Oracle America's copyrighted work, portions thereof, or derivative works and continues to do so. Google's Android infringes Oracle America's copyrights in Java and Google is not licensed to do so. 40. On information and belief, users of Android, including device manufacturers, must obtain and use copyrightable portions of the Java platform or works derived therefrom to manufacture and use functioning Android devices. Such use is not licensed. Google has thus induced, caused, and materially contributed to the infringing acts of others by encouraging, inducing, allowing and assisting others to use, copy, and distribute Oracle America's copyrightable works, and works derived therefrom. Compl. ¶¶ 39-40. These paragraphs are mere conclusory statements apparently intended to assert two different types of copyright infringement claims against Google. First, Oracle apparently contends in paragraph 39 that Google itself infringes the Asserted Copyrights because "Google... copied, prepared, published and distributed Oracle America's copyrighted work, portions thereof, or derivative works and continues to do so." Compl. ¶ 39 (emphasis added). Second, Oracle apparently contends that Google is vicariously liable for alleged infringement of the Asserted Copyrights by others because "[o]n information and belief, users of Android, including device manufacturers, must obtain and use copyrightable portions of the Java platform or works 8 (11) derived therefrom to manufacture and use functioning Android devices" and that, for reasons that are not explained, Google allegedly "has thus induced, caused, and materially contributed to the infringing acts of others by encouraging, inducing, allowing and assisting others to use, copy, and distribute Oracle America's copyrightable works." Compl. ¶ 40 (emphasis added). The remainder of the allegations of Count VIII are general allegations that merely recite additional generalities and claims for different types of relief. Compl. ¶¶ 41-46. Importantly, the Complaint does not include any identification of any specific work created or distributed by Google that allegedly infringes the Asserted Copyrights, nor does it even identify the type of work (software code, reference materials, development kit materials) that allegedly infringes. The Complaint also does not include any explanation or identification whatsoever of any alleged unlicensed acts of infringement of the Asserted Copyrights by any other party (including those for which Oracle seeks to hold Google vicariously liable) or any alleged acts of Google that constitute inducement of infringement or contributory infringement with respect to any such alleged unlicensed acts of others. B. Oracle Fails To State A Claim For Copyright Infringement. 1. The Applicable Pleading Requirements Are Well-Settled. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that the complaint must include a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. Fed. R. Civ. P 8(a)(2). The United States Supreme Court's opinions in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009), confirmed that, although detailed factual allegations are not required, satisfying Rule 8(a)(2) requires the complaint to plead sufficient factual matter, accepted to be true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 570). A pleading that offers only labels and conclusions or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action is insufficient. Iqbal 556 129 S. Ct. at 1949. Courts in this district, including this Court, have applied Iqbal and Twombly to dismiss copyright infringement claims that merely state the elements of the claims 9 (12) and legal conclusions without any underlying facts. See Miller v. Facebook, Inc., No. 5:10-cv- 264-WHA, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31534, at *9 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 31, 2010). 2. Proper Pleading of Copyright Infringement Requires Sufficient
Factual Allegations Describing the Alleged Infringement. A claim of copyright infringement requires the plaintiff to prove (1) ownership of a valid copyright and (2) violation of one of the exclusive rights granted by section 106 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 106. See A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1013 (9th Cir. 2001). Applying Iqbal and Twombly, courts in this district have recently dismissed claims of copyright infringement that did not include any factual allegations regarding how the defendant allegedly infringed the plaintiff's copyright. See Miller, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31534 at *9; Cutler v. Enzymes, Inc., No. 08-04650-JF, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17942, at *8-9 (N.D. Cal. Feb 25, 2009). In both Miller and Cutler, the complaints lacked any facts that described in sufficient detail the infringing acts. In Miller, the complaint merely alleged that the defendant Facebook "reproduced and distributed" an infringing work, by, among other things, publishing the work in their application directory, allowing Facebook users to "search and view" the application. See Miller, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31534, at *4, *8-9. On Facebook's motion to dismiss, this Court found such allegations deficient, and concluded that the plaintiff must provide "sufficient factual allegations to explain how defendant Facebook copied, displayed, or distributed infringing copies" of the work, and dismissed the complaint. See Miller, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31534, at *9 (emphasis added). Similarly, the court in Cutler dismissed a complaint for copyright infringement that did not include any specific facts about the alleged acts of infringement. Cutler, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17942, at *9 (granting motion to dismiss because "[a]side from claims of ownership, the complaint is devoid of any other specific facts related to the Published Work and alleged copyright infringement"). 10 (13) Although promulgated before the Supreme Court issued Iqbal and Twombly, the pleading forms in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure confirm the need to plead sufficient factual support describing the acts of infringement. Fed. R. Civ. P., Form 19 (2007). Form 19 the form complaint for copyright infringement identifies the copyrighted work, identifies the allegedly infringing work, and explains how the alleged infringement occurred. See id. Specifically, the form pleading suggests an allegation to the effect that "[a]fter the copyright was issued, the defendant infringed the copyright by publishing and selling a book entitled ____, which was copied largely from the plaintiff's book." Id. 3. Oracle's Claim For Copyright Infringement Is Deficient. Oracle's Complaint fails to satisfy the standards set forth in Iqbal, Twombly, and Form 19, and therefore dismissal of Count VIII would be fully consistent with the decisions in Miller and Cutler. This authority is clear Oracle's Complaint must provide facts that identify or describe (1) the works in which a valid copyright is claimed;22 (2) the alleged acts of infringement, including identifying the allegedly infringing work or works, see Cutler, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17942, at *9; and (3) how any accused infringer has infringed and how any party has induced or contributed to such infringement. See Miller, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31534, at *9. Because Oracle's Complaint fails to provide any facts identifying any Google work that allegedly infringes the Asserted Copyrights, and fails to provide any factual allegations as to how Google or any third parties are allegedly infringing, Oracle's Complaint does not state a claim for copyright infringement. Oracle's Complaint includes only three allegations relating to direct copyright infringement: (1) that Oracle owns copyrights in the Sun materials that comprise the Java platform and, more specifically, in the Sun works that are the subject of the copyright 11 (14) registrations shown in Exhibit H, Compl. ¶ 11; (2) that Google has "copied, prepared, published and distributed Oracle America's copyrighted work, portions thereof, or derivative works and continues to do so," Compl. ¶ 39 (emphasis added); and (3) that "Google's Android infringes Oracle America's copyrights in Java and Google is not licensed to do so." Compl. ¶ 39. These allegations: do not identify the type(s) of "copyrighted work" allegedly copied; 23
do not specify whether Google has allegedly copied and distributed entire works of Sun / Oracle, "portions thereof" (and, if so, what portions), or "derivative works";
do not identify any specific work or works of Google or even the types of materials that Google has created by allegedly copying, preparing, publishing, and distributing Sun / Oracle's copyrighted work; and
do not provide any facts that suggest how any alleged infringement has occurred. Rather than allege facts to support its claim, Oracle instead pleads nothing more than a rote recitation of certain of the exclusive rights the Copyright Act provides in 17 U.S.C. § 106, with absolutely no supporting facts. Like the complaints in both Miller and Cutler, there is no factual allegation as to how any Google materials relating to Android allegedly infringe the Asserted Copyrights. See Compl. ¶ 39. Indeed, Oracle fails to provide any assertion as to which part of Android which even Oracle concedes is an "operating system software platform" consisting of numerous types and extensive amounts of materials, Compl. ¶ 12 allegedly infringes the Asserted Copyrights. See Compl. ¶ 39. Oracle's Complaint is precisely the type of bare recitation of elements that the Supreme Court warned against in Iqbal. 12 (15) Oracle's allegations also fail to meet the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P., Form 19, which requires factual pleadings that identify both the infringing work, and how that work infringes. See Fed. R. Civ. P., Form 19 ("the defendant infringed the copyright by publishing and selling a book entitled _____, which was copied largely from the plaintiff's book"). Oracle's Complaint does not come close to even this form pleading. Oracle's Complaint does not allege that any work of Google Android or otherwise is a copy of, or is substantially similar to, any of Sun / Oracle's copyrighted works. See Compl. ¶ 39. This deficiency is compounded by the fact that "Android" as a whole contains over 11 million lines of computer code, thousands of pages of documentation, and thousands of components.24 See Compl. ¶ 39 ("Google's Android infringes Oracle America's copyrights"). Oracle's Complaint provides no indication of what part or parts of "Android," which could include code, documentation, specifications, and many other types of materials, allegedly infringe. There is no justification for Oracle's failure to plead sufficient facts to assert a copyright infringement claim. All of the relevant materials, including the Android source code, has been publicly available since the Android Open Source Project released the code base in 2008.25 Every fact that Oracle could have required to properly plead copyright infringement was available to Oracle before it filed this lawsuit, and Oracle and its counsel were required to make a good-faith evaluation of the merits of the claim. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(3). Because all of the information Oracle requires is already publicly available, Oracle cannot excuse its vague pleading by claiming that it needs discovery to identify the accused works or acts. 13 (16) 4. Oracle's Claim For Vicarious Copyright Liability Is Also Deficient. Oracle's assertion of vicarious copyright liability suffers from the same deficiencies as its claim of infringement by Google. A claim for vicarious liability for copyright infringement requires the plaintiff to plead acts of infringement of the Asserted Copyrights by a third party, and knowledge and inducement of those acts by the defendant. See Perfect 10, Inc. v. Visa Int'l Service Ass'n, 494 F.3d 788, 795 (9th Cir. 2007). Oracle has not pleaded with any specificity any alleged acts of infringement of the Asserted Copyrights by a third party or any acts of Google that supposedly induced such infringement. Oracle's Complaint asserts only that third parties infringe the Asserted Copyrights because "users of Android, including device manufacturers, must obtain and use copyrightable portions of the Java platform." Compl. ¶ 40. Neither "obtaining" nor "using," however, are among the exclusive rights of a copyright owner under the copyright statute. See 17 U.S.C. § 106. For this reason alone, the claim of vicarious liability for infringement should be dismissed. Oracle also fails to identify any works of third parties that allegedly infringe the Asserted Copyrights, any specific acts of any third parties that allegedly infringe Oracle's copyright rights, or any acts of Google that allegedly induced or contributed to any such infringement. Oracle's claim against Google of vicarious liability for copyright infringement therefore fails to adequately state a claim for infringement. C. Google Is Entitled To A More Definite Statement. If the Court declines to dismiss Count VIII of Oracle's Complaint, Google respectfully requests that the Court order Oracle to provide a more definite statement of its claims for copyright infringement. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(e) allows a party to move for a more definite statement when a pleading is so vague or ambiguous that the party cannot reasonably prepare a response. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(e). Although generally disfavored, this district has found such relief to be appropriate in a copyright case where, as here, the complaint is impermissibly 14 (17) vague regarding the alleged claim of infringement. See Sega Enters. LTD. v. Accolade, Inc., No. 91-3871, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4621, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 20, 1992). The Sega court noted that the complaint vaguely alleged infringement of "other works" (among other things), and ordered plaintiff to provide a more definite statement specifying "the particular 'other works' which are subject to the copyright claim and registration of those works, the acts constituting infringement of those works, and the dates the infringement occurred." Id. Similarly, Oracle's Complaint asserts that Google has "copied, prepared, published, and distributed Oracle America's copyrighted work, portions thereof, or derivative works." Compl. ¶ 39. Oracle should at a minimum be required to identify any specific "copyrighted work" or "portion thereof" that Google allegedly copied or distributed, any "derivative works" known to Oracle that form the basis of its claim, as well as the acts constituting the alleged infringement.26 Finally, as discussed above, Oracle's Complaint fails entirely to identify any facts giving rise to Oracle's claim of vicarious infringement based on alleged acts of infringement by third parties. Oracle's more definite statement should include specification of the alleged acts of such parties that Oracle believes infringe its Asserted Copyrights and how such acts infringe, as well as the acts of Google that Oracle believes make Google liable for any such alleged infringement. III. Conclusion Oracle's Complaint includes impermissibly vague and broad allegations of copyright infringement. In particular, the Complaint does not specifically identify any allegedly infringing works of Google, how Google has allegedly infringed Oracle's rights in the two Sun works attached to the Complaint, or how Oracle believes its claim of vicarious liability for copyright infringement arises. For these reasons, Count VIII of Oracle's Complaint fails to meet the 15 (18) minimum pleading standards required by the law, and fails to properly put Google on notice of the substance of Oracle's claims. Accordingly, the Court should dismiss Count VIII of the Complaint, or, in the alternative, should require Oracle to provide a more definite statement of its copyright claims. DATED: October 4, 2010 Respectfully submitted, KING & SPALDING LLP
By: /s/ Donald F. Zimmer, Jr.______
SCOTT T. WEINGAERTNER (Pro Hac Vice)
[email]
ROBERT F. PERRY
[email]
BRUCE W. BABER (Pro Hac Vice Pending)
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KING & SPALDING LLP
[address]
[phone]
[fax]
DONALD F. ZIMMER, JR. (SBN 112279)
[email]
CHERYL A. SABNIS (SBN 224323)
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KING & SPALDING LLP
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[fax] ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANT
GOOGLE INC. 16 (19) See Android Timeline, http://www.android.com/timeline.html. See Open Handset Alliance, http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/index.html, Alliance Overview, http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_overview.html. See id.; Android Timeline, http://www.android.com/timeline.html. See Licenses Android Open Source, http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html. See Android Timeline, http://www.android.com/timeline.html. See id. See Philosophy and Goals Android Open Source, http://source.android.com/about/philosophy.html. See Android SDK, http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html; Android 2.2 Platform, http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2.html. See What is Android?, http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html; http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/index.html. See Android Developers, http://developer.android.com/index.html. The overwhelming majority of the Android software source code and its supporting documentation is publicly available. The exceptions, such as low-level hardware drivers which are proprietary to hardware makers, and proprietary third party (and Google) business applications none of which are mentioned in Oracle's Complaint are peripheral to the core Android platform. See About the Java Technology, http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/intro/definition.html (describing the process of creating Java bytecode and translating the Java bytecode into machine instructions using the Java virtual machine); Parrot The Parrot Primer, http://docs.parrot.org/parrot/latest/html/docs/intro.pod.html (describing basic virtual machine functionality). See The Java Virtual Machine Specification (2d ed. 1999), at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jvms/second_edition/html/Introduction.doc.html ("It is reasonably common to implement a programming language using a virtual machine; the best- known virtual machine may be the P-Code machine of UCSD Pascal."). See id., Glossary Python v3.1.2 documentation, http://docs.python.org/py3k/glossary.html#term-bytecode. See http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html#overview (describing the use of native code on Android). See What is Android?, http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html; http://code.google.com/p/android-ruby; http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/scalaide/Developing_for_Android. See id. See id. See Glossary Android Developers, http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/glossary.html; What is Android?, http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html; Android Overview, http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html. See What is Android?, http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html. See Dalvik Android Open Source, http://source.android.com/porting/dalvik.html; Apache Harmony Open Source Java Platform, http://harmony.apache.org; Apache Harmony Apache License, http://harmony.apache.org/license.html; Licenses Android Open Source, http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html. See Jim Inscore, Opening Up: Laurie Tolson on Open Source Strategy for the Java Platform, available at http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/javaopensource/OS_qa ("Sun will release several significant components of Java SE by the end of 2006.... The rest of a buildable JDK will be released in early 2007"). Oracle's Complaint appears to identify two specific Sun works that presumably are the subject of the copyrights on which Oracle's claim is based, namely the works entitled "Java 2 Standard Edition 1.4" and "Java 2 Standard Edition, Version 5.0," which are the works identified in the Asserted Copyrights shown in Exhibit H to the Complaint. The copyright registrations attached to Oracle's Complaint as Exhibit H state that the Sun works that are the subject of the registrations include at least both "computer code" and "documentation and manuals." Complaint, Ex. H, Form TX 6-196-514 at space 6(b) and Form TX 6-066-538 at space 6(b). Android is a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html. It includes a full set of tools for developers, id., and an entire suite of reference documentation, http://developer.android.com/reference/packages.html. The Dalvik virtual machine is only one of over 240 separate source code modules that make up Android. http://android.git.kernel.org. See, e.g., http://www.android.com/timeline.html; http://android.git.kernel.org. Oracle also contends that the "copyrightable" portions of the "Java platform" include, "without limitation code, specifications, documentation, and other materials." Compl. ¶ 38. To the extent Oracle believes that Google has infringed or is liable for infringement by any party of the copyrights in any works other than those that are the subject of the two registrations included in Exhibit H to the Complaint, Oracle should identify any and all such other works and the copyright registrations for them. See Sega, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4621, at *4.About Deceptive Proposition 63
Read what one of the leaders at the Association of Deputy District Attorneys in Los Angeles thinks about Proposition 63
Do Ammunition Background Checks Reduce Murder Rates?
About the Ballot Initiative Process
Statewide Initiative Rules for Gathering Signatures
About Your Vote
Let Your Voice Be Heard! Register To Vote Today!
About Prop 63’s Dirty Tricks
We’ve received many disturbing reports of widespread deceit by Proposition 63 signature gatherers. See below for two pieces of video evidence showing them misrepresenting the facts in order to coerce people to sign his petition.
Letters of Opposition
California Correctional Peace Officers Association
Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles
California Reserve Peace Officers Association
California State Sheriffs’ Association
California Fish & Game Wardens’ Association
Law Enforcement Action Network
Western States Sheriffs’ Association
California Police Chiefs Association
Groups & Individuals Opposed
This is not a complete list as many more individuals and groups who are opposed to Proposition 63 are joining our cause daily.
Click here to see the list!Google Cracks Down On Deceptive Ads And Other Shady Behaviors Found In Android Apps
Android apps are about to get cleaned up. That is, if the recently added changes to the Google Play Developer Program Policy are actually enforced. Google this week updated its policy that dictates to app developers what sort of content their apps are permitted to display, with a number of rules designed to crack down on shady and deceptive ads.
In addition, the changes put the onus on the developers themselves to make sure that no ad networks or affiliates they’re using for app promotion purposes are engaged in these practices.
The majority of the changes are detailed in a new section of the Google Play Developer Program Policy called “App Promotion,” which reads as follows:
Apps published on Google Play may not directly or indirectly engage in or benefit from the following behavior: Promotion via deceptive ads on websites, apps or other properties, including simulated system, service, or app notifications or alerts.
Promotion or install tactics which cause redirection to Google Play or the download of the app without informed user action.
Unsolicited promotion via SMS services. It is your responsibility to ensure that no ad network or affiliate uses such methods to direct users to pages that make your app available for download.
In other words, app developers are not permitted to fool users into downloading apps by simulating a system dialog box – a nasty trick that has been around the web for eons, most memorably perhaps with web-based pop-up ads designed to look like Windows dialog boxes, warning users of system errors or malware infections. Those same tactics today continue today on Android, too, except this time around, the system being simulated is the Android OS, not Windows.
Another change regarding advertising warns developers about an ad’s context, reminding them again that:
Ads must not simulate or impersonate the user interface of any app, or notification and warning elements of an operating system. It must be clear to the user which app each ad is associated with or implemented in.
This line is also warning ad networks, who are often at fault for these deceptive behaviors.
Other Changes
Apps are also no longer allowed to use the smartphone’s SMS functionality without getting explicit user consent. That’s something many app developers take advantage of today on both Android and iOS, actually – they often send out text messages as a way of building up an app’s initial audience through forced viral effects. (Sometimes it almost works.)
Though Apple has enforced stricter policies on this matter by way of its app review policy, a number of iOS apps, too, have made their app’s user interface just confusing enough that users would accidentally give consent, and then unknowingly spam their friends. On Android, however, some apps wouldn’t even bother with tricking users into consenting – they’d skip right to the spamming.
A few other sections of the content policy have been clarified, including those referencing sexually explicit material, and those banning dangerous products and other changes to the system interface.
In the case of the former, the text has been modified to include “erotic content,” noting basically that now an app’s content can’t be “erotic” in order to promote pornography.
Previously, Google said that: “We don’t allow content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material.”
Now that text reads: “Apps that contain or promote pornography are prohibited; this includes sexually explicit or erotic content, icons, titles or descriptions.”
(Finding a non-pornographic screenshot for the search “sexy” on Google Play was nearly impossible!)
This revised wording seems to leave a loophole for educational material related to sexuality, possibly allowing for the more instructional, as opposed to smutty, Kama Sutra apps, for example.
In-App Purchase Clarity And Minor Tweaks
Another change in a different section says that app developers must be clear when they’re using in-app purchases to generate revenue, explaining to users which features require an additional charge.
Finally, apps are also banned not only for containing viruses, worms and other malware, but also for simply linking to them, as well as for modifying browser settings, which is now a system interface change banned alongside adding homescreen shortcuts, bookmarks or icons.
Google is alerting developers to the change via email, giving the a couple of weeks to unpublish their app and resubmit it before these apps are banned:
Any new apps or app updates published after this notification will be immediately subject to the latest version of the Program Policy. If you find any existing apps in your catalog that don’t comply, we ask you to unpublish the app, or fix and republish the app within 15 calendar days of receiving this email. After this period, existing apps discovered to be in violation may be subject to warning or removal from Google Play
The full text of that emailed letter to mobile app developers is here.French rugby star Mathieu Bastareaud has written an autobiography that outlines what happened on the night of June 20, 2009, in Wellington, as well as his battle with alcohol and depression.
A French rugby player who lied about being attacked and beaten by a group of men in Wellington has written a tell-all book revealing more details about the night.
Mathieu Bastareaud claimed that, during the French tour of New Zealand in 2009, he was bashed by five Maori or Pacific Islanders in central Wellington on June 20, after the second test at Westpac Stadium.
However, police told the French team, via the New Zealand Rugby Union, of evidence that contradicted his story, including CCTV footage of him entering his hotel on Featherston St uninjured.
Only then did Bastareaud, who was 20 at the time, admit he had lied. Instead, he had injured his head on a table at the hotel after drinking too much.
The Toulon centre writes about the incident in his autobiography Head High: Confessions of an enfant terrible of rugby, in which he also chronicles his battle with alcohol and depression.
He went out drinking after France's 14-10 loss to the All Blacks, and returned to his room "in a not very glorious state", he writes.
"Then, wanting to take off my clothes, I lose my balance. I stagger and, awkwardly, I collapse on the floor with all my weight. In my fall, I smash the room's night table.
"The shock is terrible. I bleed a bit. It hurts. My left cheekbone is exploded. But overall, I panic."
He was young and did not want to ruin his burgeoning career, so he found teammate Alexis Palisson and they woke their team doctor to stitch his wounds.
"He asked me how I [got] this injury. I should have confessed I was drunk, but I'm not proud of my behaviour and I am afraid to face sanctions. I am a coward.
"So, instead of telling the truth and trusting management, I am going to develop a lie that will have heavy consequences."
He felt very guilty about lying, but had gone too far with it to turn back.
"I'm not proud of myself. I have been dishonest, I lied, I betrayed guys."
When he returned to France, Bastareaud – who suffered from bulimia as a child – began to drink heavily, became depressed and tried to commit suicide, after seeing a website on which anonymous people criticised him.
"I jumped up and walked to the kitchen. I took a big knife and slit my veins. I immediately collapsed on the floor, fainting.
"My friends in the living room got it immediately. They saw the knife, the blood, and me lying on the floor, unconscious. They called emergency services immediately."
He was kept in hospital with severe psychological troubles.
"I don't know if I really wanted to die. I wanted to suffer. Suffer to punish myself," he writes.
"When you hear everywhere all day long that you are just a loser, that you don't deserve to be there... You try to keep a cool attitude but you begin to believe what people say... I smiled in public but, as soon as I came back home, I was alone."
His scars are now hidden beneath numerous tattoos.
With the help of a psychologist, his mental health has improved and he is training with the French team preparing for the Rugby World Cup in England in September.
HELPLINES
* Lifeline: 0800 543 354 - Provides 24 hour telephone counselling
* Youthline: 0800 376 633 or free text 234 - Provides 24 hour telephone and text counselling services for young people
* Samaritans: 0800 726 666 - Provides 24 hour telephone counselling.
* Tautoko: 0508 828 865 - provides support, information and resources to people at risk of suicide, and their family, whānau and friends.
* Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (noon to midnight)
* Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (4pm - 6pm weekdays)
If it is an emergency or you feel you or someone you know is at risk, please call 111
For information about suicide prevention, see http://www.spinz.org.nz.Engaging customers with Live Tiles and toast notifications (10 by 10) By Rajen Kishna Share Share Skype
Last week, we talked about how you can do three things to get your apps discovered and launched by Windows 10 customers. This week, we’d like to continue with how to increase customer engagement through some of the most loved features of Windows apps: Live Tiles and toast notifications.
If you’re already a Windows app developer, you are probably familiar with Live Tiles and toast notifications. If not, the increasing amount of Windows 10 customers is certainly a good motivator to start thinking about implementing them. Here’s what’s new:
Universal Action Center – After toast notifications are received, they now go into a system area called Action Center. With Windows 10, we’re bringing Action Center to Windows desktops, laptops and tablets, in addition to phones where it was already available. This means customers can get back to notifications they might have missed due to the transient nature of the initial toast and can interact with them in new ways.
– After toast notifications are received, they now go into a system area called Action Center. With Windows 10, we’re bringing Action Center to Windows desktops, laptops and tablets, in addition to phones where it was already available. This means customers can get back to notifications they might have missed due to the transient nature of the initial toast and can interact with them in new ways. Adaptive and interactive toast notifications – Toast notifications across Windows devices can now display interactive UI, so customers can immediately provide input and take action. This means you can capture input, and even run app code, without pulling the customer from their current context. Toast notifications can also be enriched with images in addition to text.
– Toast notifications across Windows devices can now display interactive UI, so customers can immediately provide input and take action. This means you can capture input, and even run app code, without pulling the customer from their current context. Toast notifications can also be enriched with images in addition to text. Adaptive Live Tile templates – Content on Live Tiles can now be described using simple markup language, giving you full flexibility on how content is displayed on the Live Tile. Adaptive Live Tiles also adapt to different screen density devices, so you can ensure the Live Tile looks great on any device.
– Content on Live Tiles can now be described using simple markup language, giving you full flexibility on how content is displayed on the Live Tile. Adaptive Live Tiles also adapt to different screen density devices, so you can ensure the Live Tile looks great on any device. Improved secondary tile pinning behavior – Requesting to pin a secondary tile is now done without any customer or system interaction, so your app can immediately execute additional code after the tile is pinned. This also allows you to pin multiple tiles at once and send tile notifications to them immediately after pinning.
– Requesting to pin a secondary tile is now done without any customer or system interaction, so your app can immediately execute additional code after the tile is pinned. This also allows you to pin multiple tiles at once and send tile notifications to them immediately after pinning. Synchronizing Live Tiles and toast notifications – A new type of background task trigger, called ToastNotificationHistoryChangedTrigger, allows background tasks to be triggered when the app’s notification collection is changed by anything other than the app itself. This means you can execute code when a customer dismisses notifications in Action Center, when notifications expire, or when new notifications are pushed through Windows Push Notification Services (WNS), making it easy to keep your Live Tile up –to date.
– A new type of background task trigger, called ToastNotificationHistoryChangedTrigger, allows background tasks to be triggered when the app’s notification collection is changed by anything other than the app itself. This means you can execute code when a customer dismisses notifications in Action Center, when notifications expire, or when new notifications are pushed through Windows Push Notification Services (WNS), making it easy to keep your Live Tile up –to date. Badge unification – Last, but not least: Live Tile badges are now unified across devices, so the glyphs that were previously only available on Windows are now also available on devices running Windows 10 Mobile. This also |
agua in Jaragua do Sul, Brazil on May 18, 2013.
Check out all 25 of them below:
That's a wrap for this set of UFC facts.
Did you learn anything new/interesting? Do any of the facts change your perspective on Saturday's fights?
Let us know below!
(Some info courtesy of UFC, Fight Metric and BestFightOdds)
For more news and notes on UFC on FX 8: "Belfort vs. Rockhold," be sure to visit our complete event archive here.A U.S. Customs and Border patrol officer stands on a bridge in May at a port of entry between Mexico and the United States in McAllen, Tex. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
This is an incredible story:
Davino Watson told the immigration officers that he was a U.S. citizen. He told jail officials that he was a U.S. citizen. He told a judge. He repeated it again and again. There is no right to a court-appointed attorney in immigration court. Watson, who was 23 and didn’t have a high school diploma when he entered ICE custody, didn’t have a lawyer of his own. So he hand-wrote a letter to immigration officers, attaching his father’s naturalization certificate, and kept repeating his status to anyone who would listen. Still, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Watson imprisoned as a deportable alien for nearly 3 1/2 years. Then it released Watson, who was from New York, in rural Alabama with no money and no explanation. Deportation proceedings continued for another year. Watson was correct all along: He was a U.S. citizen.
He then sued, and a federal district court awarded him $82,500. That’s a paltry sum for what he went through. But it gets worse.
On Monday, an appeals court ruled that Watson, now 32, is not eligible for any of that money — because while his case is “disturbing,” the statute of limitations actually expired while he was still in ICE custody without a lawyer.
So while Watson was being illegally detained, while he was being denied a lawyer, while he was being ignored as he pleaded with these federal agencies to simply check his documentation, the statute of limitations on his window in which to file a lawsuit was slowly ticking away. The government wasn’t merely incompetent and cruel — it then rewarded itself for its incompetence and cruelty. If you work in immigration enforcement, the lesson here is clear: If you happen to learn that you or your agency has mistakenly detained an American citizen, feign ignorance and keep that citizen detained until he or she is no longer able to file a lawsuit.
Watson’s story also exposes the administrative lie behind refusing to provide legal counsel for indigent people suspected of being in the country illegally. Because most immigration proceedings are considered civil and not criminal, there is no Sixth Amendment right to counsel. But the fact that someone can be detained for years is a pretty good indication that immigration enforcement is a criminal procedure in every way except how the government has chosen to classify it. Which of course is the only way that matters.
There’s a temptation to call a story like this “Kafkaesque.” But I doubt even Kafka could have come up with this — and if had, he’d likely have discarded it as too implausible for fiction. I mean, it’s almost as bad as learning that an innocent man spent 30 years on death row … and then passing a bill to speed up executions.Norm Macdonald is pretty fearless on talk shows. No matter what show he’s on — I’ve also seen him convulse Conan O’Brien pretty often, too — Macdonald establishes his own rhythm. He’ll risk frittering away his couch-time chasing a rhythm just out of reach, or he’ll catch the rhythm and really rides it out, until a producer signals the finish-line.
This night, Macdonald was, as Letterman sometimes says, solid gold. He talked about a pork chop, the difference between eating at home and in restaurants, and told stories about people we are unlikely to hear about on talk shows once Letterman retires: Giants of men like sportscaster Bob Uecker, comedian George Miller, and actor Jack Warden.
Miller, who died in 2003, was a special favorite of Letterman and Macdonald’s, a hard-working club comedian, a pal of Letterman’s since the host’s own stand-up days. Macdonald and Letterman shared favorite Miller jokes, and trust me, Norm gets Miller’s tone and pacing down impeccably here.
Part of Macdonald’s recent history is his activity on Twitter, where he has conducted a (serious?) campaign to replace Craig Ferguson, told a tale about meeting Bob Dylan (since deleted — the tweets, not Dylan), and got a lot of traction doling out tweets chronicling behind-the-scenes writing sessions for Eddie Murphy’s appearance on the SNL 40 special. Macdonald has been ill-served by television, as the uneven 1999-2001 sitcom Norm proved, but he got good stories out of his TV experiences, and Wednesday night told one such tale about actor Jack Warden.
Even better was Macdonald’s anecdote about Bob Uecker. This was Macdonald at his finest, commencing the bit with some thoughts about Las Vegas, cast in Macdonald’s unique phrasing, a mixture of the conversational-vulgar and the fussily precise (no one else would say “gossipy small-town whores”). You can see Letterman relax during this segment, the way he does when turning over the proceedings to a guest who’s in full command of a story, especially if it seems to be a meandering one that’s nevertheless headed for a good punchline.
Letterman and Macdonald acknowledged that this would be the latter’s final appearance with Dave. (“I understand there’s only 12 shows left” — trademark Macdonald: the confident error). As Macdonald gathered himself to go, Dave said, “Could be the funniest man in the world. God bless you.”
The band played to commercial as Letterman and Macdonald rose and Dave gave Norm the most sincere hug I’ve seen the host give a guest in a long time. It was, all in all, another one of those talk-show segments (two, if you want to get technical) that are never going to exist again once Letterman exits the scene.
The Late Show With David Letterman airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on CBS.The answer to that question is probably yes, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A chapter in its latest World Economic Outlook warns emerging economies they can no longer count on the benign external environment that had led to high economic growth in their economies in the last few decades.
It warns of “fading external tailwinds, including waning potential growth in advanced economies, slowdown and rebalancing in China, and a shift in the commodity cycle that has affected commodity exporters". It says that, “Together with a risk of protectionism in advanced economies and tighter financial conditions as US monetary policy normalizes, these changes make for a more challenging external environment for emerging market and developing economies going forward."
The chart paints a broad picture. It shows how the contribution of emerging markets to world growth increased from 18.2% during 1976-79 to 69.82% during 2010-15. The contribution of developing countries to world consumption rose even more markedly—from 13.9% during 1976-79 to 72% in 2010-15. But the rise of emerging markets is an old story. What’s new are the projections—the IMF forecasts that the contribution of emerging economies to both global growth and consumption will decrease during the period 2016-2021, as the chart indicates. True, the decrease is not much, but it does mark a turning point from the hefty increases of earlier decades.
How important are external conditions for growth in emerging markets? The IMF article says a 1 percentage point increase in domestic absorption by a country’s trading partners translates into around a fifth of the annual average growth in GDP per capita in emerging markets. And secondly, a 1 percentage point increase in the ratio of capital flows to GDP of emerging market and developing economies raises medium-term growth by 0.2 percentage points.
Taken together with higher growth on account of better terms of trade for commodities, the IMF estimates that over the past two decades, these factors accounted for more than half of medium-term growth, on average, across emerging market and developing economies. In turn, about half of the contribution to growth from external factors is due to higher capital inflows to emerging markets.
Will India too be affected? Well, India is one of those countries where domestic demand has been the mainstay of growth. But we shouldn’t underestimate the important part that external demand has played in supplementing that growth. One very important element of India’s liberalisation story and of its growth pick-up after liberalisation is the increase in its share of exports of goods and services to GDP from 6.8% in 1990-91 to 25% in 2013-14. The most rapid spurt happened in the early noughties, during the period of the global boom, when the ratio went up from 12.6% in 2001-02 to 23.7% in 2008-09.
As the IMF report says, “a favourable impulse from external demand and financial conditions helps medium-term growth outcomes by making growth accelerations more likely. It also reduces the likelihood of growth reversals."
That’s not all. The rise in fund flows to the Indian stock markets during the noughties led to a boom in the secondary and primary equity markets, allowing companies to raise capital easily and lowering their cost of capital. This, in turn, sparked an investment boom and also led to higher employment, higher wages and consequently, to higher consumption. As the IMF says, “Capital inflows can enhance growth in emerging market and developing economies through various channels: augmentation of funds available for investment, transmission of crucial know-how and technological diffusion, and adoption of market discipline and better governance practices."
Given the importance of the external sector, what then can be done to mitigate the impact of the headwinds mentioned above? The IMF believes that, faced with a potentially less supportive external environment than in the past, emerging market and developing economies can get the most out of a weaker growth impulse from external conditions by strengthening their institutional frameworks and adopting a policy mix that protects trade integration; permits exchange rate flexibility; and ensures that vulnerabilities stemming from high current account deficits and external debt, as well as high public debt, are contained.
These are all standard text-book remedies, but complying with them will be all the more important in a less benign external environment.
The markets, fixated perhaps on the short term, seem to be ignoring these long-run risks outlined by the IMF. As a recent Bank for International Settlements paper by Luis Awazu Pereira de Silva and Elod Takats says, “We are witnessing a departure from the policies of trade integration and multilateral cooperation that have been our successful recipe for the last 50 years. Is it purely rhetorical or real? Temporary or lasting? Is it linked to the current backlash against globalisation? Therefore, there is a disconnect between market exuberance and policy uncertainty. There are indeed threats to trade, financial integration and international cooperation that benefited both AEs and EMEs. These threats are increasing."Atlanta United scored a stunning 70 goals in their inaugural season, but some rose to the top as the best in the league that week. Here's every ATL UTD goal that won MLS Goal of the Week:
Matchweek 2 - Miguel Almirón vs. Minnesota United
The snow game, the moment the Atlanta United attack burst into the headlines with six goals against Minnesota. And Miguel Almirón's volley was the best of the match, and in the league that week.
Matchweek 3 - Josef Martinez vs. Chicago Fire
Josef Martinez scored 19 goals in his incredible first season, but only took home one MLS Goal of the Week award. But what a goal it was, collecting a clever pass from Yamil Asad, rounding the goalkeeper and slotting home from an impossible angle.
Matchweek 12 - Miguel Almirón vs. Houston Dynamo
Miguel Almirón put three past the Houston Dynamo at Bobby Dodd Stadium in a memorable night for the Atlanta United supporters, but his first of the night was voted the best of the week by MLS fans.
Matchweek 13 - Tito Villalba vs. NYCFC
Tito Villalba had several headline-grabbing finishes this year, but it was this nice pass from Yamil Asad and brilliant curling effort that won him his first MLS Goal of the Week nod.
Matchweek 16 - Miguel Almirón vs Columbus Crew
After a beautiful tackle and leading pass from Leandro González Pirez, Miguel Almirón turned into a one-man counterattack to scorch the Columbus Crew defense.
Matchweek 20 - Tito Villalba vs Orlando City
A goal that's up for Goal of the Year certainly won the MLS Goal of the Week contest, and this one was memorable for any Atlanta United fan. With the clock ticking down in the team's first ever meeting with Orlando City, Tito Villalba swerved an unstoppable missile into the top corner from all of 40 yards.
Matchweek 27 - Greg Garza vs. FC Dallas
Teamwork is what makes this goal special. In the club's first ever match at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Five Stripes put the cherry on a 3-0 win with the MLS Goal of the Week. Josef Martinez plays the spectacular dummy over Tito Villalba's cross to completely bamboozle the defense, and Greg Garza walks up to tap it home.
Matchweek 28 - Kevin Kratz vs. New England Revolution
Midfielder Kevin Kratz took the most of his opportunity for a direct free kick against the New England Revolution, curling an unstoppable finish into the top corner.
Matchweek 29 - Tito Villalba vs. Montreal Impact
The goal that all but clinched a playoff spot for Atlanta United. With a win crucial for their postseason aspirations and a tough opponent traveling to Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Tito Villalba stepped up in a key moment yet again. He nutmegs the first defender before lasering a long-distance finish into the top corner.
Those are all the goals that earned league accolades this year. Is there any that you think should have made the list? Let us know on social media!We have always known intuitively that people who live downtown drive less, but this graph shows how dramatic the effect actually is: If you live in a single family detached house you are likely to drive 15,000 miles per year; if you live in townhouses a third less; if you live in highrises less than a third.
But the most interesting factor is that we don't all have to live in "Soviet-style concrete-block high-rises and be forced to take state-run streetcars to their little jobs at the mill", as one Bloomberg correspondent described it. Just moving to townhouses or midrises makes a huge difference.
But density isn't the only factor, or even the main one. You can't put a "high-rise in the middle of a cornfield." As Kaid Benfield writes in NRDC Switchboard:
Neighborhood density works best when combined with synergistic elements such as location, transit service, connected streets, and mixed land uses.
More on Density and Design:
5 Alternatives to the Buy vs Rent Question
How to Build a Green, Car-free Community: VaubanThis is a list of episodes of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, the satirical music-based panel game. 272 regular episodes and nine clip shows were broadcast across 28 series; 281 episodes in total.
The show was originally chaired by Mark Lamarr, with Sean Hughes and Phill Jupitus as team captains and two guests on each team. Lamarr left after series 17 and series 18 was chaired by a series of guest hosts. One of these, satirical Popworld presenter Simon Amstell, took over as presenter from series 19. Amstell left after series 22 and the show was chaired by guests until the end of Series 27. For Series 28 the show was presented by Rhod Gilbert.
Bill Bailey replaced Sean Hughes from series 11. During series 21, Bailey was unable to attend filming and so Noel Fielding provided cover for three episodes (2, 3 and 4). Bailey left permanently after this series and was replaced by guest captains until Fielding returned full-time in series 23. Professor Green replaced Fielding as team captain for one episode in series 26 (episode 5).
Phill Jupitus was unable to appear in one episode of series 25 (episode 6), the only episode of the show he did not appear in (not including the 2011 Comic Relief episode for 24 Hour Panel People). His position on that occasion was taken by Frankie Boyle.
In June 2013, an eight-part clip show series aired under the name What a Load of Buzzcocks. Each episode focussed on a different year of the show and the musical stories from that year. Alex James of Blur narrated all episodes of the series.
Episode list [ edit ]
The coloured backgrounds denote the result of each of the shows:
– indicates Phill's team won. – indicates Sean's/Bill's/the guest/Noel's team won. – indicates the game ended in a draw.
Guests are listed from the hosts' far right to far left. Numbers in square brackets [] after each list indicate that team's total score.
Series 1 [ edit ]
Series 2 [ edit ]
Series 3 [ edit ]
Series 4 [ edit ]
[fn 2] Never Rewind the Buzzcocks [ edit ]
Series 5 [ edit ]
Notes No Episode Was Aired On 12 March 1999.
Series 6 [ edit ]
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Series 17 [ edit ]
Series 18 [ edit ]
Series 19 [ edit ]
Series 20 [ edit ]
Series 21 [ edit ]
Series 22 [ edit ]
Series 23 [ edit ]
Series 24 [ edit ]
Comic Relief special [ edit ]
Series 25 [ edit ]
Children in Need special [ edit ]
Sport Relief special [ edit ]
Series 26 [ edit ]
What a Load of Buzzcocks [ edit ]
Episode First broadcast Year WALOBx01 3 June 2013 1996 WALOBx02 10 June 2013 2004 WALOBx03 17 June 2013 1998 WALOBx04 24 June 2013 2006 WALOBx05 1 July 2013 2001 WALOBx06 8 July 2013 2007 WALOBx07 15 July 2013 2000 WALOBx08 22 July 2013 2008
Series 27 [ edit ]
Series 28 [ edit ]
Scores [ edit ]
Phill Sean Bill Guests Noel Series wins (6 drawn) 9 13 2 7 1 3 Show wins (12 drawn) 127 133 39 47 9 37Hezbollah’s media wing al-Manar has reported an ambush around the Lebanese border town of Arsal, with Hezbollah fighters catching an al-Qaeda convoy near the border and killing nine of them, including a “senior commander” identified as Abou Firas al-Jebbeh.
Al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra has been increasingly active on the Syria-Lebanon border in recent months, and a separate incident was reported later in the afternoon in which another group of Nusra fighters got in a clash with the Lebanese military. Casualties were not reported.
Hezbollah has served as the first line of defense for a lot of fights against infiltrating Islamist factions from Syria, though indeed much of the infiltration is explicitly done to confront Hezbollah for its involvement in the Syrian Civil War.
This renewed fighting comes just a week after the Lebanese government made a prisoner exchange deal with al-Qaeda to secure the release of 16 security forces who were kidnapped back in August of 2014.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzNew York: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's now famous campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again" has fired up legion's of his supporters promising an utopian America, but Bloomberg News on Tuesday pointed out that it would actually look like India.
"Donald Trump may never have an opportunity to put his nationalist economic ideas into practice, but they are almost certain to outlive his campaign. Many workers have come to believe that free trade kills jobs and that they and the US economy overall would be better off if more stuff was made at home rather than in China or Mexico," wrote Michael Schuman on Bloomberg News.
"The trouble is, we already have a pretty good idea of what this America would look like. It would look like India," added the Bloomberg report.
Schuman, has been a journalist in Asia for over 16 years, and the India he scorches is the India that had not undergone sweeping free market reforms. Former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao rescued India from decades of jerry-rigged Nehruvian socialism by restructuring the economy in 1991 and unleashing liberalisation, setting us on our current growth path.
"I don’t mean today’s India, the world’s fastest-growing big economy, which has opened itself up to trade and foreign investment. I’m talking about the India I saw on my first trip there in 1991, after the country had endured years of socialist economic planning," wrote Schuman.
"Part of the problem was that India, like many emerging economies, was deeply suspicious of trade," noted the journalist.
Trump has promoted himself as the ultimate business man but during this election cycle he has embraced xenophobia and fierce anti-free trade rhetoric. He has blasted the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) for destroying American manufacturing jobs although trade data show that Nafta helps Americans. Trump has not only slammed free trade but also talked of hiking taxes on foreign imports and penalising companies like Apple and General Motors that ship jobs overseas.
The article goes on to mention that the sort of policies Trump would need to introduce would somewhat resemble India's own import-substitution programme with similar effects.
Indian business leaders have expressed their own concerns about Trump's tough trade beliefs. In his 2011 book Time To Get Tough, Trump advocated a 15 percent tax on companies for outsourcing jobs to places like India, and a 20 percent tax for importing goods and services.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Former Liberal cabinet minister Hunter Tootoo says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hugged him after he revealed he had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member and he left the door open for the Nunavut MP to return to the Liberal fold after seeking help for alcohol addiction.
"He said take one step at a time, and that's what I've been doing," Tootoo said in an interview with CBC News chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge for The National. "First step was for me to get healthy... the next step for me was to get back to work and do my job."
Tootoo said he voluntarily left cabinet, and caucus, in May after coming to terms with the severity of his addiction, and realizing alcohol had changed his behaviour for the worse. Both Tootoo and the Prime Minister's Office have said the decision was left to the MP.
"I knew that I needed to do something, because I saw that if I kept on going down that path, it was a path that I didn't want to go down. And I knew that I needed help to get off of that path," Tootoo said.
He said he asked for a meeting with the prime minister after question period on May 31, at which time he revealed his battle with the bottle and his relationship with someone in the workplace. He caught the prime minister off guard, he said.
"I surprised him, I surprised everyone. I knew I had to go in there and let him know my decision and what happened. I was going in knowing that I had let him down," he said of the conversation in Trudeau's Centre Block office.
The prime minister said he respected his decision to step back to deal with his issues, and did not try to persuade him to stay, according to Tootoo.
"He gave me a hug. He's an amazing individual."
Didn't disclose problems
Tootoo also told Mansbridge he did not disclose his problems with alcohol during the cabinet vetting process carried out last fall by the RCMP, staffers close to the prime minister and Peter Harder, who now serves as the government's representative in the Senate.
The now-independent MP said he quit drinking alcohol cold turkey 20 years ago — and went on to live a sober life for 13 years — but opted not to tell that to the transition team because he was in denial.
"They asked if there are any issues and I said no. Because I really didn't see it at the time," he said. "I didn't realize I had a problem."
Justin Trudeau walks along the shores of Frobisher Bay with his wife Sophie and Hunter Tootoo during the last federal election campaign. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)
Tootoo revealed to Mansbridge that he had a rocky upbringing in a family "destroyed" by alcohol abuse. He said he was sexually and physically abused as a child and as a teenager and tried to commit suicide — experiences that led him to rely on alcohol to cope with ongoing emotional trauma.
He said he faced the abuse while living in the north, but also in the south, where he attended prestigious private schools in Ottawa and Saskatchewan.
"I never thought these things bothered me, and I buried it because it was too painful to go near. And the fear of talking about it, feeling that pain, feeling those emotions, reliving those experiences kept me away from dealing with it. I escaped into alcohol when I wasn't working," he said.
'Inappropriate but consensual relationship'
Tootoo refused to say during the interview that his "consensual but inappropriate relationship" was with a staff member, only saying that "one could make that assumption." But the Prime Minister's Office has previously acknowledged Trudeau knew about an "inappropriate relationship in the workplace."
The prime minister initially attributed Tootoo's departure to treatment for addiction. Trudeau kept quiet about the relationship to protect the identity of the staff member, the PMO said in August.
"I respect the way that [Trudeau] has handled this because I did ask him to, that commitment to protect privacy of the individual involved, I think that they have a duty to do that, to respect that," he said.
Tootoo's revelation about the relationship also helps explain why he was treated markedly different than a former caucus colleague, Newfoundland MP Seamus O'Regan, who also entered rehab to seek treatment for alcoholism earlier this year. O'Regan never left caucus, and received encouraging words from the prime minister on social media. Tootoo said that he doesn't think there is an "imbalance" between how he and O'Regan have been treated.
The former fisheries and oceans minister said he now feels he has to work his way back into Trudeau's good graces. He said he has not lost his affinity for the prime minister, and his ambitious Indigenous affairs agenda.
"I have the utmost respect for the prime minister, I believe in his government, I believe in what he's doing. I know that his government is very sincere and genuine in regards to issues facing the North and Aboriginal people in general. In whatever capacity, I will work with him and his government to help achieve that," he told Mansbridge.
The PMO has not said definitively whether or not Tootoo could be welcomed back into caucus, only saying that his status is "unchanged" since he left the Liberal Party in May.
Tootoo has so far refused to resign from Parliament, despite calls from political opponents and some people in Nunavut to step aside for a byelection.
Watch more of Peter Mansbridge's interview with Hunter Tootoo tonight on The National (9 p.m. ET on CBC News Network and 10 p.m. local on CBC-TV)Sanaa (Yemen): An airstrike on a school purportedly carried out by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen killed at least 10 children and wounded dozens more on Saturday, Yemeni officials and aid workers said.
The Islamic school said in a statement that the strike in Saada, deep in the Houthis' northern heartland, was part of raids that have resumed against the rebels after peace talks collapsed earlier this month.
Aid group Doctors Without Borders condemned the attack on social media, saying that all ten killed and 28 injured were between eight and 15 years old. The school released some of the names of those killed.
The conflict in Yemen pits the internationally-recognized government backed by the Saudi-led coalition against the Shiite rebels, who captured the capital in September 2014.
The war has left a security vacuum throughout parts of the country.
Both al-Qaida and its rival militant group, the Islamic State group, have exploited the turmoil and expanded their footprint in the country's southern region.
Separately, lawmakers convened at Yemen's parliament for the first time since the Houthis disbanded the body in early 2015, aiming to consolidate power inside the country after the Shiite rebels and the party of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh named a joint body to rule the parts of the country they control.
The internationally recognized government-in-exile, led by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, considers that body illegitimate.
Rights groups and U.N. agencies say that more than 9,000 people have been killed during the conflict, which pushed the Arab world's poorest nation to the brink of famine.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.We report results from the BICEP2 experiment, a cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter specifically designed to search for the signal of inflationary gravitational waves in the B -mode power spectrum around ℓ ∼ 80. The telescope comprised a 26 cm aperture all-cold refracting optical system equipped with a focal plane of 512 antenna coupled transition edge sensor 150 GHz bolometers each with temperature sensitivity of ≈ 300 μ K CMB s. BICEP2 observed from the South Pole for three seasons from 2010 to 2012. A low-foreground region of sky with an effective area of 380 square deg was observed to a depth of 87 nK deg in Stokes Q and U. In this paper we describe the observations, data reduction, maps, simulations, and results. We find an excess of B -mode power over the base lensed- Λ CDM expectation in the range 30 < ℓ < 150, inconsistent with the null hypothesis at a significance of > 5 σ. Through jackknife tests and simulations based on detailed calibration measurements we show that systematic contamination is much smaller than the observed excess. Cross correlating against WMAP 23 GHz maps we find that Galactic synchrotron makes a negligible contribution to the observed signal. We also examine a number of available models of polarized dust emission and find that at their default parameter values they predict power ∼ ( 5 – 10 ) × smaller than the observed excess signal (with no significant cross-correlation with our maps). However, these models are not sufficiently constrained by external public data to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal. Cross correlating BICEP2 against 100 GHz maps from the BICEP1 experiment, the excess signal is confirmed with 3 σ significance and its spectral index is found to be consistent with that of the CMB, disfavoring dust at 1.7 σ. The observed B -mode power spectrum is well fit by a lensed- Λ CDM + tensor theoretical model with tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.2 0 − 0.05 + 0.07, with r = 0 disfavored at 7.0 σ. Accounting for the contribution of foreground, dust will shift this value downward by an amount which will be better constrained with upcoming data sets.
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.241101A Brazilian security researcher preparing to discuss cable modem security at an upcoming conference has discovered a second backdoor inside a number of Arris cable modems.
As Bernardo Rodrigues explains on his blog, some Arris cable modems contain an undocumented library (libarris_password.so) that serves as a backdoor, allowing for privileged logins that uses a different password for each day of the year. This is nothing new as this particular remote backdoor has been known since 2009.
While analyzing this backdoor, Rodrigues said he found some interesting code on the authentication check. It’s here that he found the second backdoor – yes, a backdoor inside a backdoor.
The known backdoor can be used to enable Telnet and SSH remotely via a hidden HTTP administrative interface or via custom SNMP MIBs. The second backdoor is based on the last five digits of the modem’s serial number. Exploiting the second backdoor launches a full BusyBox shell which grants a user / attacker even more capabilities.
At the time Rodrigues wrote the blog post, Shodan searches revealed more than 600,000 affected modems in the wild. Vulnerable cable modem models including TG862A, TG862G and DG860A. And believe it or not, Arris modems have a third backdoor as outlined on the ConsoleCowboys blog.
The security researcher said he went public with the backdoor after reporting it and waiting more than 65 days without a fix.When a Brazilian taxi driver got into a bar brawl, he didn't know when the fight actually came to a head -- his head.
Juacelo Nunes de Oliveira, 39, was stabbed during an argument, and it took more than three hours before he realized there was a blade running through his skull to his jaw bone, CNN reports.
Oliveira was at a party in Agua Branca last Sunday when he was stabbed four times; three times in the torso -- one of which perforated a lung -- and once in the head. He was driven to a nearby hospital and transferred to an emergency facility in Teresina, 62 miles away.
"He had the knife lodged in his head for this whole period but he was not aware of it," Dr. Gilberto Albuquerque told CNN. "We believe the shock and a bit of the drinking may have helped him not to understand the knife was still in his head."
X-ray photos released by the military to CNN and Globo show the knife protruding from behind his left eye. Albuquerque said the knife stopped only when it struck the victim's lower jaw.
Doctors told 9News that Oliveira is lucky to be alive.
Brazilian man stabbed in the head survives despite knife lodged in his skull for over 3 hours: http://t.co/nPtR7AWAAj pic.twitter.com/YvLPqcKANI — CNN International (@cnni) January 4, 2015
The surgery took two and a half hours, and Oliveira reportedly walked out of the hospital five days later.
"The knife crossed his head just behind the optical nerve, got very close to the olfactory nerve and (was) just a fraction from the gustatory nerve," Albuquerque told 9News. "He could have been blinded and could have lost his senses of smell and taste, but none of that happened and he is alive and healthy."THE UK’s spending watchdog has backed down in a row with the Scottish Government over how many people pay more income tax under the SNP.
The National Audit Office (NAO) admitted it had issued an “overestimate” of the number, and revised it down into line with the SNP’s own figure.
The SNP are demanding an apology from the Scottish Tories for their “shameful” claim the Scottish Government bullied the NAO on the issue.
Earlier this month, the NAO sent an embargoed report to the media stating it believed that more than half a million Scots paid more income tax than their English counterparts.
Using its own analysis, it said around 507,000 people paid more north of the border because of the SNP’s decision to freeze the 40p threshold at £43,000 in 2017/18.
In England and Wales, the threshold is £45,000, meaning higher and additional rate taxpayers in Scotland pay up to £400 more.
The NAO figure was politically explosive as it suggested one in five Scots taxpayers were affected, far more than previously thought.
The SNP’s estimate was 366,000 people, or one in seven of Scotland’s 2.6m taxpayers.
After an intervention by the Scottish Government officials, the NAO took the unprecedented step of withdrawing the report to check the figure.
However the move came too late for many newspapers, who reported the original figures.
The row led to the Scottish Tories accusing SNP ministers of “bullying” the NAO into cancelling publication of the report.
On Monday, the NAO issued a revised version of its report.
This put the number of Scottish taxpayers expected to pay the higher rate of income tax in 2017/18, and hence pay more than their English equivalents, at 386,000.
This was based on an an HMRC estimate published in May.
The NAO’s press release stated in its final footnote: “An earlier copy of this report was shared under embargo with media outlets on the 13 November for publication on 14 November.
“Unfortunately that version contained an overestimate of the number of Scottish taxpayers who earn above the higher rate income tax threshold and subsequently the number of people that would pay the basic rate of income tax if they were not Scottish taxpayers.
“The NAO identified this at a late stage and immediately took the decision to postpone the report’s publication.”
SNP MSP Gillian Martin said: “It’s welcome that the National Audit Office have updated their initial analysis.
“However, the behaviour of Murdo Fraser and the Scottish Conservatives was shameful – attacking the impartiality and character of civil servants for a cheap political hit.
“Mr Fraser should now accept he made a serious error of judgement and it is only right that he apologise.”
A Scottish Conservative spokesman said: “We know the SNP have form in seeking to make changes to reports that they don’t agree with.
“On this occasion, the National Audit Office has reduced its estimate as a result."Dell is expanding the range of laptops with Linux, with its new Precision mobile workstations being offered with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 OS as an option.
The company announced two models, the Precision M4700, which has a 15.6-inch screen, and |
eight hills predominantly located on the land. His servant observed that the Emperor should also be counted among the regal figures. Hence, the “Gau-lung” or Nine Dragons nomenclature was born.
Characteristics of the Nine Chinese Dragons
♦ P’u-lao:
Alerts one to danger, and serves as a protector. Often engraved on bells, sacred singing bowls, and gongs.
♦ Ch’iu-niu:
Creator of Yang energy through the use of ancient dragon music.
♦ Pi-his:
Provider of knowledge, luck and upholds the virtue of finer education.
♦ Pa-hsia:
Provider of strength and support when called upon during times of need.
♦ Chao-feng:
Guardian of the holy places, sacred lands, and holy temples.
♦ Chih wen:
Symbolizes the power of water over fire.
♦ Suan-ni:
Mighty protector and emblem against theft, loss or betrayal of any kind.
♦ Yai-tzu:
Protector and guardian against any physical harm.
♦ Pi-kau:
Defends again litigation, verbal disputes, or false accusations.
More information on Dragons is available on my Dragon Totem Information page.
You can also find Chinese Dragon information by clicking here on my blog entries.LONDON (Reuters) - Global stocks fell sharply and the dollar tumbled on Monday as a fire sale of Bear Stearns and an emergency Federal Reserve cut of a key lending rate sparked fears that a worldwide credit crisis will claim more casualties.
A man walks past a stock index board in Tokyo March 17, 2008. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
Traders reported that money markets were near standstill with banks increasingly wary of lending to each other.
European shares sank nearly 3.5 percent, following a sell-off in Asia where Japan’s leading indexes shed 3.7 percent. Wall Street looked set for a sharply downward open.
The dollar hit new lows against the euro and a basket six of major currencies. Oil hit a new high of nearly $112 a barrel on the weaker dollar.
Investors dived into safe haven assets, lifting gold to more than $1,030 an ounce at one point and sending yields on short-dated euro zone debt below 3 percent for the first time in more than two years.
“The markets are in a complete state of panic and in such situations there is no such thing as valuation or value in any asset,” said Michael Klawitter, FX strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt.
In a shock move late on Sunday, the Fed lowered the discount rate it charges on direct loans to banks to 3.25 percent from 3.50 and implemented steps to provide cash to a wider range of financial firms, using tools last used in the Great Depression.
Minutes earlier, JPMorgan Chase & Co had said it would buy Bear Stearns for a rock-bottom price of $2 a share, valuing the U.S. investment bank at the centre of a widening global credit crisis at about $236 million.
JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York temporarily bailed out Bear Stearns on Friday after a deterioration in its liquidity, one the worst cases yet in a broad-based drying up that has been going on since mid-2007.
LIQUIDITY SQUEEZE
Investors are now nearly fully pricing in a 1 percentage point cut in the main federal funds rate at or before the Fed’s policy meeting on Tuesday.
That would take U.S. rates down to just 2.0 percent.
“Desperate times need desperate measures. The Federal Reserve is doing what it takes to restore stability,” said Craig James, chief equities economist at Commsec in Sydney.
There were also signs of continuing liquidity worries — three-month interbank lending rates for euro and sterling leapt.
The Bank of England said it would offer 5 billion pounds ($9.85 billion) of three-day funds in an exceptional fine-tuning operation designed to bring overnight interest rates down.
“This action is being taken in response to conditions in the short-term money markets this morning,” the Bank said in a statement.
Market strategists said there was deep distrust between banks when it came to lending.
“It’s quite illiquid this morning. If you want unsecured cash you’re really going to have to pay up for it. It’s really quite an intense situation,” said David Keeble, head of rate strategy at Calyon.
Concern swirled about the problems spreading to other banks. Shares of Lehman Brothers dropped 34 percent in pre-market trading, shares of Merrill Lynch fell 15 percent and Goldman Sachs declined 9.8 percent.
STOCKS, DOLLAR DOWN SHARPLY
Equity markets took a hefty hit across the world as uncertainty grabbed hold of investors.
“It is really — and I don’t want to use the broadly quoted word ‘panic’ here — but it is an absolute confidence crisis and a liquidity crisis. Nobody trusts anyone anymore. It is not a nice situation,” said Roland Hirschmueller, an equities trader at German brokerage Baader in Stuttgart.
European shares tumbled. The FTSEurofirst 300 was down 3.5 percent.
Earlier, Japanese stocks fell to about a 2-1/2 year closing low, dragged down by exporters worried about a rising yen.
The Nikkei average fell 3.7 percent or 454.09 points to end at 11,787.51, its lowest finish since August 8, 2005.
The broader TOPIX index shed 3.7 percent or 43.58 points to 1,149.65, the lowest close since June 2005.
The dollar plunged across the board.
It slid as much as 3 percent in early Monday trading as low as 95.77 yen according to Reuters data, the lowest since 1995, and set fresh all-time lows at 0.9637 Swiss francs.
It later recovered to 96.88 yen and 0.9838 Swiss franc.
The euro soared as high as a new record $1.5904 before dropping back to $1.5774.
The weak dollar drove oil prices higher before it eased back. Crude for April delivery was up 5 cents at $110.28 a barrel, off a record $111.80 hit earlier.
Investors dived into safer assets. Spot gold hit $1,030 an ounce, before falling back to around $1,022 an ounce.
“Gold will be the main beneficiary (of the falling dollar) as a hedge against global risk,” said Australia & New Zealand Bank senior commodities analyst Mark Pervan.
Slideshow (2 Images)
When the U.S. currency falls, the price of gold, like that of oil, tends to rise as investors with dollars buy it to lock in value and non-dollar investors find it cheaper.
Investors also bought bonds. Short-dated euro zone government bond yields were at their lowest in over two years and implied rates down.
The two-year cash yield fell 11 basis points to 2.963 percent, its lowest since early 2006.The video will start in 8 Cancel
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Jeremy Corbyn wiped the floor with Theresa May at Prime Minister's Questions today. Wiped the floor.
The cheers of Labour MPs who used to hear their leader in sullen silence told the story.
He was angry and anger is justified when Corbyn's defending the NHS and tearing into the Tories on the criminal neglect of the vulnerable when social care is a Cinderella service on its knees.
May was on her worst Maybot setting and rattled out answers with no relevance to the questions.
Jeremy Corbyn
So Corbyn's improving at PMQs and the Prime Minister's getting worse.
The tragedy for Jezza, and relief for Tedious Theresa, is the clash will be overshadowed by funereal Phil Hammond's mini-Budget.
Corbyn's an unlucky leader. And May undeservedly fortunate.Josh Frydenberg appears to be on mission to divest his image as "Mr Coal" but will he be successful? (Image via www.abc.net.au)
Good to see Josh Frydenberg acknowledge renewables not to blame for the SA energy "crisis", but as RenewEconomy's Giles Parkinson writes, it's still not clear how far the minister will diverge from the Coalition’s hard-line policy.
JOSH FRYDENBERG, the minister newly elevated to the combined energy and environment portfolio, says that renewable energy was not to blame for the recent energy “crisis” in South Australia, although he did deliver some mixed messages about how the government proposes to move forward.
Frydenberg delivered a series of interviews on Wednesday, the first since he was appointed to the new position in a reshuffle by the re-elected Turnbull government, and this included a “chat” with ABC personality Annabel Crabb at a dinner function at the Clean Energy Summit.
Asked about the recent electricity spikes in South Australia, Frydenberg said it was a “complex picture” that included a reduced capacity on the inter-connector, a cold snap that spiked demand, a big shift in gas prices, and the “intermittency issue about wind and solar.”
But he also noted that in 2008, as RenewEconomy has reported, the price of wholesale electricity in South Australia peaked above $5,000/MWh more than 50 times. That was before wind and solar were in that state, he said, and noted there had only been three such peaks so far this year.
Frydenberg said, to the applause of the audience of around 400 people:
“People have to understand that this volatility is not a new thing. It was back there in 2008 …. so to say that (this price spike) is the fault of renewables is not an accurate assessment."
This, however, was not how The Australian interpreted events, who attributed Frydenberg’s comments about the crises in South Australia and Tasmania as a “wake-up” call about the problems created by wind and solar.
Tasmania, it should be remembered, suffered the highest wholesale prices in Australia last financial year because its electricity supply was restricted by the loss of the Basslink cable and much of its hydro capacity due to drought. Most analysts say it was its lack of investment in wind and solar that forced it to rely heavily on expensive back-up gas and diesel.
Indeed, in interviews with The Australian and the ABC, Frydenberg did not refer to past price spikes. He described the recent spikes as “huge fluctuations” caused by the intermittency of wind and solar.
And in those other interviews, Frydenberg indicated that some of the key messages from the fossil fuel lobby had crept into his language, as it has done in the past when advocating for Australian coal.
In an interview on ABC’s Lateline, Frydenberg said:
“(Wind and solar) is intermittent supply, meaning that when, you know, the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing, it’s not supplied. So South Australia needs back up and that intermittent supply meant that there was greater need for back up and that back up that was expensive.”
Still, the reaction to Frydenberg’s appearance at the Clean Energy Summit was mostly positive. At least he wasn’t Chris Back, the Liberal back-bencher who, like so many others, is so implacably opposed to wind energy.
Frydenberg appeared well briefed, non-confrontational and recognised the growing role of technologies such as wind, solar and battery storage whose costs had fallen quickly and would continue to do so. He also appeared to be listening, people said.
Coal fan Frydenberg's figleaf fluttering in the wind: https://t.co/3sfm4DoDVW — Crikey.com.au (@crikey_news) July 28, 2016
The role of coal, Frydenberg accepted, is declining, and the transition to clean energy is inevitable. But he was reluctant to put any time frames on the inevitable move to zero emissions technology, apart from saying that a shift to 100 per cent renewable energy was not going to happen overnight.
But while his comments were soothing for an industry just regaining its confidence after being battered and bruised by the first term of the Abbott-Turnbull government and the key policy decisions of Frydenberg’s good friend, the previous environment minister Greg Hunt, his next moves will be scrutinised intensely.
There is great concern about a push by the incumbent energy industry, such as the Energy Supply Council to force state governments to abandon their individual state targets, a move that will be strongly resisted by South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT.
Frydenberg says he is still getting his mind around the issue, but he was particularly concerned by Queensland’s push for 50 per cent renewables by 2030.
“They only have 4.4 per cent now. That is a huge jump.”
Concern was also expressed about Frydenberg’s promise to manage the energy transition by maintaining cheap, reliable and available power
@lynlinking Could explain why Mr Coal changed direction on #renewables as no need to appease FF donors? — Sandi Keane (@Jarrapin) July 28, 2016
That is no bad thing, but many suggest that the best way to manage the transition is to have a long-term goal, and right now the government does not even have a renewable energy policy that extends beyond 2020, or a climate change target that matches the science.
And while Frydenberg acknowledged that gas played a key role in the recent electricity prices, his response to this is to try to make more gas available, criticising the blanket bans on fracking in Victoria and NSW.
On the role of coal, Frydenberg said:
It’s our second largest export behind iron ore. We don’t talk just about thermal coal. We’ve also got coking coal and you don’t build a wind turbine or a solar panel without coking coal and other forms of natural resources. So, it’s a very complex picture, but we have an optimistic story to tell in Australia. The transition is under way. Renewables are a critical part of that. Technology is going to really see a step up, a step change in the uptake of renewables. Australians have a great record, whether it’s in solar PV, on their roofs or whether it’s in large-scale renewable systems, and we can help lead the world in emissions reduction technology.
The clean energy industry and the fossil fuel industry will get a better picture of the direction that Frydenberg is heading at the council of energy ministers meeting he has called next month, where issues such as the gas supply, the case for new interconnectors and who should pay for them, and state-based targets will be on the agenda, as will proposed market changes that seek to manage the transition to renewables and the exit of coal-fired generation.
How those rules are framed will be critical to the future of coal and gas generators, as well as new technologies such as solar, and storage and new business models. Fossil fuel giants such as AGL Energy are pushing for a shift to “capacity” markets dubbed by the EU and the UN as yet another fossil fuel subsidy, and fighting rule changes that could encourage battery storage to take on some of the roles now provided by peaking gas generators.
Another key point of interest is on climate policy. The Coalition’s targets are geared to 2030 and no further. Environmental groups and analysts are hoping that the 2017 review promised by the Turnbull government will offer an opportunity for a big leap into long-term and biting emissions reduction policies. But some interpreted Frydenberg’s remarks to media on Wednesday as suggesting it could just be a box-ticking exercise.
The challenge for Frydenberg, however, is to set down that long-term vision. Without it, the energy market will have to make it up as it goes along. And it still not clear just how far Frydenberg wants, or will be able, to diverge from the Coalition’s hard-line policy to date.
This article was originally published in RenewEconomy on 28 July 2016 and has been republished with permission. You can follow Giles on Twitter @GilesParkinson.MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s Congress will revise its proposed 2014 budget in the wake of some of the worst storm damage in decades, President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Sunday as the death toll from widespread flooding and mudslides rose to some 115.
The government earlier this month said it aimed to run a budget deficit this year and next as it forges ahead with spending on infrastructure. It must now find additional funds to repair roads and infrastructure hammered by the storms.
Pena Nieto said Mexico’s Congress “will absolutely have to adjust” the federal budget in light of the mounting damage caused by Tropical Storm Ingrid and Hurricane Manuel over the past week.
He did not specify new funding levels beyond the roughly 12 billion Mexican pesos ($938.97 million) available in emergency funding.
Pena Nieto added in a speech in the northwestern state of Sinaloa that the death toll from the storms stands at “110 or 115.”
Mexico’s government aims to widen the budget deficit next year to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, the finance ministry said on September 8.
The ministry also asked Congress to approve a deficit of 0.4 percent of GDP for 2013 after an economic slowdown this year hurt government revenue.
At least two more people died when a Black Hawk rescue helicopter crashed on a hillside near the stricken village of La Pintada in southern Guerrero state, the government said late on Saturday night. Only the deaths of two pilots and a mechanic were confirmed from the accident previously, and the additional two victims were listed as rescue workers.
Meanwhile, nearly 70 people remained missing after a mudslide caused by torrential rains buried 40 homes in La Pintada.
Pena Nieto said on Saturday that there was little hope anyone had survived the mudslide in the village.
Slideshow (3 Images)
Guerrero state, home to the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, has been the hardest hit by heavy rains unleashed by Hurricane Manuel last week.
Mudslides and flooding have buried homes and badly damaged highways and bridges in all but two of the country’s 31 states, according to government officials.
($1 = 12.7800 Mexican pesos)“Personal data of veterans Ukrainian ATO,” one of the tweets, before linking to a cache of allegedly hacked data, published Thursday reads.
“Tomorrow more,” the account, apparently belonging to Aric Toler, a researcher at open-source intelligence and journalism community Bellingcat, promised. “It will be a sensation, really,” the tweet added.
Except this account, even though it pictures Toler in his messy short hair and brown glasses, does not really belong to the researcher, or even Bellingcat more generally. Instead, this account and a series of others that tweeted similar material throughout the week appears to be part of campaign to discredit Bellingcat, an organization that has repeatedly irked the Russian government and military with well-sourced reports into the MH17 downing. The campaign, although using only a relatively small accounts and fairly crude in sophistication, shows how disinformation trolls may sometimes not just dump allegedly hacked data to harm the actual hacking victim, but also spin it in such a way to have a knock-on effect on other targets, too.
“We’ve nothing to do with the account and not sure why they’d bring us into what they’re doing, maybe to smear us in the eyes of the Ukrainian public,” Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, told The Daily Beast, referring to another account that was claiming association with the organization.
That second account appears to be the epicenter of this smearing mission. “Welcome to the official Anonymous Poland Twitter! Researcher and hacker at @bellingcat,” the account’s Twitter bio reads.
As Ben Nimmo, a researcher with a focus on social-media disinformation campaigns from the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, pointed out on Twitter, this ‘Anonymous Poland’ account was created back in 2012, and started posting this fall. It previously retweeted gambling, VPN, and knives advertisements, resembling a more generic, marketing-focused bot. (On Friday, Anonymous Poland shut down its account.)
Several other accounts that attempted to push the material had similar histories of banal marketing tweets before being repurposed for political ends, according to a set of related tweets that The Daily Beast archived. Many of these accounts do not appear to have been created for the sole purpose of spreading disinformation. Instead, it seems they were hijacked from their real owners; one belongs to a real family-law and criminal-defense law firm. That account hasn’t tweeted about legal issues since 2016, and only sprung back up with these latest data dumps.
Many of the accounts also deliberately tweeted their caches of data directly at journalists from various media outlets. The law-firm account, for instance, tweeted at several BBC reporters and Fox News’s Sean Hannity. One account used the CNN logo as its Twitter avatar, perhaps in a sloppy attempt to appear more legitimate.
That style of flagging data to journalists has a startling resemblance to other accounts that have popped up before. In July 2016, an account called “Ukraine.info” tweeted news of alleged secret, biological tests in the country, before another dubbed “W-News” joined in and tweeted apparently sensitive documents, Motherboard reported at the time. Clearly W-News, like some of the accounts in the new Bellingcat case, were trying to pose as journalists, even if in a very unconvincing way — W-News used a photo of reporter and comedian Katherine Timpf as its avatar. Accounts in this summer 2016 campaign also tweeted their caches of files and data at a bevy of journalists, just like the accounts trying to discredit Bellingcat.
Following that brief spasm of activity, an account claiming to be from Anonymous Poland posted tweets declaring it had hacked data from U.S. charity the Bradley Foundation, a November 2016 report from cybersecurity firm Digital Shadows recalls. The firm found more than 8,000 nearly identical tweets posted by some 7,500 Twitter accounts, the report adds. Crucially, that same month Vocativ found that although the Bradley Foundation hack was real, the data dump included a fake $156 million check to Hillary Clinton, highlighting how the bot’s apparent purpose was discreditation and misinformation, rather than just spreading hacked data.
In 2016 cybersecurity company ThreatConnect said in a report that it believed Anonymous Poland was linked to Russian hackers, in part because the group tweeted data stolen from the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA). Cyberattacks on the WADA are widely believed to be the work of hackers sponsored by Russia.
In his March 2017 testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Thomas Rid, an academic who has closely followed Russian disinformation campaigns, put Anonymous Poland in the same bucket as other groups linked to Russia’s military or foreign-intelligence agency GRU—such as Guccifer 2.0 or DC Leaks. Other researchers have also attributed the Anonymous Poland Twitter presence to APT28, otherwise known as the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear.
“What may be going on here is this: Bellingcat has been targeted by APT28 for a while, and the researchers know it. Using the already APT28-linked ‘Anonymous Poland’ moniker enables sending a hidden message of intimidation on a public channel: Bellingcat get the message; but most people won’t. And most journalists and researchers likely won’t comment because the evidence is too flimsy. Respect, I say, a very nimble tactic,” Rid, who is now professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, told The Daily Beast.
It is not totally clear who exactly is behind this latest campaign, although it does appear to be related to the earlier Anonymous Poland and Ukraine.info ones, at least in approach and intended targets.
Bellingcat has previously shown how Russia may have inadvertently provided the best evidence yet that the Syrian government is responsible for chemical-weapons attacks; examined Russian airstrike footage showing potential targeting of first responders; and traced the movements of the Russian Buk missile launcher that downed Flight MH17.
At least one of the caches pushed by this fake Bellingcat and other accounts includes around 100MB of Word documents, spreadsheets, and images.
Twitter, it seems, did react pretty swiftly in limiting access to the offending tweets, though. After several open-source researchers tweeted about the suspicious accounts, it was not possible to find related tweets through Twitter’s ordinary search function. The accounts themselves were accessible to searchers who knew the exact username.
A number of the service providers hosting the allegedly hacked data also responded fairly quickly. The MEGA link Anonymous Poland posted was already down on Thursday, as was at least one of the caches hosted on a service called SendSpace. These files may have been taken down because members of the open-source research community reported the disinformation campaign and hosted data to SendSpace.
“Please check,” many of the accounts incessantly tweeted to reporters and other media personalities Thursday.She's run a sprawling national organization.
She's delegated responsibility and authority to experts to work on her behalf.
She's incorporated her husband into the organization and allowed him to use his legendary political skills to do her bidding.
She has run up against a massive unforeseen challenge to her organization.
So, yes, Hillary Clinton definitely has experience. That experience -- her only national executive experience -- has been in the running of her campaign for president. And what has been the result? A complete and utter breakdown of the organization she leads, a distracting, out-of-control husband who has ignored any and all authority, extensive and ugly infighting among her staff, angry and sarcastic outbursts by the executive herself, and a bitterly divided party in the midst of the most important election in a generation.
Hillary Clinton's campaign is nothing less than a crystal ball into the future of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
You want to know what Bill Clinton's role will be in a Hillary Clinton administration? The crystal ball was South Carolina. According to the LA Times today, he unilaterally ignored Hillary's appointed officers. He was told by the campaign to leave South Carolina to them and go to other southern states. But he said no, he had to be in South Carolina. Frustrated staffers called it a "one man mission." And that one man mission, full of race-baiting and angry rhetoric, served to alienate democrats and fueled the beginning of the exodus of the so-called Super Delegates, beginning with Ted Kennedy.
You want to know how the White House will be run under President Hillary Clinton? The crystal ball has materialized just in the past few weeks as the rumored infighting among her campaign staff has become public and much more ugly. Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle is fired. But Harold Ickes says it's all Mark Penn's fault. Mark Penn says he has "no direct authority in the campaign" and that it's all Solis Doyle, Ickes and Mike Henry's doing. Howard Wolfson counters that it's Penn who has top responsibility. And remember Billy Shaheen? He was the first major firing after he launched a low blow against Obama several months ago.
You want to know how a Hillary Clinton White House would face the "unforeseen crisis" she alludes to at every campaign stop? The crystal ball is none other than Barack Obama. Clinton's "inevitability" campaign, as it's been called, tells us how unexpected Obama was to the Clinton organization. They didn't plan on having a serious contest so they didn't build an election organization in many of the later primary states because they didn't think the fight would go this long or be this hard. They were arrogant with the press because they didn't feel they needed them. They relied on imaginary political capital that came with their own perception of inevitability. They didn't recognize early enough that the "change" message would resonate so strongly. They didn't understand or appreciate how important "hope and change" are to a country exhausted by the headlines of George Bush, 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, Housing Crisis, Stock Market Crash, Interest Rates, Corporate Corruption, and Health Care.
But how does this would-be leader respond to the overwhelming passion exhibited by those who seek hope and change? It began when she called it "false hope," and continued as she ridiculed her opponent and his supporters in the months that followed. The "Celestial Choirs" rant was not aimed at her opponent but at all those who support him. And those people showing up by the tens of thousands to Obama rallies are not only Democrats she would need in a general election but, more importantly, are citizens she would lead if she won.The House speaker will announce a plan on taxes. | JAY WESTCOTT/POLITICO Boehner's hard line on debt cap
Speaker John Boehner is once again promising that any increase in the nation’s borrowing limit will have to be accompanied by a greater amount of spending cuts.
The Ohio Republican’s position, which will be announced at the Peter G. Peterson Fiscal Summit Tuesday in D.C., seems to mirror his stance during last year’s all-consuming debt ceiling standoff.
Story Continued Below
“When the time comes, I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase,” Boehner plans to say, according to excerpts released by his office. “This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance. If that means we have to do a series of stop-gap measures, so be it – but that’s not the ideal. Let’s start solving the problem. We can make the bold cuts and reforms necessary to meet this principle, and we must.”
Boehner will also announce a plan on taxes. During the fall, the House will vote on a bill to extend the current, lower income tax rates. But the legislation will also “establish an expedited process by which Congress would enact real tax reform in 2013.
“The Ways & Means Committee will work out the details, but the bottom line is: if we do this right, this will be the last time we ever have to confront the uncertainty of expiring tax rates,” Boehner is slated to say, according to excerpts of the speech. “We’ll have replaced the broken status quo with a tax code that maintains progressivity, taxes income once, and creates a fairer, simpler code.”
It’s the first time Boehner has publicly addressed his plan to deal with the expiring Bush tax rates.
Earlier at the summit, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was asked about Boehner’s vow. Geithner warned against risking the country’s credit worthiness to serve a “political agenda.”Knowledge is power.
So why aren't healthcare providers empowering their patients by referring them to diabetes self-management education (DSME)?
The 76th American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions recently took place in New Orleans, Louisiana. Amongst the varied presentations was "If DSME Was a Pill, Would You Prescribe It?", given by Dr. Margaret Powers, ADA President of Health Care and Education. The question posed by Dr. Powers is one that the medical community needs to be asking themselves--why is access to diabetes education, a proven and effective necessity, so low?
In reporting on the presentation, Diatribe.com chose highlights from Dr. Powers speech; three heavy-hitting points that make real sense (commentary is my own):
1. "If diabetes education were a medication, it would score highly across the official ADA/EASD diabetes management criteria."
This seems like a no-brainer, right? When people have access to pertinent and accurate information, they can make informed decisions about their care. When newly diagnosed adults or families are sent home from the hospital without a referral to DSME, they have to fend for themselves in the face of a complete upheaval in their life. Often, those individuals aren't even aware that diabetes education is in existence and available to them in their community. It is reimbursable by Medicare and most private insurances, so cost isn't necessarily the barrier that is keeping people from getting this essential education and support. The format of education could be a class, one-on-one counseling, or a combination thereof. If one doesn't want to attend after receiving a referral, that's a different issue that can be addressed by their doctor. But why aren't we giving people the option and encouragement to get life-saving/life-maintaining information about their diabetes, type 1 or type 2?
2. "Diabetes education can increase healthcare savings."
Yes. YES, of course diabetes education can increase healthcare savings. This seems like a no-brainer and it is also backed up by research. Useful and necessary information about avoiding and treating hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia can help prevent hospitalizations due to extreme low blood sugar or diabetic ketoacidosis. These hospitalizations rack up thousands upon thousands of dollars in healthcare costs. Stress, heartbreak, and the road to long-term complications stem from a lack of diabetes education and access to affordable supplies and medication. We can do better than that. This begs the question that the diabetes community is constantly wondering: why won't insurance companies pay for preventative measures that assist in diabetes management, but will cover complication care after the damage has been done? Spend a little money now by giving people what they need (education and access to medication and supplies), and save money and human lives later when the numbers of individuals needing dialysis or amputation drop because of proactive patient care.
3. "Diabetes education provides psychological benefits that medications do not."
Anyone who has ever dealt with a health challenge knows how important it is to feel like you have a team that stands with you in all that you are facing. Diabetes education gets patients in a room with someone who has experience and knowledge to share. In a classroom setting, diabetes education gets a patient in a room with other patients who are experiencing the same fears, questions, and accomplishments in their lives with diabetes. Diabetes distress and burnout are real conditions that affect management and quality of life. The knowledge that you are not alone cannot be prescribed in a generic tier 1 drug, but it can be proven by exposure to diabetes education with compassionate and knowledgeable educators and the support of your community beside you.
Note: In advocating for referrals to DSME, we must also take into consideration that even when people:
a. are referred to DSME
b. have DSME covered by their insurance, thereby removing affordability as a barrier
c. attend classes and/or one-on-one education sessions
...they are not always getting the most accurate, useful, or up-to-date information. Something needs to be done about that, but that's a crusade for another day.
It happened to me
By the time I had been released from the hospital after my ER admission and ICU stay, I had battled DKA and left the hospital with a type 1 diabetes diagnosis, I was given information about a community diabetes education class. My mother made the call to sign me up, since I was still incapacitated and unable to handle the task myself. Upon hearing that I had been just diagnosed with type 1, the kind woman on the other end of the phone had the presence of mind to explain that the course was designed to benefit adults with prediabetes or a type 2 diagnosis, and would not be helpful to me. She apologized that she had no alternative program for us to turn to for education on an adult type 1 diagnosis. Incidentally, I've received the feedback from clients newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who have taken the class that this particular curriculum is not the comprehensive source of information and resources that their healthcare provider told them it would be, so perhaps there is room for improvement all around, regardless of type.
I then asked my endocrinologist to refer me to a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE). The referral I received from my doctor ended in a consultation with a woman who turned out to be a nutritionist who works with type 2 patients, and had zero experience with type 1 diabetes. After exhaustive independent research, I found a diabetes clinic where I could schedule one-on-one appointments. My last appointment with a veteran nurse practitioner at that clinic ended with her apologizing that she didn't know how to answer my questions, or assist in adjusting my medication. She explained that she was most comfortable with working with people living with type 2 diabetes. I cannot express to you how frustrating that experience was for me in my fresh diagnosis.
My experience seeking out diabetes self-management education was not ideal. I do not wish that same or similar experience on anyone. I work to actively do my part to prevent those feelings of loneliness and desperation for knowledge and support from landing on the shoulders of other patients. My experience was, in fact, one of the most influential factors in my decision to move into the health field as a trained coach and diabetes educator. I offer a patient-centered alternative to impersonal classes that may or may not address the day-to-day challenges that diabetes presents. Coaching and diabetes education can also be a complementary treatment to your traditional diabetes care. Even after years of living with diabetes, the desire to "tune-up" management or seek support and accountability is common. A coach that specializes in living with diabetes and chronic illness can provide support for those things in a way that a diabetes clinic may not be set up to offer at this point in time.
If you're interested in finding out how we can partner to build your strength and confidence in living well with diabetes, fill out this form and I'll get back to you as soon as possible to schedule a no-cost consultation.
The bottom line:
No matter how you cut it, accurate, relevant, and up-to-date diabetes education is a win for patients with type 1 and type 2, as well as insurance companies. We should be informing patients of its existence, and then encouraging them to participate for its positive influence on health outcomes and healthcare savings, not to mention another important reason that is often lost in the shuffle: removing the burden of isolation caused by chronic illness.Mr. Modi’s government has been even more openly hostile to civil society groups. It repeatedly denounces human rights and environmental activism as “anti-national” — a phrase that carries connotations of treason. The patriotic rage is a mask for a more pedestrian motive: punishing pesky critics. In 2016, what is normally a routine license renewal process was used to punish groups that have been critical of Mr. Modi or his policies.
The Lawyers Collective has been prominent among such groups. In 2015, Priya Pillai, a campaigner from Greenpeace India, was traveling to London to testify in the British Parliament about coal mining in central Indian forests by Essar Energy, a corporation registered in Britain. Federal officers pulled Ms. Pillai off her flight, arguing that her deposition would have hurt India’s “national interest.” Ms. Pillai went to court; the Lawyers Collective represented her.
The Collective also represented Teesta Setalvad, who has been campaigning for justice for the victims of sectarian riots in Gujarat in 2002, when Mr. Modi was the chief minister of the state. Ms. Setalvad has sought to put Mr. Modi and other Hindu nationalist politicians on trial for allegedly overseeing or participating in the violence. After Mr. Modi’s elevation to national office, Ms. Setalvad was accused of stealing donations meant |
. So here are the substitutions and solutions I came up with to make your build easier:
PVC Parts
In the video, the narrator says he's using 1" diameter PVC pipes, but the piping on his rig looked smaller than the 1" PVC I was seeing in the hardware store. I went with 3/4” PVC as it's a better fit for the hook and the bearings, and had a more natural feeling grip.
The “Ladder Hook”
Usually this is called a storage hook. I wasn't able to find one with an angled end, but as you can see in the previous photo, I solved that issue with a combination of PVC parts. To get your 6" bolts and braces to fit and mount correctly, you may need to drill another 1/4" hole in the top of the hook.
The Gimbal Joint
The Traxxas 5151 universal joint is definitely the way to go. You're going to want to use needle nose pliers to pry one of the ball joints off of one of the male connectors (the plastic is pretty tough, so you probably don't have to worry much about breaking it), and then pop that connector onto the joint that's already seated in the other male connector. You'll also have to shave down the ends of the plastic shafts with a dremel to get them to fit into the bearings.
Speaking of which, you're not going to be able to find 1-inch skate bearings because --as far as I can tell-- skate bearings only come in metric sizes. The closest to an inch I could find was 22mm, and it fits nicely into the 3/4" PVC.
As for seating your gimbal joint in the PVC adapters, at first I used rubber cement, rubber bands, and gaffer tape as a temporary fix, but after a little experimentation I found that 7/8" rubber furniture leg tips to be a perfect fit.
Because they're tapered, the rubber tips hold the bearings securely while also fitting nicely into the PVC adapters. I used a dremel to drill holes for the shafts and to cut off part of the top tip so I could get the right shaft length. Also, the #8-32 machine screw and washer helps secure the Traxxas joint to your bearings and adds a nice bit of adjustable friction to counteract drifting.
The "Universal Bracket"
Every time I went into a hardware store and asked for this, the clerk would get a blank look on their face. So what did I do? I picked up the closest thing I could find, which was a couple of 2 1/2" double wide corner braces. Unfortunately, these braces came with pre-drilled holes that weren't parallel. There were pre-made parallel divots so you could drill your own holes, but I needed my holes farther apart than the divots, so I measured my own and made some 1/4" holes. This will also eliminate the need for the U-Clamp and the zip tie (aka zap strap).
While this solved my rail problem, it created a PVC problem. Unless you can find a wider corner bracket that will allow you make holes farther apart, you'll have to use your dremel again to sand off the bottom most threads on the male PVC adapter.
The "Double Eye Tension Rod"
It was a little surprising to me how hard this was to track down, but it could be due to the fact that it's usually referred to as a turnbuckle. One thing you want to keep in mind when you buy one though, is that the spacing of the middle piece is big enough to accommodate the heads of the 1/4” bolts. I didn't do that, so I ended up experimenting with larger washer weights.
I also discovered that one of the eye bolts was left-handed (most bolts and screws are right-handed). Good luck finding a place that sells long sections of left-handed 1/4” bolts, because I haven't found one yet. However, as an alternate solution to either add more weight or just move the weight further out from the rig, you can pick up a 3-way PVC elbow and then attach lengths of PVC pipe and caps to each side, allowing you to attach an electrical ground clamp/turnbuckle weight to each side.
Last Thoughts on Parts and Construction
There are a few more things that should help the construction of your flying camera stabilizer go smoothly. Rubber cement was mentioned as the primary adhesive in the above video, but it's only partially effective. Epoxy would probably be a better choice for affixing the bearings to the rubber tips, and for attaching the rubber tips to the PVC adapters. You could probably use this for the PVC arm that holds the weights as well, but in this case I would just drill a 1/4" hole through the PVC and the storage hook and secure them together with a bolt, washer, and a nut to make sure it doesn't fall off.
To sum up, here's my suggested modified list of parts, and the tools you will need to make this camera stabilizer:
Tools
Power Drill with 1/4" bit
Dremel (with a #952 grinding stone, #402 Mandrel, and #426 cut off wheel)
Philips Head screwdriver
Flat Head Screwdriver
Needle Nose Pliers
Main Body Components
2 x Electrical Ground Clamps
1 x 3/4" 45 degree PVC elbow
1 x 6" - 3/4" threaded PVC pipe
1 x 3/4" threaded PVC cap
Main Body Hardware
1 x Large Storage Hook
2 x 2 1/2" Double Wide Corner Brace
2 x 6"- 1/4" Bolts (Smooth Shaft)
1 x Crown Bolt 1/4 in. x 7-1/2 in. Turnbuckle Eye/Eye
2 x 1.5"- 1/4" Flathead Screws
1 x 1"-1/4" Flathead Screw
2 x 3.5"- 1/4" Screws (Fully Threaded)
2 x 1/4" Locking Nuts (Nylon Locks)
8 x 1/4" Nuts
2 x 1/4" Wing Nut Locks
2 x 1/2" Washers with 1/4" hole
2 x 1.5" Washers with 1/4" hole
25 x 2" Washers with 1/4" hole
1 x Manfrotto 323 RC2 Quick Release Plate (w/ 200PL-14 Plate)
Gimbal Components
Optional
1 x 1/4"-to-3/8" Step Up Screw Adapter
1 x Rubber Bike Grip
The cost for this should come out to about $100, although it's entirely possible to make it for less (Studio Amarelo was able to make theirs for around $65). You may have noticed that my rig isn't done yet. There are a few kinks I'm working out and I'm attempting the difficult task of trying to balance my AF-100 on it. But for the DLSR owner, this is something that you could easily get the parts for and make in an afternoon.
If you have any suggestions for design improvements, feel free to post them in the comments.
Links:The Dallas Police headquarters. (Tony Gutierrez/AP)
Police in the United States shot and killed 31 people during the first week of July, making it the deadliest such week of the year so far.
This stretch ended Tuesday with officers across the country shooting and killing eight people, the most police shootings that have occurred on any single day in 2015 — ending the deadliest week so far with the deadliest day.
These deaths push the total number of people fatally shot by police this year to 494 in a little over six months, according to a Washington Post analysis. That number easily exceeds the figures reported by the FBI for any single year since 1976, pointing to the incomplete nature of federal data, which relies on voluntary reporting and patchy information.
Due in part to this inadequate data, which has been highlighted repeatedly as a bizarre gap during the ongoing debate over how police officers use deadly force, The Washington Post is tracking every fatal shooting by a police officer in the line of duty in 2015. These stories are being collected in a database that includes details about each episode. (Read more about the methodology here.)
Tuesday’s fatal shootings occurred across six states — three of the deaths took place in Texas, while the remaining five stretched from California to New Jersey. The circumstances ranged from an armed carjacker who police said fired at an officer to a Texas man who police said had threatened to kill himself.
[A quarter of the people shot and killed by police were having a mental or emotional crisis]
There were some similarities in the cases on Tuesday. All eight of the people shot and killed were men, and all of them had deadly weapons, according to The Post’s analysis.
In some cases, the police were encountering people they had sought to arrest, while in others they were responding to calls from the public.
Officers in Dallas traveled to a block of North Bishop Avenue near the Methodist Dallas Medical Center on Tuesday afternoon to try to arrest a wanted and known sex offender, the police department said, but when they approached the man, he pulled out a gun and refused to drop it. As a result, police officials said, they were forced to open fire, killing the man, who was later identified as Joe Cody, 59.
A few hours later, police officers in Bakersfield, Calif., responded to calls of a man who was firing a gun in a park located between a middle school and an elementary school. Within a minute of arriving, the officers reported that they had shot this person and requested medical aid, the department said in a statement. The suspect died, and the officers were placed on paid administrative leave.
[Fewer police officers are killed each year, but they report increased tension amid protests]
There were 31 people shot by police during the first seven days of the month; before July, the deadliest single week was a period in mid-March with 26 such shootings.
Meanwhile, the single week with the fewest such shootings happened to be the last week of June, when nine people were shot and killed by officers. In other words, at the midpoint of the year, the weeks with the most fatal police shootings and the fewest occurred back-to-back.
Overall, though, the first week of July saw nearly half as many fatal shootings by police (31) as occurred in the entire month of June (64). So far this year, the deadliest single month has been March, when 90 people were shot by police officers.
Steven Rich and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.
Related:
The Post’s database on police shootings
How The Post is tracking these shootings
Since 1976, the FBI hasn’t counted more than 460 fatal police shootings in a year. We’ve counted 463 already in 2015.
Current and former police officers describe tension in current environmentStory transcript
The man who made a name for himself by literally singing Donald Trump's praises says he feels betrayed by the U.S. president.
"Believe me, I've gained a lot of Trump hater friends, and I don't hate Donald Trump by any means, but I don't trust him any more and he's lost my confidence that he's going to do what he says he's going to do," Kraig Moss told As It Happens host Carol Off. "He didn't stick true to his word."
Moss, a.k.a. "The Trump Troubadour," followed Trump to 45 campaign stops in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. election, crooning country songs about the then-Republican candidate on his acoustic guitar.
But the Owego, N.Y., man has set aside his instrument after learning that the proposed Republican health-care plan would strip mental health and addiction treatment coverage from Medicaid, the federal program that provides medical services to low-income citizens.
AS IT HAPPENS: Doctor says patients will lose coverage under Trumpcare
Moss lost his 24-year-old son to a heroin overdose three years ago.
First-time voter
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to tackle the heroin problem in the U.S., not only by building a U.S.-Mexico border wall to stem the flow of narcotics into the country, but by expanding access to rehabilitation services.
At a campaign stop in Iowa, Trump specifically addressed Moss.
"In all fairness to your son, it's a tough thing. Some very, very strong people have not been able to get off [heroin]," Trump called out to Moss in the crowd, according to CNN. "The biggest thing we can do in honour of your son... we have to be able to stop it."
That promise inspired Moss to cast his ballot for Trump. It was his first time voting.
"[Trump] spoke specifically that that was part of his agenda, and not only me but every person in New Hampshire and Vermont and Connecticut, where this problem is rampant as well. He spoke with all those folks up there, let them know this was top priority for him on his agenda was to take care of this heroin epidemic," Moss said.
Kraig Moss, pictured here on March 29, 2016, in Janesville, Wis., wants the president to make rehab and addiction services affordable for everyone. ( Scott Olson/Getty Images)
"Instead he comes out with this health-care plan that's nothing like he talked about it was gonna be. They may be revamping it right now and I hope I have a say. I hope I'm a cause of them going back to the roundtable and putting together a better plan."
While a wall to halt the flow of drugs into the U.S. is "a good start," Moss says the federal government should do more to help the people already suffering from addiction by making rehab more affordable and funding the distribution of emergency overdose kits to small communities — policies that may have saved his son.
Shame over immigration raids
In the meantime, Moss has given away all the signed Trump merchandise he picked up during his troubadour days. "And I didn't ask a penny for them," he said.
He doesn't regret the time he spent on the campaign trail, where he says he reached a lot of people with his message about addiction.
Kraig Moss sings in front of a large painting by artist Julian Raven during a Truckers for Trump convoy event in Des Moines, Iowa. The former Trump supporter has since given away all his Trump merchandise. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
But he does regret voting for Trump and inspiring others to follow suit — and not only because of the health-care plan.
"My efforts following Donald Trump are not wasted and I'm not ashamed of that, but to think that I may have caused a family to be disrupted because their mother or father were in this country illegally and, you know, been working for the last five years and not gotten in trouble, and to think that I caused those families to be split up and the children to be left behind — I'm not happy about that."Bushfire Hotline - 1800 240 667
The towns of Kinglake and Marysville have been wiped out and around the state more people have died than in any previous natural catastrophe — one so lethal that authorities are treating it like a major terrorist attack. The first of several interstate victim identification teams arrived yesterday to assist Victoria Police under a national terrorist contingency plan. More than 70 people died in the Black Friday fires of 1939 — and 75 on Ash Wednesday in 1983, 47 of them Victorians. But as the official death list topped 93 last night, senior police sources told The Age they feared the final figure would be much greater.
MULTIMEDIA: Tales of survival
So many bodies are scattered in fire zones around the state that it could take days to find and retrieve them all. The names of those killed are only just starting to emerge. Among them were former Channel Nine newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife Moiree, at Kinglake West. Victoria's morgue was full last night — with hospitals and universities being asked to store bodies until formal identifications could be made. Some of the many injured people in hospital were not expected to survive. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday promised help from the army, which has sent bedding to Warragul and heavy equipment to cut fire breaks near Yea.
"Hell and all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria … many good people now lie dead," Mr Rudd said. "Many others lie injured." Premier John Brumby launched a bushfire appeal fund in partnership with the Federal Government and the Red Cross. He said the weather conditions that spawned 400 fires across the state were "much worse" than those that produced Ash Wednesday or Black Friday, and he hoped never to see it again. Schools at Strathewen, Kinglake and Marysville have been destroyed and dozens more will be closed today. Worst hit was the once-pretty alpine town of Marysville, reduced to a tangled mess of smoking rubble and twisted iron. Most residents were evacuated to nearby Alexandra — itself under threat from fire last night. But some of those who left too late or stayed to fight the fire lost their lives. The fire that began at the old Murrindindi sawmill near Yea earlier on Saturday destroyed the hamlet of Narbethong and then Marysville, house by house, street by street.
In an hour, Marysville was no more. Every public building including the police station, post office, telephone exchange and much-loved guest houses and a hotel, had been destroyed. Worse was that some of the gutted cars and buildings had bodies in them. The few locals who stayed and survived talked numbly yesterday of one firefighter's family being killed, of a pensioner dying at home and of several cars with human remains in them. Local builder Leigh Jowett saved the old house in which he had grown up — then helped his neighbours save theirs. "There might only be 15 or 20 houses left in Marysville," Mr Jowett said. "There's only three left in Falls Road — and the whole main street is gone apart from one motel." Former Marysville resident Graham Haycraft was distressed to hear his old family home had been destroyed but counts himself lucky to have moved out. "Marysville missed out in 1939 and on Ash Wednesday, but not this time," he said last night. "My heart goes out to people who are part of my life." He expects to return for funerals.
There were similar scenes and stories at Kinglake, at Churchill in West Gippsland and at Bendigo. Stories of offhand heroism emerged yesterday. Reluctant teenage hero Rhys Sund declined to be photographed after driving a tiny tractor and trailer across country behind the fire front at Chum Creek, near Healesville, to save his sister Rhiannon and a group of frightened women and children from an isolated farmhouse. "I'm so proud of the young bloke," Rhys's father Mark Sund said yesterday. "He cut down the fences in his way and went in. "Rhys hasn't been to bed yet. He's been fighting the fire all night." Channel Seven reporter Norm Beaman last night was celebrating his wife Annie's escape from the Kilmore East fire while he was stopped at a police road block several kilometres from their isolated Mount Disappointment property. Beaman praised the bravery of a local policeman, Peter Gough, who drove a police sedan through burning bush to the farm while Beaman was forced to stay at the roadblock after returning from Melbourne to tackle the fire.
"Annie put up an incredible fight by herself," he said. "She wet down the house and garden with fire pumps then when the shearing shed and machinery shed exploded she left. She told me on the mobile that she was going to jump in the dam, but she changed her mind and drove to a burnt-out paddock with the neighbours, where they wrapped themselves in wet blankets. That's where Peter Gough found her. He's a very brave cop." Although the worst might be over, the danger is not past. The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted dangerous conditions for much of the week, warning of further lightning strikes and strong winds. Fire danger would still be "very high" from midday to 6pm on most days. Last night the 30,000-hectare Beechworth fire was causing concern and none of the major fires burning across the state had been contained. A containment line was still being built around Alexandra to protect it from the fire.
Loading The Kinglake fires were hitting around Glenburn, with concerns for homes along Melba Highway and Yea River Valley, towards Murrindindi. The Churchill blaze covers up to 33,000 hectares, the Bunyip fire about 25,000 hectares. And a 15,000-hectare fire has started in national park near Dargo.Year one: it's all about the fundamentals for the Magpies' top draftee Brayden Sier Credit:Shannon Collins They want him to have developed good off-field habits, habits they will continue to hone in their first year so that by the time a new batch of kids comes in, he can be a role model. In his second summer they want him to have had a good glimpse of the full training without doing all of it, and to understand enough of the game plan that the fundamental philosophies are lodged in his head and he can identify what they can do within it. That understanding and immersement will increase again in year three, by their fourth pre-season it is hoped they are driving the group. "People talk about compliance and buy in and ownership, and they're so different. A first-year player might comply without truly understanding something, but someone who understands and has ownership will drive the standards," said Grace. "The sooner that happens, the better for the whole group because those players start to put pressure on the older players, not just in terms of position, but influence. It says a lot about the health of your program if your third and fourth year players are the centre of influence instead of the older players and are driving what needs to be done." But back to the beginning. As Grace and Davoren see it, the first pre-season is about learning the right habits and putting things in place; Grace calls it the scaffolding. Davoren will look further into each draftee's training history, and the medical and physio teams will take a closer look at their bodies, highlighting any imbalances that need attention. The boys who have never done much weight training will learn basic techniques, and the conditioning team will take a good look at how they move. Some players might get a small look at what a full day of the program looks like; (they typically do about 60 per cent), and they all learn what "prehab" or injury prevention looks like. "We'll look at how they move, what their aerobic capacity is like, where they're at in the gym. But the big thing for me is where are they at psychologically and socially? Because they come in at different maturity levels," said Davoren. "There's a lot of conversations in the first pre-season about habits: what are the decisions and choices you're going to have? And that might be as simple as, when I arrive for the day, what do I do? Check in with the physios, talk to the doc, record all your wellbeing data, make sure it's accurate feedback, and make that a routine."
Year two: emerging forward Darcy Moore will be a role model to new draftees. Credit:Shannon Collins There are other things to get used to. What to eat, and when. Some draftees' diets need a significant overhaul. How to hydrate properly, before and after sessions. How spending much of their day off on their feet might not help them recover well from the week's training. How if they go out with mates they should do so with a plan: how many drinks will they have, and how will they get home? How good sleep doesn't simply mean lots of it. "The young fellas can tend to go home, crash on the couch, sleep for three hours, not get back to sleep until midnight and then wake up feeling tired," Grace said. "They come in scratching their heads, thinking why am I so tired?" Alertness is important. Before Christmas, the new players are taught the fundamentals of the game plan: the key defensive and offensive principles. That happens mostly in small meetings: each player has a "duty of care" coach who looks after him in a football sense, and is also across the other things going on in his life. They can study more of it with their coach, watching vision or using an app the club has developed, but they are generally taught the more intricate parts of it in game simulation sessions, by the other players: helping teach their teammates what to do in certain scenarios is something that helps the second, third and fourth-year players continue their own development as leaders, as they simultaneously form stronger ideas of what they want to work on as individuals. Year three: Jonathon Marsh should be able to direct other players on the track. Credit:Shannon Collins Collingwood's coaches favour strength-based coaching. "I think the biggest flaws in some programs can be the fact that you don't allow the players to shine. They come in and it's easy to feel inhibited. It's a vast sea they're looking at, trying to pick out the small islands they can jump on to," Grace said. "I think it's important to keep asking them: why are you here? You got drafted for a reason, so let's make those things weapons while continuing to work away systematically at your 'room for improvements'. As they move through, each player will start working out his own action plan - strengths, RFIs, short-term needs, long-term needs. They generate more of that as time goes on. Over those first few years you want them to be firm and to keep adding to their games, becoming aware of those things, not limiting themselves and starting to push others."
You don't know what you don't know. But once you do know it, you need to keep adding to it, as demand and expectation increases. At the end of their first pre-season there is one thing the draftees must let go of: their naivete. In their second year, depending on where they are at, they might get a bigger taste of the full pre-season program. In their third year, some might do almost all of it. Davoren has had fourth-year players in his office this summer, with some very clear ideas on what they want to add to their game, debating the coach on aspects of their program. Year four: Brodie Grundy is ready to be a "centre of influence". Credit:Shannon Collins "They work their way through the system, they get the fundamentals down and then it's how do I take the next step?" Davoren said. "There's still a lot of education and long conversations about what they want and what they need to do, but they start to gain knowledge of what they're doing what they're doing so they ask better questions and they challenge you. They're all different and and they'll develop in their own ways, but by the end of year one you can see them starting to grow."CLOSE The Erskine wildfire burns more than 30,000 acres, prompting state of emergency outside Bakersfield, Calif. Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY NETWORK
This June 24, 2016, image shows the massive cloud of smoke cast by the 35,000-acre Erskine Fire on the southeastern shores of Lake Isabella, Calif. (Photo11: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY)
LAKE ISABELLA, Calif. — As crews searched Saturday for more wildfire victims, officials said scorching heat predicted for the next week will likely help fuel the deadly Erskine Fire and complicate efforts to control the blaze.
Two people are confirmed dead in the 35,000-acre wildfire that began Thursday night, and officials say they fear they may find more victims in the tangled mess left behind by the inferno. The two people who died were apparently overcome by smoke as they fled their home. The fire called an “ugly monster” by one firefighter consumed about 150 homes across the area, many of them quick-to-burn mobile homes and trailers reduced to little more than melted aluminum.
Firefighters found what appears to be a set of human remains while going through neighborhoods, but because they were so badly burned forensic investigators will have to determine whether they belonged to a person or animal, Kern County Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt said.
In a briefing Saturday morning, authorities reassured evacuees that they’re closely patrolling neighborhoods to prevent looters and said they hoped by Saturday afternoon to have a better handle on exactly what homes were destroyed, a painstaking process requiring in-person visits by assessment teams working in the still-dangerous environment.
Hundreds of people have been evacuated from the area. Authorities won’t let them return until they’ve got a better handle on the blaze. More wind and scorching temperatures predicted for the next week will make that harder, although the fire on Friday largely burned its way east away from homes.
At least 1,500 structures remain threatened, and the fire on Friday at one point jumped the main road from the town of Lake Isabella east toward the South Lake area, forcing authorities to divert drivers.
Some ranchers in the area are getting increasingly frustrated they can’t return to their property to feed and water their valuable cattle and voiced their frustration to authorities.
A sign alongside the road in Lake Isabella, Calif., shows the gratitude local residents feel toward the crews and the good will to the more than 80 families that have lost their homes in the Erskine Fire. (Photo11: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY)
“The problem is this fire keeps shifting,” Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said Friday night in response to those concerns. “We are throwing all the resources we have at this.”
Firefighters are still trying to control hot spots of fire within populated areas so cadaver dogs can begin their grim work. Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday afternoon declared a state of emergency for the county, and he is seeking a federal disaster declaration. Those declarations will help both fight the fire and assist residents in recovering from the damage. The fire is considered 0% contained, but authorities said that will likely rise significantly by Saturday evening.
At 35,000 acres, the fire is twice the size of Manhattan. Many large wildfires are burning across the Southwest.The Erskine Fire is considered one of the most damaging because it has killed two people and destroyed at least 80 homes, along with miles of electrical and telephone lines.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/28TkB1D'The Aleppo Evil' Is Making A Comeback
Enlarge this image toggle caption Bulent Kilic /AFP/Getty Images Bulent Kilic /AFP/Getty Images
When the first cases were reported in Syria 275 years ago, it was called "the Aleppo boil" or "the Aleppo evil." And for good reason: The parasitic illness spread by sand flies causes nasty skin lesions that leave victims scarred for life physically and can leave emotional scars as well.
The disease, now known as Old World cutaneous leishmaniasis, or CL, is not unique to Syria. It's found in parts of the Middle East, Africa, Asia and southern Europe, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But ever since Syria's civil war started in 2011, what had been a persistent — but relatively controlled — nuisance has turned into a full-fledged outbreak.
A decimated health care system, millions of displaced people and unsanitary conditions created "a perfect cocktail for infectious diseases to spread," says Alvaro Acosta-Serrano, a senior lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
toggle caption NPR
He and his colleagues have been sounding the alarm about CL in Syria. The country had an estimated 23,000 cases a year between 2004 and 2008. Things changed dramatically after the conflict began. By 2012, 53,000 cases were reported by the Ministry of Health. In just the first few months of 2013, 41,000 cases were reported.
As for what's happened since then, no one really knows. Gathering reliable data is not feasible in this situation, Acosta-Serrano says, although he suspects the current number of cases in Syria and the surrounding region could be in the hundreds of thousands. Many of the 12.5 million Syrians who've been displaced from their homes now live in overcrowded camps without basic sanitation or waste disposal services — a hospitable environment for sand flies to breed and spread CL in areas where it has not previously been a problem.
But to identify CL requires trained dermatologists and diagnostic testing, both of which are hard to come by right now. According to Koert Ritmeijer of Doctors Without Borders, the scant medical resources available in Syria are reserved primarily for life-saving care. Although CL is regarded as a serious issue, it's generally not fatal. So it has to take a back seat to other health threats.
That's nothing new for CL, which is classified by the World Health Organization as one of its "neglected tropical diseases." Inclusion on the list means that a disease typically affects people living in poverty and hasn't received much attention or funding. As Acosta-Serrano explains, CL fits that definition: "There's no vaccine to prevent the disease. And we're still using drugs discovered 50 years ago. They work, but many of them are quite toxic."
These chemotherapy drugs can accelerate the healing process — if they work. Because of increasing drug resistance, there's a chance a patient will just have a lot of unpleasant side effects.
The disease starts with a bite from a female sand fly infected with the Leishmania parasite, which the fly can pick up from people as well as infected animals like rodents and dogs. "That's a little painful — more than a mosquito [bite]," Acosta-Serrano says. (Although the fly itself is only about a third the size of a typical mosquito.)
The agony has only just begun. An infection appears at the site and soon develops into an open ulcer. Often, it's a large, disgusting (although painless) ulcer, notes Acosta-Serrano, who has seen the sores take over a person's entire cheek. After months (or even years), the skin eventually heals. But the person can be left with disfiguring scars, he says, which might make it difficult to get a job or find a spouse.
To avoid a worst-case scenario, some people attempt to self-vaccinate, Acosta-Serrano says. The technique — known as "leishmanization" — involves purposely infecting someone's leg by using material from the open ulcer of a person with CL. It can make the recipient immune to getting the disease again in a more unsightly spot. ("It's done to young girls because if they get a scar on their face, it's likely they'll get stigmatized and it's unlikely they'll get married in the future," he says.)
But it's a dangerous strategy, he says. It can lead to a severe bacterial or Leishmanial infection. Plus, it doesn't always work.
In an ideal world, a safe, commercially available vaccine would be on the horizon. It's not.
So Acosta-Serrano is appealing to wealthier countries to pitch in with more immediate forms of assistance. One way to decelerate the outbreak is to improve living conditions for refugees. Better sanitation reduces sand fly breeding. Sleeping indoors under nets reduces the risk of being bitten. Another item on the wish list: a fast, accurate and cheap diagnostic test that doesn't require an expensive laboratory setup.
The longer it takes for these things to happen, the more CL will spread. "This is urgent," says Acosta-Serrano, who hopes raising awareness will make a difference.
In some ways, the message has backfired. There are people citing CL as a reason to keep refugees out of Europe, although Acosta-Serrano says no one needs to fear an outbreak in countries with resources to prevent CL (and where there aren't as many sand flies).
There have also been reports in the media, he says, of ISIS dumping corpses full of parasites in the streets spreading the so-called "flesh-eating" disease. That's obviously false, adds Acosta-Serrano, who notes that the parasite is transmitted only through the bite of an infected sand fly and "sand flies will not take a feed from a cold body."TheBuddahman
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nisevoucher said:
Hey is it possible that they're gonna give up on volume 12? Hey is it possible that they're gonna give up on volume 12?
Do keep in mind, the lignt novel has questionable differences compared to the anime. We might see the light novel ends differently. Do keep in mind, the lignt novel has questionable differences compared to the anime. We might see the light novel ends differently.
The anime is not different from the light novel..
The anime cut stuff from the light novel due to time constraints but its basically still the same thing. The anime is not different from the light novel..The anime cut stuff from the light novel due to time constraints but its basically still the same thing.
It wouldn't consider they're the same, for its a fact that there are four main girls in the light novel series rather then three in the anime. Keep in mind Saki is featured much more in the light novel and there is romance development between her and hikigaya, as well as some other things. I wouldn't consider that the same thing. The light novel might have the same ending, but that doesn't mean its not different. It wouldn't consider they're the same, for its a fact that there are four main girls in the light novel series rather then three in the anime. Keep in mind Saki is featured much more in the light novel and there is romance development between her and hikigaya, as well as some other things. I wouldn't consider that the same thing. The light novel might have the same ending, but that doesn't mean its not different.
What the heck are you talking about? SakiSaki is just getting little more showtime in LNs. It doesn't mean she is a main girl! And there are no 3 main girls, there are only 2. What the heck are you talking about? SakiSaki is just getting little more showtime in LNs. It doesn't mean she is a main girl! And there are no 3 main girls, there are only 2.
You're telling me Irohas isn't considered a main girl? Maybe not in season 1, but season 2 definitely. You're telling me Irohas isn't considered a main girl? Maybe not in season |
,611 Largest region of Mali
Turkmenistan 488,100 Country in Central Asia
Denmark-Norway 487,476 A Scandinavian kingdom lasting from 1536 to 1814.
Sichuan 485,000 Province of China.
Kufra District 483,510 Largest district of Libya. The 32 districts were reorganized into 22 Sha'biyah in 2007, but Kufra appears to have retained its borders.
Cameroon 475,442 Country in Africa.
Yukon 474,391 Territory of Canada.
Kamchatka Krai 472,300 Federal subject of Russia.
Papua New Guinea 462,840 Country in Oceania.
Magadan Oblast 461,400 Federal subject of Russia.
Gansu 454,300 Province of China.
Ross Dependency 450,000 New Zealand claim to Antarctica.
Sweden 449,964 Country in Europe. Includes Gotland and Öland.
Uzbekistan 447,400 Country in Central Asia; largest doubly landlocked country of the world.
Morocco 446,550 Country in Africa; excluding Western Sahara.
Iraq 438,317 Country in Middle East.
Adélie Land 432,000 French claim to Antarctica; largest district of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
Chita Oblast 431,500 Federal subject of Russia.
Karagandy Province 428,000 Largest province of Kazakhstan.
Adrar Province 427,368 Second largest province of Algeria.
California 423,970 State of the United States.
Papua 421,981 Province of Indonesia, status uncertain following Indonesian declaration of intent to subdivide into smaller provinces.
Komi Republic 415,900 Federal subject of Russia.
Riyadh Province 412,000 Second largest province of Saudi Arabia.
Arkhangelsk Oblast 410,700 Federal subject of Russia.
Paraguay 406,752 Country in South America.
Old Kingdom 400,000 The first unified Egyptian empire lasting from 2686–2134 BC.
Middle Assyrian period 400,000 An ancient Middle Eastern kingdom in the Fertile Crescent, lasting from 1365–1000 BC.
Yunnan 394,000 Province of China.
Zimbabwe 390,757 Country in Africa.
Kurdistan 390,000(Est.) Region in the Middle East; homeland of the Kurds
Norway (total) 385,155 Country in Europe. Includes mainland Norway (324,220 km2) and the integral overseas areas of Svalbard and Jan Mayen (60,980 km2); excludes the dependency of Bouvet Island (49 km2) and the Antarctic dependency claims of Queen Maud Land and Peter I Island (~2,500,000 km2).
Montana 380,838 State of the United States.
Baltic Sea 377,000 Sea in Europe, bordered to the north by Sweden and Finland, to the east by Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, on the south by Poland and Germany, and on the West by Denmark.
Newfoundland and Labrador 373,872 Province of Canada.
Northern Cape 372,889 Largest province of South Africa.
Caspian Sea 371,000 Body of water in Central Asia variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. Between Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Iran.
Loreto Region 368,852 Largest region of Peru.
Amur Oblast 363,700 Federal subject of Russia.
Mato Grosso do Sul 357,125 State of Brazil.
Germany 357,022 Country in Europe; before the German reunification took place on 3 October 1990, Germany consisted of the former Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) with 248,689 km2 and the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) with 108,333 km2.
Oromia Region 353,632 Largest region of Ethiopia.
Buryat Republic 351,300 Federal subject of Russia.
Murzuq 349,790 2nd largest district of Libya. The 32 districts were reorganized into 22 Sha'biyah in 2007, but Murzuq appears to have retained its borders.
Northern 348,765 Largest state of Sudan.
Balochistan 347,190 Largest province of Pakistan.
Rajasthan 342,236 Largest state of India.
Republic of the Congo 342,000 Country in Africa.
Goiás 340,087 State of Brazil.
Finland 338,145 Country in Europe. Includes Åland.
South Yemen 332,970 Former country in the Middle East from 1967 to 1990; now reunified into Yemen.
Maranhão 331,983 State of Brazil.
Vietnam 331,689 Country in Southeast Asia.
Malaysia 329,847 Country in Southeast Asia.
Côte d'Ivoire 322,463 Country in Africa.
Tomsk Oblast 316,900 Federal subject of Russia.
British Isles 315,134 A series of islands in northern Europe.
New Mexico 314,915 State of the United States.
Poland 312,685 Country in Central Europe.
Oman 309,500 Country in Middle East.
Maharashtra 307,713 State of India
Buenos Aires Province 307,571 Largest province of Argentina
Italy 301,318 Country in Europe
Philippines 300,000 Country in Southeast Asia.
North Darfur 296,420 Second largest state of Sudan.
Arizona 295,254 State of the United States
Kingdom of Romania 295,049 Kingdom of Romania (1881-1947) at its greater extent in between 1919 and 1940
Nevada 286,351 State of the United States
Yugoslavia 284,710 A Balkan country lasting from 1918 to 1992.
Ecuador 283,561 Country in South America. Includes Galápagos Islands.
East Kazakhstan Province 283,300 Third largest province of Kazakhstan.
Rio Grande do Sul 281,749 State of Brazil.
Somali Region 279,252 Second largest region of Ethiopia.
Tocantins 277,621 State of Brazil.
Burkina Faso 274,000 Country in Africa.
Colorado 269,601 State of the United States.
Gabon 267,668 Country in Africa.
Western Sahara 266,000 Country in Africa; largely occupied by Morocco, some territory administered by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
Oregon 254,805 State of the United States.
Wyoming 253,348 State of the United States.
Michigan 253,266 State of the United States.
Tiris Zemmour 252,900 Largest region of Mauritania.
Piauí 251,529 State of Brazil.
Serbian Empire 250,000 Serbian medieval empire from 1346-1371.
West Germany 248,689 Former country in Europe from 1949 to 1990; now reunified into Germany.
São Paulo 248,209 State of Brazil.
Guinea 245,857 Country in Africa.
North Slope Borough, Alaska 245,436 County of Alaska; largest county in the United States, and largest organized political subdivision that is not a state.
Chihuahua 244,938 Largest state of Mexico.
Great Lakes 244,100 Lake system in North America, predominately between Canada and the United States.
Santa Cruz 243,943 Second largest province of Argentina.
Crown of Castile 241,782 Royal union of Kingdoms in Spain lasting from 1230–1760, also known as the Kingdom of Castile y Leon.
Uganda 241,038 Country in Africa.
Ghana 238,533 Country in Africa.
Romania 238,391 Country in Central Europe.
Bolívar 238,000 Largest state of Venezuela.
Rondônia 237,576 State of Brazil.
Laos 236,800 Country in Southeast Asia.
Victoria 227,146 State of Australia.
Minnesota 225,365 State of the United States.
Chubut 224,686 Third largest province of Argentina.
Roraima 224,299 State of Brazil.
Moxico Province 223,023 Largest province of Angola.
Jammu and Kashmir 222,236 State of India.
North Kurdufan 221,900 Third largest state of Sudan.
Korea 220,186 Country in Asia prior to 1948; now divided into North Korea and South Korea.
Utah 219,887 State of the United States.
Great Britain 219,000 An island of the British Isles, the largest of that group.
Kingdom of Hungary 218,915 A European Kingdom lasting from 1000–1804. Measured at its apex in 1450.
Idaho 216,446 State of the United States.
Adrar 215,300 Second largest region of Mauritania.
Guyana 214,969 Country in South America.
Beni Department 213,564 Second largest department of Bolivia.
Kansas 213,096 State of the United States.
Matruh Governorate 212,112 Second largest governorate of Egypt.
Hunan 210,000 Province of China.
Belarus 207,600 Largest landlocked country in Europe.
Greater Antilles 207,435 An island grouping in the Caribbean.
Shaanxi 205,600 Province of China.
Punjab 205,344 Second largest province of Pakistan.
Red Sea Governorate 203,685 Third largest governorate of Egypt.
Río Negro 203,013 Province of Argentina.
Nebraska 200,345 State of the United States.
Kyrgyzstan 199,900 Country in Central Asia.
South Dakota 199,731 State of the United States.
Tshopo 199,567 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Paraná 199,315 State of Brazil.
Cuando Cubango Province 199,049 Second largest province of Angola.
Senegal 196,722 Country in Africa.
Gujarat 196,024 State of India.
North Yemen 195,000 Former country in the Middle East from 1967 to 1990; now reunified into Yemen.
Sverdlovsk Oblast 194,800 Federal subject of Russia.
Karnataka 191,791 State of India.
Kingdom of the Lombards 189,418 A Germanic Kingdom in northern Italy, lasting from 568-774.
Hebei 187,700 Province of China.
Jilin 187,400 Province of China.
Hubei 185,900 Province of China.
Syria (including disputed areas) 185,180 Country in Middle East. Including the Golan Heights.
Washington 184,665 State of the United States.
Syria (non-disputed areas) 183,885 Country in Middle East. Excluding the Golan Heights.
North Dakota 183,112 State of the United States.
Hodh Ech Chargui 182,700 Third largest region of Mauritania.
Sonora 182,052 State of Mexico.
Oklahoma 181,035 State of the United States.
Cambodia 181,035 Country in Southeast Asia.
Kerman Province 180,836 Second largest province of Iran.
Missouri 180,533 State of the United States.
Guangdong 180,000 Province of China.
Novosibirsk Oblast 178,200 Federal subject of Russia.
Somaliland 176,210 Historic region of Somalia.
Guizhou 176,000 Province of China.
Uruguay 175,016 Country in South America.
Al Madinah (Medina) 173,000 Third largest province of Saudi Arabia.
Gao Region 170,572 Second largest region of Mali.
Tuva Republic 170,500 Federal subject of Russia.
Florida 170,304 State of the United States.
Kasai-Oriental 170,302 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Wisconsin 169,639 State of the United States.
Altai Krai 169,100 Federal subject of Russia.
Eastern Cape 168,966 Second largest province of South Africa.
Hadhramaut Governorate 167,280 Largest governorate of Yemen.
Jiangxi 167,000 Province of China.
Henan 167,000 Province of China.
Primorsky Krai 165,900 Federal subject of Russia.
Karakalpakstan 165,600 Largest province of Uzbekistan.
Ömnögovi 165,400 Largest aimag of Mongolia.
Córdoba 165,321 Province of Argentina.
Kingdom of the Burgundians 164,166 A Germanic Kingdom in west-central France, lasting from 411-533.
Makkah Province 164,000 Province of Saudi Arabia.
Suriname 163,820 Country in South America.
Tunisia 163,610 Country in Africa.
Tyumen Oblast 161,800 Federal subject of Russia.
Toliara Province 161,405 Largest Province of Madagascar.
ǁKaras Region 161,215 Largest region of Namibia.
Perm Krai 160,600 Federal subject of Russia.
Eastern Province 159,891 Second largest Province of Kenya.
Amhara Region 159,174 Third largest region of Ethiopia.
Shan State 158,222 Largest state of Myanmar (Myanmar has certain administrative divisions titled as Divisions, and others titled as States).
Shanxi 156,300 Province of China.
Orissa 155,707 State of India.
Salta 155,488 Province of Argentina.
Georgia (U.S. state) 153,909 State of the United States.
Shandong 153,800 Province of China.
Acre 152,581 State of Brazil.
Kidal Region 151,430 Third largest region of Mali.
South Island 150,437 Largest island of New Zealand.
Mahajanga Province 150,023 Second largest Province of Madagascar.
Old Assyrian period 150,000 An ancient Middle Eastern kingdom in the Fertile Crsecent, lasting from 1920-1740 BC.
Illinois 149,998 State of the United States.
Coahuila 149,982 State of Mexico.
Mendoza 148,827 Province of Argentina.
Ceará 148,826 State of Brazil.
Bas-Uele 148,331 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Northern Province 147,826 Largest province of Zambia.
Central District 147,730 Largest district of Botswana.
Nepal 147,181 Country in South Asia.
Liaoning 145,900 Province of China.
Iowa 145,743 State of the United States.
Vologda Oblast 145,700 Federal subject of Russia.
Zinder Department 145,430 Second largest department of Niger.
Murmansk Oblast 144,900 Federal subject of Russia.
Razavi Khorasan Province 144,681 Third largest province of Iran.
Bangladesh 143,998 Country in Southeast Asia.
La Pampa 143,440 Province of Argentina.
Tajikistan 143,100 Country in Central Asia.
Amapá 142,815 State of Brazil.
Govi-Altai 141,400 Second largest aimag of Mongolia.
New York 141,299 State of the United States.
Sindh 140,914 Third largest province of Pakistan.
Diffa Department 140,216 Third largest department of Niger.
Omsk Oblast 139,700 Federal subject of Russia.
Anhui 139,700 Province of China.
Republic of Yucatán 139,426 Sovereign country in North America, 1841–1848.
North Carolina 139,389 State of the United States.
Balkan Province 138,000 Largest province of Turkmenistan.
Arkansas 137,732 State of the United States.
Santiago del Estero 136,351 Province of Argentina.
Alabama 135,765 State of the United States.
Chhattisgarh 135,194 State of India.
Tanganyika Province 134,940 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Louisiana 134,264 State of the United States.
La Paz Department 133,985 Third largest department of Bolivia.
Santa Fe 133,007 Province of Argentina.
Tshuapa 132,940 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Haut-Katanga Province 132,425 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Maniema 132,250 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Greece 131,957 Country in Europe.
England 130,395 Largest constituent country of the United Kingdom.
Nicaragua 130,000 Largest country in Central America; excludes San Andrés y Providencia islands (disputed territories with Colombia).
North-West District 129,930 Second largest district of Botswana.
Free State 129,825 Third largest province of South Africa.
Kingdom of Poland 129,707 Medieval central European Kingdom, lasting from 1025-1569 when it formed a union with Lithuania. Size is approximate.
Western Cape 129,462 Province of South Africa.
Niassa Province 129,056 Largest province of Mozambique.
Czechoslovakia 127,900 Central European country between 1918 and 1992.
Mai-Ndombe Province 127,465 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
North Eastern Province 126,902 Third largest province of Kenya.
Western Province 126,386 Second largest province of Zambia.
North-Western Province 125,827 Third largest province of Zambia.
Limpopo 125,754 Province of South Africa.
Mississippi 125,434 State of the United States.
Antofagasta 125,306 Largest region of Chile (excluding Antarctic claims).
Sarawak 124,450 Largest state of Malaysia.
Orenburg Oblast 124,000 Federal subject of Russia.
Dornod 123,600 Third largest aimag of Mongolia.
Durango 123,181 State of Mexico.
Guelmim-Es Semara 122,825 Second largest region of Morocco.
Jungoli 122,479 State of Sudan.
Lualaba Province 121,308 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fujian 121,300 Province of China.
Kirov Oblast 120,800 Federal subject of Russia.
North Korea 120,538 Country in Asia.
Emirate of Granada 120,337 Moorish Vassal to the Kingdom of Castile lasting from 1228-1492, measured at its apex in 1228.
Pennsylvania 119,283 State of the United States.
Najran Province 119,000 Province of Saudi Arabia.
Malawi 118,484 Country in Africa.
Ghanzi District 117,910 Third largest district of Botswana.
Eritrea 117,600 Country in Africa. Includes Badme region.
Ohio 116,096 State of the United States.
Bayankhongor 116,000 Aimag of Mongolia.
Puntland 116,000 Historic region of Somalia.
Qeqqata 115,500 Second smallest municipality of Greenland.
Kunene Region 115,293 Second largest region of Namibia.
Telangana 114,840 A state of India, which was formed on 2 June 2014.
Kanem 114,520 Second largest region of Chad.
Volgograd Oblast 113,900 Federal subject of Russia.
North Island 113,729 Second largest island of New Zealand.
Benin 112,622 Country in Africa.
Magallanes and Antártica Chilena 112,310 Second largest region of Chile (excluding Antarctic claims).
Honduras 112,088 Country in Central America.
Kingdom of Sicily 111,900 A medieval kingdom centered on the Island of Sicily and in southern Italy, lasting from 1130-1282.
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 111,900 A kingdom centered on the Island of Sicily and in southern Italy, lasting from 1811-1861.
Liberia 111,369 Country in Africa.
Bulgaria 110,912 Country in Europe.
Cuba 110,861 Largest country in the Caribbean.
Navoiy Province 110,800 Second largest province of Uzbekistan.
Virginia 110,785 State of the United States.
Amazonas Department 109,665 Largest district of Colombia.
Hardap Region 109,651 Third largest region of Namibia.
Dornogovi 109,500 Aimag of Mongolia.
Tennessee 109,151 State of the United States.
East Province 109,011 Largest province of Cameroon.
Guatemala 108,889 Country in Central America.
East Germany 108,333 Former country in Europe from 1949 to 1990; now reunified into Germany.
Haut-Lomami Province 108,204 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Tabuk Province 108,000 Province of Saudi Arabia.
Aisén 107,153 Third largest region of Chile.
Otjozondjupa 105,185 Region of Namibia.
Zambezia Province 105,008 Second largest province of Mozambique.
Sankuru 105,000 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
North West 104,882 Province of South Africa.
Kentucky 104,659 State of the United States.
Kingdom of Aragon 103,088 Constituent Kingdom of Spain lasting from 1035-1515.
Iceland 103,000 Country in Europe.
Lunda Norte Province 102,783 Third largest province of Angola.
Catamarca 102,602 Province of Argentina.
Jiangsu 102,600 Province of China.
Fianarantsoa Province 102,373 Third largest Province of Madagascar.
Zhejiang 102,000 Province of China.
Ucayali Region 101,831 Second largest region of Peru.
Rostov Oblast 100,800 Federal subject of Russia.
Tete Province 100,724 Third largest province of Mozambique.
Khövsgöl 100,600 Aimag of Mongolia.
Vichada Department 100,242 Second largest district of Colombia.
Saratov Oblast 100,200 Federal subject of Russia.
Chaco 99,633 Province of Argentina.
Cuba 110,860 Island in the Caribbean.
South Korea 99,538 Country in Asia.
Dhofar Governorate 99,300 Largest governorate of Oman.
Sagaing Region 99,150 Largest region of Myanmar, second largest administrative entity (Myanmar has certain administrative divisions titled as Regions, and others titled as States).
Lapland 98,946 Largest province of Finland.
Norrbotten County 98,911 Largest county of Sweden.
Pernambuco 98,312 State of Brazil.
Kasaï Province 95,631 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Kemerovo Oblast 95,500 Federal subject of Russia.
Santa Catarina 95,346 State of Brazil.
Tagant 95,200 Region of Mauritania.
Ahal Province 95,000 Second largest province of Turkmenistan.
KwaZulu-Natal 94,361 Third smallest province of South Africa.
Indiana 94,321 State of the United States.
Castile and León 94,223 Largest autonomous community of Spain.
Bihar 94,164 State of India.
Neuquén 94,078 Province of Argentina.
Oaxaca 93,952 State of Mexico.
West Bahr-al-Ghazal 93,900 Second largest state of South Sudan.
Hungary 93,032 Country in Central Europe.
Altai Republic 92,600 Federal subject of Russia.
Portugal 91,982 Country in Europe. Includes Azores and Madeira Islands.
Boquerón department 91,669 Largest department of Paraguay.
Maine 91,646 State of the United States.
French Guiana 90,000 French overseas département in South America.
Kwango 89,974 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Haut-Uele 89,683 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
La Rioja 89,680 Province of Argentina.
San Juan 89,651 Province of Argentina.
Jordan 89,342 Country in Middle East.
Caquetá Department 88,965 Third largest district of Colombia.
Batha Region 88,800 Third largest region of Chad.
Serbia 88,361 Country in Europe. Includes UN-administered territory of Kosovo.
Corrientes 88,199 Province of Argentina.
Chelyabinsk Oblast 87,900 Federal subject of Russia.
Kachin State 87,808 Second largest state of Myanmar, third largest administrative entity (Myanmar has certain administrative divisions titled as Regions, and others titled as States).
Andalusia 87,268 Second largest autonomous community of Spain.
Sakhalin Oblast 87,100 Federal subject of Russia.
Mary Province 87,000 Second smallest province of Turkmenistan.
Haute-Kotto 86,650 Largest prefecture of the Central African Republic.
Azerbaijan 86,600 Country in Central Asia. Includes the exclave of Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic and the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Kingdom of Naples 86,192 A medieval kingdom centered in southern Italy, lasting from 1282-1811/1816.
Omaheke 84,612 Region of Namibia.
Leningrad Oblast 84,500 Federal subject of Russia.
Ireland 84,421 An island off the northwest coast of Europe.
Tver Oblast 84,100 Federal subject of Russia.
Austria 83,858 Country in Europe.
United Arab Emirates 83,600 Country in Middle East.
Guyane 83,534 Largest overseas department of France.
Hokkaidō 83,452 Largest prefecture of Japan.
South Carolina 82,932 State of the United States.
Oriental 82,900 Third largest region of Morocco.
East Equatoria 82,542 State of South Sudan.
Zavkhan 82,500 Aimag of Mongolia.
Lake Superior 82,414 Lake in North America, between Canada and the United States.
Alto Paraguay 82,349 Second largest department of Paraguay.
Sükhbaatar 82,300 Aimag of Mongolia.
Riau 82,232 Province of Indonesia.
Kingdom of León 81,342 A medieval kingdom constituent of Spain, lasting from 910-1301. Measured at its apex after 1030.
'Asir 81,000 Province of Saudi Arabia.
Jalisco 80,386 State of Mexico.
Khentii 80,300 Aimag of Mongolia.
Jharkhand 79,700 State of India.
Al Wusta Governorate 79,700 Second largest governorate of Oman.
Castile-La Mancha 79,463 Third largest autonomous community of Spain.
Tamaulipas 79,384 State of Mexico.
West Equatoria 79,319 Third largest tate of South Sudan.
Czech Republic 78,866 Country in Central Europe.
Entre Ríos 78,781 Province of Argentina.
Scotland 78,772 Second largest constituent country of the United Kingdom.
Assam 78,483 State of India.
Atacama 78,268 Region of Chile.
Kwilu Province 78,219 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Upper Nile 77,773 State of South Sudan.
Gadsden Purchase 76,800 Territory in Arizona acquired by the US in 1854.
San Luis 76,748 Province of Argentina.
Apure 76,500 Third largest state of Venezuela.
Mpumalanga 76,495 Second smallest province of South Africa.
Ouaddaï 76,240 Region of Chad.
Tabora 76,151 Largest region of Tanzania.
Sabah 76,115 Second largest state of Malaysia.
Khovd 76,100 Aimag of Mongolia.
Krasnodar Krai 76,000 Federal subject of Russia.
Panama 75,517 Country in Central America.
Gedarif 75,263 State of Sudan.
Rukwa 75,240 Second largest region of Tanzania.
Matabeleland North 75,025 Largest province of Zimbabwe.
Dundgovi 74,700 Aimag of Mongolia.
Chiapas 74,211 State of Mexico.
Western Finland 74,185 Second largest province of Finland.
Töv 74,000 Aimag of Mongolia.
Daşoguz Province 74,000 Smallest province of Turkmenistan.
Baja California Sur 73,475 State of Mexico.
Kingdom of Castile 73,299 A medieval kingdom constituent of Spain, lasting from 1035-1230.
Zacatecas 73,252 State of Mexico.
Presidente Hayes 72,907 Third largest department of Paraguay.
Borno State 72,767 Largest state of Nigeria.
Kankan Region 72,145 Largest region of Guinea.
Formosa 72,066 Province of Argentina.
Niger State 72,065 Second largest state of Nigeria.
Sierra Leone 71,740 Country in Africa.
Veracruz 71,699 State of Mexico.
Kurgan Oblast 71,000 Federal subject of Russia.
Morogoro 70,799 Third largest region of Tanzania.
Bavaria 70,549 Largest state of Germany.
Northern Region 70,383 Largest region of Ghana.
Republic of Ireland 70,273 Country in Europe.
Baja California 69,921 State of Mexico.
Georgia 69,700 Country in Caucasus.
Uvs 69,600 Aimag of Mongolia.
Lake Victoria 69,485 Lake in Africa between Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Centre Province 68,926 Second largest province of Cameroon.
Tasmania 67,800 State of Australia.
Trarza 67,800 Region of Mauritania.
Abu Dhabi 67,340 Largest emirate of the United Arab Emirates.
Al Mahrah Governorate 67,310 Second largest governorate of Yemen.
Kingdom of Toledo 67,273 A kingdom of the Spanish reconquista lasting from 1085-1212.
Stavropol Krai 66,500 Federal subject of Russia.
Ruvuma 66,477 Region of Tanzania.
Lindi 66,046 Region of Tanzania.
Likouala 66,044 Largest department of the Republic of the Congo.
Ituri Province 65,658 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Sri Lanka 65,610 Country in Asia.
North Province 65,576 Third largest province of Cameroon.
Lithuania 65,300 Country in Europe.
Sud-Kivu 65,070 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Guárico 64,986 State of Venezuela.
Ségou Region 64,821 Smallest region of Mali (excluding the Capital district).
Latvia 64,600 Country in Europe.
Guerrero 64,281 State of Mexico.
Nuevo León 64,210 State of Mexico.
Gorno-Badakhshan 64,200 Largest province of Tajikistan.
Zulia 63,100 State of Venezuela.
San Luis Potosí 63,068 State of Mexico.
Salamat 63,000 Region of Chad.
Övörkhangai 62,900 Aimag of Mongolia.
West Virginia 62,755 State of the United States.
Mbeya 62,420 Region of Tanzania.
Mbomou 61,150 Second largest prefecture of the Central African Republic.
Kostroma Oblast 60,100 Federal subject of Russia.
Michoacán 59,928 State of Mexico.
Lake Huron 59,596 Lake in North America, between Canada and the United States.
Nord-Kivu 59,483 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Taraba State 59,180 Third largest state of Nigeria.
Kasaï-Central 59,111 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Guéra 58,950 Region of Chad.
Iringa 58,936 Region of Tanzania.
Helmand Province 58,584 Largest province of Afghanistan.
Sinaloa 58,328 State of Mexico.
Bamingui-Bangoran 58,200 Third largest prefecture of the Central African Republic.
Mongala 58,141 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Lake Michigan 58,000 Lake in North America, between Canada and the United States.
Mashonaland West 57,441 Second largest province of Zimbabwe.
Aceh 57,366 Province of Indonesia.
Togo 56,785 Country in Africa.
Nord-Ubangi 56,644 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Croatia 56,594 Country in Europe.
Masvingo 56,566 Third largest province of Zimbabwe.
Paraíba 56,440 State of Brazil.
Lomami Province 56,426 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Sangha 55,800 Second largest department of the Republic of the Congo.
Haut-Mbomou 55,530 Prefecture of the Central African Republic.
Västerbotten County 55,401 Second largest county of Sweden.
Pskov Oblast 55,300 Federal subject of Russia.
Novgorod Oblast 55,300 Federal subject of Russia.
Arkhangai 55,300 Aimag of Mongolia.
Herat Province 54,778 Second largest province of Afghanistan.
Kandahar Province 54,022 Third largest province of Afghanistan.
Kongo Central 53,920 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Samara Oblast 53,600 Federal subject of Russia.
Uttarakhand 53,566 State of India.
Jambi 53,437 Province of Indonesia.
Nova Scotia 53,338 Province of Canada.
Jujuy 53,219 Province of Argentina.
Rio Grande do Norte 52,797 State of Brazil.
Sud-Ubangi 51,648 Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Voronezh Oblast 52,400 Federal subject of Russia.
Bohemia 52,065 Historical region of the Czech Republic.
Bosnia and Herzegovina 51,197 Country in Europe.
Costa Rica 51,100 Country in Central America. Includes Isla del Coco.
Campeche 50,812 State of Mexico.
Shinyanga 50,781 Region of Tanzania.
Chagai 50,545 Largest District of Pakistan
Punjab 50,362 State of India.
Ouham 50,250 Prefecture of the Central African Republic.
Quintana Roo 50,212 State of Mexico.
Ouaka 49,900 Prefecture of the Central African Republic.
Smolensk Oblast 49,800 Federal subject of Russia.
Bago Region 49,787 Second largest region of Myanmar, fourth largest administrative entity (Myanmar has certain administrative divisions titled as Regions, and others titled as States).
Jämtland County 49,444 Third largest county of Sweden.
Singida 49,341 Region of Tanzania.
Midlands 49,166 Province of Zimbabwe.
Slovakia 49,033 Country in Europe.
Eastern Finland 48,726 Second smallest province of Finland.
Bulgan 48,700 Aimag of Mongolia.
Dominican Republic 48,671 Country in the Caribbean. Includes The Mainland Dominican Republic, Saona Island, and others under Control Of Dominican Government
Finnmark 48,637 Largest county of Norway.
Manyara 47,913 Region of Tanzania.
Aragon 47,719 Autonomous community of Spain.
Lower Saxony 47,618 Second largest state of Germany.
Estonia 47,549 Country in Northern Europe. De jure size - 2,321 km2 were annexed by Russia.
Maluku 46,975 Province of Indonesia.
Inchiri 46,800 Region of Mauritania.
Vakaga 46,500 Prefecture of the Central African Republic.
Espírito Santo 46,078 State of Brazil.
Ogooué-Ivindo 46,075 Largest province of Gabon.
Galmudug 46,000 Historic region of Somalia.
Moscow Oblast 45,900 Federal subject of Russia.
Kingdom of Asturias 45,409 A post Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula after the Muslim conquest, lasting from 785-925.
Estonia 45,228 Country in Northern Europe. Includes 1,520 islands in the Baltic Sea. De facto size - the remaining 2,321 km2 were annexed by Russia.
Naryn Province 45,200 Largest province of Kyrgyzstan.
Kigoma 45,066 Region of Tanzania.
Magway Region 44,799 Region of Myanmar (Myanmar has certain administrative divisions titled as Regions, and others titled as States).
Canterbury 44,638 Largest region of New Zealand.
Haryana 44,212 State of India.
Astrakhan Oblast 44,100 Federal subject of Russia.
Rhône-Alpes 43,698 Second largest region of Metropolitan France.
Rio de Janeiro 43,696 State of Brazil.
East Sepik Province 43,426 Second largest province of Papua New Guinea.
Tanintharyi Region 43,328 Region of Myanmar (Myanmar has certain administrative divisions titled as Regions, and others titled as States).
Anzoátegui 43,300 State of Venezuela.
Penza Oblast 43,200 Federal subject of Russia.
Issyk Kul Province 43,100 Second largest province of Kyrgyzstan.
Denmark 43,094 Country in Europe. Includes Denmark proper only; the entire Kingdom of Denmark, including Greenland and Faroe Islands covers 2,220,093 km2.
Antsiranana Province 43,046 Smallest Province of Madagascar.
Tambacounda Region 42,706 Largest region of Senegal.
Upper Peninsula of Michigan 42,610 Geographic subdivision of the U.S. State of Michigan.
Kingdom of the Netherlands 42,437 Country in Europe and the Caribbean.
Udmurt Republic 42,100 Federal subject of Russia.
Cuvette 41,800 Third largest department of the Republic of the Congo. Area is approximate, as sources conflict.
Extremadura 41,634 Autonomous community of Spain.
Netherlands 41,528 Country in Europe. Includes the Netherlands proper only.
Dodoma 41,311 Region of Tanzania.
Aquitaine 41,308 Third largest region of Metropolitan France.
Switzerland 41,284 Country in Europe.
Selenge 41,200 Aimag of Mongolia.
Tarapacá 41,200 Region of Chile.
Homs 40,940 Largest governorate of Syria.
Minsk Voblast (Minsk Province) 40,800 Largest province of Belarus.
Homiel Voblast (Homyel Province) 40,400 Second largest province of Belarus.
Lakes 40,235 State of South Sudan.
Savanes District 40,210 Largest district of Côte d'Ivoire.
Vitsebsk Voblast (Vitsebsk Province) 40,100 Third largest province of Belarus.
Coquimbo 39,647 Region of Chile.
Kagera 39,627 Region of Tanzania.
Ryazan Oblast 39,600 Federal subject of Russia.
Brong-Ahafo Region |
only in the last couple centuries have we obtained the means to unequivocally determine that age from actual evidence. The road was a long one.
In the late 1700s, geology was in its infancy. Rock layers (of any type) were only starting to be recognized as something other than deposits from a catastrophic, world-wide flood. James Hutton, a Scottish scientist, became enthralled with the fantastic histories he saw recorded in the rocks of his homeland. At a now-famous seaside outcrop on the eastern coast of Scotland, he saw nearly horizontal layers of red sandstone on top of completely vertical layers of a much different, gray sedimentary rock. He was the first to grasp the significance of that spatial relationship.
The gray rock must have started out as a sedimentary deposit, got buried, lithified into rock, scrunched up so the layers became vertical, risen to the surface, and then eroded down like a folded phone book cut horizontally. On top of this mess, some sand was deposited, buried, lithified into rock, and brought back up to the surface yet again. The sheer time all this must have required boggled Hutton's mind. Everywhere he looked he saw the evidence of vast expanses of time. "We find no sign of a beginning," he wrote, "no prospect for an end." His colleague and friend John Playfair commented that "the mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time."
Cooling with age
A French contemporary of Hutton's, Georges-Louis Leclerc, had the idea the temperature of the Earth might tell us its age. People knew that the Earth produced heat—they were well acquainted with the hot conditions in deep mines—and Leclerc thought that perhaps it was cooling from an original, molten state. He experimented (a bit crudely) with hot iron spheres of varying sizes, and eventually estimated that the Earth must be between 75,000 and 168,000 years old. The suggestion that the Earth could be so old was scandalous and got him in a bit of trouble. Author Bill Bryson writes in A Short History of Nearly Everything, "A practical man, he apologized at once for this thoughtless heresy, then cheerfully repeated the assertions throughout his subsequent writings."
The 1800s saw gargantuan strides in the field of geology, and it became well accepted in the scientific community that the Earth was probably a few million years old, and perhaps a few tens of millions. Charles Darwin, as well as others like T.H. Huxley and Charles Lyell, insisted the age of the Earth must be in the hundreds of millions. William Thomson (better known as Lord Kelvin) took issue with that idea, and revisited Leclerc’s idea of a cooling planet utilizing advances in physics. He calculated an age that started at 98 million years, but gradually crept down to 24 million years by 1897. He admitted that his calculation could be wrong if there were unknown sources of heat, but didn’t give that possibility much thought.
Just one year earlier, however, someone had discovered a potential source of heat. In 1896, Henri Becquerel had inadvertently discovered radioactivity when he left some uranium ore in a drawer on top of an undeveloped photographic plate, on which the uranium left a "shadow." Becquerel handed the phenomenon off to his student Marie Curie and her husband Pierre. What they found won the trio the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics.
Enter Ernest Rutherford, who had some key insights. He realized that radioactivity was energy released during the "disintegration" of atoms, and he discovered what is known as the half-life—the amount of time it takes half of the radioactive atoms in a sample to decay. He knew he had found Lord Kelvin’s unknown source of heat. The release of energy from radioactive elements deep in the Earth would have greatly increased the time needed for the planet to cool to its current temperature—by hundreds of millions of years, at least, he said. Better still, it became apparent to him that one could use radioactivity as a clock, with the half-life of a decay series enabling us to calculate the age of a rock
The next step came from Arthur Holmes, who set out to date some rocks with Rutherford's new technique. By 1913 he had pushed the formation of the Earth back to 1.6 billion years; by 1946 it was over 3 billion years.
Plate tectonics and an accurate age
By 1946, however, the battle over continental drift was in full swing. Alfred Wegener had found considerable evidence to support the idea that the continents had, in fact, formed a supercontinent in the past and had since split apart, but he couldn’t explain how it had happened. Some viewed it as a great puzzle, but many dismissed his hypothesis as nonsense. Of course the continents don’t go cruising around—that’s ridiculous!
Arthur Holmes proposed that the heat in the interior of the Earth, some of which was generated by radioactive decay, could be driving a convection that drags around the continents at the surface. It would be a long time before plate tectonics was widely accepted (exploration of the seafloor in the 1950s and 1960s would push the theory over the edge), but with a possible mechanism in place, the debate became a little more serious.
One of Holmes' students, a young man named Clair Patterson, began a project in 1948 to determine the ultimate age of the Earth once and for all. The problem at this point was not with the dating method; the problem was finding the right thing to date. In order to have the final word on the matter, you needed to date the oldest rock on the planet. How would you know when you found it? Patterson found a way around this. Instead of dating something in the ground, he dated something from the sky—a meteorite.
It was expected that most of the meteorites that fell to Earth were left over from the birth of the solar system, so they should have formed at the same time as the Earth. He chose a piece of the Canyon Diablo meteorite, which impacted about 50,000 years ago in Arizona. In 1953 he presented his results: the Earth, he said, was 4.55 billion years old. He did fine work—the discussion these days is centered on the second or third decimal place of that number.
Apportioning the heat
That may be settled, but there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about the thermal workings of the Earth’s interior, including the original question raised by Lord Kelvin’s work: how much heat is left over from the origin of the planet (known as "primordial" heat)? The answer could inform big questions about the nature of the convection in the Earth’s mantle, as well as in the outer core, where the motion that creates our planet’s magnetic field takes place. Estimates have been made based on the expected chemical composition of the interior, but we’ve never actually measured the radiogenic contribution.
Until now. A paper published last week in Nature Geoscience reports the results of recent work using neutrino detectors to quantify the radiogenic production of heat. The KamLAND detector in Japan can detect anti-neutrinos generated by the decay of uranium and thorium—the two elements responsible for most of the radioactive heating of the Earth. Using data gathered from other sources on potassium—the other major element—they were able to estimate that radiogenic heat accounts for half of the heat produced by the Earth. Lord Kelvin was missing half the story.
The results actually compared pretty well to the earlier estimate based on chemical composition. That model estimated that uranium and thorium (together) accounted for about 16 terawatts of the approximately 44 terawatts of heat produced by the Earth. The calculation from the neutrino work yields 20 terawatts for uranium and thorium. (Potassium produces about 4 terawatts.)
The authors note that additional neutrino detectors (and improvements in detector sensitivity) elsewhere around the world could figure out whether the production of these “geoneutrinos” varies from place to place. If it does, a network of detectors could give us a more detailed picture of the thermal structure of the mantle.
It may be some time before we can answer all these questions, but really, we’ve made pretty good progress—we’ve only been at it for 0.00001 percent of the Earth’s existence.
Nature Geoscience, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1205 (About DOIs).Angela Merkel has delivered a sharp rebuke to Italy and France for hindering the eurozone's recovery by breaking longstanding fiscal rules.
The German chancellor, under pressure following a fall in GDP in the second quarter, said faltering growth was the direct result of the 18-member currency zone's inability to punish those countries that ran high deficits in contravention of limits set by Brussels.
She said Germany had shown it was possible to cut the government's annual spending deficit while at the same time improve the economic situation.
Speaking to an audience of Nobel prize-winning economists in the Bavarian town of Lindau, she said individual countries had ignored Brussels and the European Central Bank (ECB) to continue running larger deficits than allowed by the fiscal rules. "We have very little, if any, possibility of sanctioning those countries that break the rules," she said.
Her comments echoed those of ECB president Mario Draghi, who last month warned that without moves to strengthen the fiscal pact and impose punishments on rule-breaking countries, the eurozone project could flounder. The two speeches highlight the growing frustration among senior eurozone policymakers at the failure of France and Italy to meet the 3% deficit target set by Brussels with Germany's support.
The eurozone economy stalled in the last quarter following poor output figures from France and Italy and a slowdown in Germany, much of it blamed on a drop in demand for German goods from its largest neighbours and the Ukraine crisis.
However, critics of Merkel and her finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, argue that Germany is the source of the currency zone's problems following its pursuit of balanced budgets while harder-hit countries have yet to rebuild their banking sectors and bolster consumer confidence.
Germany's persistent trade surplus with other EU countries is also blamed for undermining the recovery among the other 17 members, which import German goods but struggle to sell inside the EU's largest economy.
Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz criticised the chancellor on the sidelines of the conference for imposing policies that have led to high unemployment and slow growth. Merkel has resisted Stiglitz's calls for a Keynesian spur to recovery, including pooling debts in commonly-issued "Eurobonds" to allow members of the currency to borrow money at lower interest rates.
"We see the enormous price that Europe is paying," the former World Bank chief economist told Bloomberg Television. "Hopefully the reality of this failed policy will strike."
Merkel told Stiglitz and other Nobel laureates that monetary union needed to be married to fiscal union, which would provide the confidence and discipline for stained growth. She said that Europe, with 7% of the world's population, 25% of world GDP and 50% of social security expenditure faced many difficult decisions over spending in the next 30 years. There was also the threat of another financial crisis unless global regulators clamped down on new forms of trading that posed a risk to the banking system. She said progress had been made in reining in banks, but they still constituted "an area which is extremely bereft of regulation".
Shadow banking, which involves trading and lending away from regulated exchanges, is worth billions of dollars and has increasingly posed concerns for central banks and financial watchdogs. "If we don't put them under the microscope, with the same consequences, the danger of another financial crisis is already pre-scripted," Merkel added.Houstonians really have taken to the take-n-bake pizza concept.
Papa Murphy's, a nationwide chain that entered the Houston market five years ago, now has 19 franchise locations across the area. Within three to five years, the company hopes to have as many as 60, company Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer Jayson Tipp said.
The stores prepare dough in-house, and ingredients such as vegetables are brought in daily. Employees prepare the pizzas, which customers buy and bake at home.
Various supermarket chains, including H-E-B and Whole Foods, also sell take-n-bake pizza.
RELATED: Most popular quick-serve restaurants in America
Papa Murphy's is focused on expanding in the Houston area, Tipp said, because it still has fewer locations than the company's more developed markets in smaller cities such as Portland.
"We knew it was a very big market and had plenty of opportunity," Tipp said. "We just look forward to having a lot of success."
Nine future franchises are under development, including one in Tomball, scheduled to open in September at 14071 FM 2920, and another in Katy, scheduled to open in October along Spring Green Boulevard near FM 1463, Tipp said. Additional stores are planned in Conroe, League City and Spring by the end of the year.
Papa Murphy's has 1,500 locations in 130 markets in 38 states.
In a recent survey of 10,000 fast-food customers by Market Force Information, Papa Murphy's was named the best place to get pizza in the $40 billion pizza industry for the third year in a row.By Richard Fidler
March 30, 2010 -- Life on the Left -- A five-year long attempt to reform the Parti Québécois (PQ) as an independentist and “social-democratic” party ended abruptly on March 13 when the PQ’s national executive decided not to renew recognition of its left-wing “political club” as an authorised grouping with the party. The decision, which effectively expelled Syndicalistes et Progressistes pour un Québec Libre (SPQ Libre)[1] from the party, was promptly approved by the PQ’s conference of constituency presidents.
The PQ leadership’s move coincided with a weekend symposium sponsored by the party on the theme of reorienting Québécois toward individual enrichment in place of collective enrichment — part of an ongoing campaign to win the hearts and votes of disaffected followers of Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ). The far-right ADQ, which the PQ replaced as official parliamentary opposition in the December 2008 general election, has since slipped catastrophically in opinion polls and now ranks just below the left-wing party, Québec solidaire.
In 2005 the PQ had amended its statutes to allow SPQ Libre to join the party as an officially recognised “club”. Party leaders, including former Premier Bernard Landry, hoped to use SPQ Libre to forestall support for Québec solidaire, which was then being formed through a fusion of left-wing organisations. SPQ Libre member Monique Richard, former president of the CSQ, was elected president of the Parti Québécois and later elected as a PQ candidate to the National Assembly. Other prominent SPQ Libre members included Vivian Barbot, former president of the Quebec Women’s Federation (FFQ) and later a Bloc Québécois MP; former PQ minister Robert Dean; and Marc Laviolette, former president of the CSN (and current SPQ Libre president).
The PQ leadership’s surprise decision to expel SPQ Libre may have been provoked by the latter’s publication on the eve of the party symposium of a major document entitled (in translation) “To grow rich sustainably is to grow rich collectively”. It argued that Quebec’s enormous achievements toward overcoming its historic development lag within Canada had been achieved since the 1960s through state action in the interests of the Quebec nation collectively, and that this — not individual profit-seeking — should continue to be the trajectory and hallmark of a sovereign Quebec. The document said the only other option, which it described as “the federalist approach” — but was clearly the direction being mapped by PQ leader Pauline Marois and her executive — was to “lighten the tax burden of the better-off while crossing our fingers [in the hope] that the monies released would not go the path of tax havens but be reinvested in Quebec”.
The group’s expulsion sent a clear signal to the media, the ADQ, and the PQ membership and potential funding sources that such talk was no longer acceptable within the party.
Québec solidaire a lifeline?
But it also raised a new question as to where the now homeless SPQ-Libre and its supporters might find a lodging. Québec solidaire was quick to respond with a statement issued March 14 by QS leaders Amir Khadir and Françoise David. They linked the expulsion of SPQ-Libre to the pressure on the PQ of the looming confrontation between the government and the Common Front of public-sector unions, whose contracts expire at the end of March. David noted that PQ leader Marois had recently criticised the Common Front wage demands as “somewhat high”. The PQ, said David, equated wealth creation with the abandonment of social justice, “the necessary ingredient of collective prosperity”.
“To defend the public sector union members, to press for recognition of the work done by health-care personnel and an end to their impoverishment, would displease our economic élite”, said Khadir. “The PQ desperately lacks the necessary political courage to stand up to these powerful interests.”
Journalist Paul Cliche, a QS member and long-time left activist — he led the Front d’Action Populaire, or FRAP, a municipal party that challenged the electoral machine of Montréal mayor Jean Drapeau in the early 1970s — issued his own statement: SPQ Libre members could “console themselves, for there is another sovereigntist party, one resolutely progressive and turned toward the future, which is ready to welcome them — Welcome to Québec solidaire, comrades....” And indeed, the existence of SPQ Libre, with its orientation to working within the PQ, has been an ever-present reminder of the incomplete nature of the left regroupment process that gave birth to Québec solidaire.
SPQ Libre clings to PQ
However, a QS-SPQ Libre fusion, while it would help give Québec solidaire a stronger presence and influence within the labour movement, is not on the immediate agenda. In a statement issued March 18, SPQ Libre leaders declared their intention to continue working as individual members within the PQ and urged their supporters to get elected to PQ constituency executives and become delegates to the party’s next convention, in 2011. The statement holds out the hope that the party membership will somehow challenge and reverse the leadership’s rightward turn.
A parallel statement issued on the same date by SPQ Libre said that as an independent organisation its “mandate” would expand, action within the PQ now being only one component. And in an act of pure hubris, it appealed “to independentists, progressives and trade unionists, whether members of the PQ or Québec solidaire or without a party”... “to join our ranks”!
These statements, notwithstanding their defiant tone, confirm the hopelessness of the SPQ Libre strategy. As they relate, the group had complied with the PQ registration and filing requirements; its members had been “good soldiers”, running as PQ candidates in elections, publicly voting in favour of the party’s election platforms, loyally attempting to advance their positions within the party structures. Where they spoke out independently, as in newspaper articles published in their name, it had been to support strikes, oppose the war in Afghanistan, criticise cutbacks in health care, etc. — “current matters that are not contentious within the PQ, at least we hope so”.
In party debates, they had achieved “more victories than defeats” — winning party support for a resolution on nationalisation of wind-power generation (soon disavowed by the party leader), another resolution to make French the sole language of instruction in the publicly funded junior colleges, proposals in favour of electrification of urban and inter-urban transportation, etc., while suffering defeat on such issues as ending government subsidies to private schools, or a proposal to allow a referendum on popular initiative, independently of government policy.[2]
But they had been accused of not conducting their debates publicly instead of confining them to the party’s institutions. Fair enough, said SPQ Libre, but “it is hard to develop coherent thinking in two-minute interventions in the Constituency Presidents Council or the National Council, which meet only twice a year and where we had only one and two delegates, respectively”. And SPQ Libre was seldom invited to participate in party consultations. Furthermore, there was no attempt to use the new technologies to facilitate internal debate. “By new technologies, we don’t mean Twitter [which is offered on the PQ website]. Sorry, we’re willing to be concise, but 140 characters, that’s not enough for us!”
And now, despite all the efforts of SPQ Libre, the PQ seemed determined to “appease Capital”. Why was Pauline Marois questioning the wage demands of the Common Front? “We deplore the absence of any reference to the union movement in the new PQ discourse.... Any use of the words “ouvrier”, “travailleur” or “populaire” seems to be banished. Understandably, the existence of a political club including the word “syndicalistes” in its title could grate on some ears.”
More hope in the Bloc Québécois?
In short (although SPQ Libre does not say so), the Parti Québécois is what its left critics have long maintained: a bourgeois party, wholly committed to upholding capitalism, incapable of envisaging any reforms that might offer a perspective beyond the narrow horizon of neoliberalism. The PQ’s fundamental raison d’être is to use the resources of a “sovereign” state to enhance the standing and wealth of a narrow class of homespun Quebec capitalists who themselves are inextricably tied through investments and outlook to the economic and social system that oppresses the majority of Québécois. This party cannot be the vehicle for a truly independent and progressive Quebec.
It may be that many of SPQ Libre’s original members had already drawn that lesson. Although it boasted an initial membership of about 800, the group was down to some 400 or so by this year, and had just filed a list of 313 party members’ names with the PQ while promising a dozen more to follow. Québec solidaire already includes some former SPQ Libre members, and can hope for more in the future. Other members have simply been absorbed by the Parti Québécois; for example, Monique Richard, the former president of SPQ Libre and now a PQ member of the National Assembly, did not oppose the club’s expulsion.
While continuing to hold individual memberships in the PQ, the SPQ Libre leadership seems to hold out greater hope for the federal Bloc Québécois, judging by a major article in the March issue of the monthly journal L’aut’journal. Pierre Dubuc, who doubles as the journal’s editor and SPQ Libre secretary, used the occasion of the Bloc’s 20th anniversary since its founding to score some points against the PQ leadership and to outline an optimistic perspective of a new rise in the Quebec independence movement in response to trends within the Canadian federal state. Dubuc praised the Bloc Québécois as a party more conscious of the federalist threat to Quebec than its sister party in Quebec City, the PQ, attributing this firmness in part to the presence of leading trade union figures in its parliamentary deputation. Dubuc is a talented journalist and a perceptive observer of Quebec and Canadian politics with a remarkable facility to articulate the historical perspective that informs the Quebec independence project, and his article, which I have translated below, merits careful reading.
There is one notable omission, however, in Dubuc’s comparison of the Bloc Québécois with the PQ. As I explained in a previous post, while the PQ is waging an Islamophobic campaign for a complete ban on public service employment and provision of government-funded services to anyone wearing conspicuous symbols of their religious faith (such as the hijab or Muslim headscarf), the Bloc Québécois supports what it terms “open secularism” and is more receptive to accommodation of public displays of the beliefs of religious and ethnic minorities. Dubuc’s L’aut’journal, however, has itself been conducting a retrograde Islamophobic campaign of its own. Louise Mailloux, a regular columnist in the journal, has written many articles not only attacking “reasonable accommodation” of minority religious beliefs, and in particular Muslims, but viciously attacking Québec solidaire leader Françoise David for her party’s support of “open secularism”.
Differences of this nature, on an important question of principle, could prove a major if not insuperable obstacle — at least in the short run — to a fusion between SPQ Libre and Québec solidaire.
[This article first appeared in Richard Fidler’s blog, Life on the Left.]
Notes
[1] The name translates freely as Trade-unionists and Progressives for a Free Québec.
[2] An op-ed article in Le Devoir by Jean Baribeau, the SPQ Libre treasurer, however, presented a different balance sheet. The group, he said, had “sparked many debates, had some successes and suffered many defeats”.Clojure: STMs vs Locks
I've been participating in this fascinating discussion with Rich Hickey, the author of Clojure about Software Transactional Memory. I decided to cleanup and echo the conversation here, but the original can be found here. The Problem Statement: it's not "atomic-vs-lock" but instead it's "where do we put atomic/lock?" Randall R Schulz I found the following comment on an Azul Systems blog (http://blogs.azulsystems.com/cliff/2008/05/javaone.html) : Cliff Click wrote: Performance in an STM is not transparent: it requires a runtime to do abort/retry, and as the runtimes get fancy & complex the behavior under load of STM's gets.... weird and unpredictable. Not something you can put into a production environment. Any comments or counter-examples to this? Raoul Duke Rich Hickey, richhic...@gmail.com wrote: Are explicit locking designs free from such anomalies? I wouldn't think so. paraphrase: the behaviour under load gets weird and tricky. well, in some ways maybe that doesn't happen with locks: the question of (depending on which STM system we're looking at) figuring out what caused all the rollbacks vs. with locks, you can at least generally quickly see that a given lock has 90% of all threads waiting on it kind of thing. whereas you don't know what variable in the venn diagram of overlapping transactions caused the retry? tho i believe Rich previously said that Clojure would actually have a way of finding that out!
http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/browse_thread/thread/2f73b80fd... Cliff Click You got it - under load, performance is unpredictable. With locks, you can see which locks are loaded, generally figure out why, and plan a strategy (stripe the lock, shorter hold time, switch to the j.u.concurrent datastructures, etc). Not so (at least not yet) with STM. I've talked to a few people who've tried STM out in a larger scale than the usual academic papers - and the results are downright disappointing. Unless you become an expert in the STM runtime you're using (where "expert" means "not just grok it, but can build & tweak it") anytime performance is not good enough - you get stuck. This is an open research problem at best, with no clear indication that the problem can be solved at all. Rich Hickey One could as generically argue that systems with manual locking are usually broken, and therefore their behavior itself, never mind their performance, is unpredictable. That's been my experience with manual locking in the hands of mere mortal developers. It can be as difficult to understand the behavior of any single manually-concurrent program as to understand the performance characteristics of an STM. In the latter case, at least the STM is handling correctness for you, and all users of the same STM can share knowledge (and bug fixes and performance improvements), vs each application being its own Gordian knot. And in any case in which the STM is failing you performance-wise, you can opt out and use manual locks outside of transactions. To the extent you can use it, STM can drastically reduce the complexity of a system. I'm wary of unifying the discussion of concurrency with one about performance, as the problems of concurrency start with correctness, where the manual locking story, due to its complexity, is quite bad. Scalability is not a universal problem - some systems need to handle thousands of simultaneous connections - most don't, some need to leverage hundreds of CPUs in a single application - most don't. But every application that wants to leverage multiple cores needs to be correct. It would be no problem to instrument the Clojure STM references with fault counters that would allow one to know the exact per-reference contention level. Once known, the answers in both cases are similar - share less mutable state, don't have both long and short-lived transactions contend for the same data, check your success conditions ASAP etc. STM designs differ from one another quite a bit, so any general statements are difficult to assess. I think the level of granularity of the STM comes into play. Most of the STM papers I've read concentrate on creating lots of transactional cells with which they envision constructing concurrent data structures like the ones in java.util.concurrent. I don't think that's a good idea at all. Clojure encourages the use of immutable persistent data structures, which need no locking or coordination whatsoever in order to perform correctly in a concurrent situation, and STM references to support the appearance of identity-preserving change. It also encourages the use of java.util.concurrent and the like for caches and work queues - the best tools for the job. As far as I know, Clojure is the first STM that uses snapshot MVCC, avoiding both read logging and transaction restarts due to read invalidations. Clojure's STM also gives you the ability to 'ensure' a reference you later intend to read or write, thus providing some manual control over resource acquisition order (rather than just relying on the side effect of access). It also supports explicit commute, further reducing retries for commutative writes. I'll not claim its performance characteristics are at all proven, but its contention due to, and for, reading is lower than in programs that use manual locking, and lower than in STMs in which write transactions can cause read transactions to retry. Once you get to record-level STM granularity, like Clojure's, it's also a bit easier to draw parallels to the performance characteristics of the database systems it mimics, which have been doing similar things for decades. I don't consider STM performance any more or less of a research problem than determining the correctness of programs that do manual locking - there's still work to do. And of course, neither STM, nor any other mechanism, is a panacea. Brett Morgan Given that I am a mere developer, actually with MT i'd consider myself a rank newbie, the most important thing to me is visibility. I want to be able to see what problems I am creating with my design, so that I can change my design, and see how the problems change. In effect, I am looking for an environment that teaches me what I am doing wrong, if only by showing me which references are hotly contended. In keeping with that, it would probably be helpful for both refs and transactions to be namable, such that debugging output from the STM runtime can actually be easily inspected. The reason I say this is that the data I need to work over is non uniform, so I need to be able to label the hot reference to know which particular chunks of my data set are causing issues. thoughts? Cliff Click The problem with manual locking - and it applies equally well to transactions - is that the there's no name-space-control over what needs to be locked/transacted. The failure people have with locks (and limited experience with transactions) is that they can't properly name their shared variables. They think they can, until we start looking hard, and then we keep finding more... and more that need to be locked/transacted atomically. In short, people don't know where to put the lock/unlock or where to bound the transactional region. Having said that, locks have some advantages over transactions: transparent performance being one of them. Programs are busted if the locks are wrong (or transaction regions don't cover all the variables they need to; Clojure isn't immune here) AND they are busted if performance sucks. For 2-4 way machines the issue is probably moot; for 8-32 way machines (standard servers these days) - it matters. In a year every el-cheapo linux blade server out there will be looking at 16-64 cpus. And of course for Azul, 100+ active cpus is the norm. I claim that in a year, most people will either care (get bit by lack of scaling), or see that their need to care within another year. Requiring shared variables to have a special syntax, ala Ref, is a big step forward here for both locks & transactions. You're reducing the complexity of the problem via name-space control (only Ref's are shared) and promoting immutable shared state. The STM issue is orthogonal. As evidence of that, suppose you replace your STM implementation with a trivial single global lock. Are the programs more or less complex than their locking counterparts? The program is as-correct and as-complex as before (before you swap the STM implementation), and indeed is exactly equal to the locking solution using a single global lock. Suppose I can get a correct program using STM - then I also have a correct program using a single global lock. STM only varies from locking as I try to make the implementation more performant: for the STM I trust the language implementor to "stripe" the locks under the hood. For locks, I start using more than one lock. In both cases I can also try to shrink the lock-hold-time (or reduce the size of the STM region), or switch algorithms. Summary: STM doesn't solve the Big Problem (lack of name-space control). Ref's might solve the Big Problem - and solving the Big Problem will be a big help to both locks & STM. Locks have transparent performance and are thus easy to optimize. Optimizing without good name-space control is a buggy process for both locks & STM. I don't know how to optimize an STM implementation without becoming an expert in the particulars of the STM runtime (and there are so many to choose from!) Rich Hickey I agree that identifying the things that can change is one key issue, and Clojure's Ref s, Agents, and Vars all do that. But I think a large number of your arguments reflect a lack of understanding of how (at least Clojure's) STM works. Ref s are not merely markers, they do enforcement. There is simply no mutating a ref outside of a transaction - it's not an allowed mistake. Any attempt to change a ref outside a transaction throws an exception. So, there is no such thing as "transaction regions don't cover all the variables they need to" in Clojure. Your thought exercise with a single lock is a good one. Let's say Clojure's implementation of STM used a single global lock (in fact it has no global locks at all), and contrast it with a manual locking program that used a single lock for everything. Which is more correct? The Clojure one, because it is not subject to undetected 'forgetting to obtain the lock'. Your assertion that "Suppose I can get a correct program using STM - then I also have a correct program using a single global lock" implies nothing about programs written with a single manual lock where no STM system is helping ensure correctness. All Clojure STM programs (that don't throw Ref mutation out-of-transaction exceptions) are correct with a global lock, but not all programs using a global lock (that don't throw exceptions) are correct STM (or otherwise) programs. Which one is has better performance? Constant factors aside, potentially the Clojure one, because readers do not wait for writers in MVCC. As we add locks, performance of both approaches improves, but a new source of errors comes into play for the manual approach - lock acquisition order and the resultant deadlock risk. At this point STM becomes dramatically less complex than manual locking. I'll grant that it is likely that, in the hands of experts, it is possible to write a correct program with a custom crafted locking strategy that will outperform any general-purpose STM strategy. But I still contend that, for any moderately complex program, that strategy will approach the complexity of an STM, and that most people will get it wrong in subtle, intractable ways. Analogies to databases are telling. DBMS's took over locking long ago and most people were happy to have them do so. Ditto memory management and GC. In each case, people claimed superior control and performance in the manual solution, but the cost and complexity proved too high for most applications. So, mutable entity identification is a problem, but it is a subproblem of correctness enforcement. It is likely that, given well-identified sharable entities, some form of static correctness analysis might be brought to bear on the manual locking case, and I'm sure people are working on that. STMs can provide correctness enforcement today, and therefore the two are not equivalent. Any opacity in STM operation or performance is an area for improvement, not necessarily a reason for avoidance. Cliff Click On May 24, 10:51 am, Rich Hickey wrote: I agree that identifying the things that can change is one key issue, and Clojure's Ref s, Agents, and Vars all do that. But I think a large number of your arguments reflect a lack of understanding of how (at least Clojure's) STM works. Ref s are not merely markers, they do enforcement. There is simply no mutating a ref outside of a transaction - it's not an allowed mistake. Any attempt to change a ref outside a transaction throws an exception. So, there is no such thing as "transaction regions don't cover all the variables they need to" in Clojure. Alas - there still is. :-(
Example down below, and this is my primary complaint against both locks & STM. However, your other arguments are more quickly answered - mostly because I agree with you. Your thought exercise with a single lock is a good one. Let's say Clojure's implementation of STM used a single global lock (in fact it has no global locks at all), and contrast it with a manual locking program that used a single lock for everything. Which is more correct? The Clojure one, because it is not subject to undetected 'forgetting to obtain the lock'. Your assertion that "Suppose I can get a correct program using STM - then I also have a correct program using a single global lock" implies nothing about programs written with a single manual lock where no STM system is helping ensure correctness. All Clojure STM programs (that don't throw Ref mutation out-of-transaction exceptions) are correct with a global lock, but not all programs using a global lock (that don't throw exceptions) are correct STM (or otherwise) programs. Good one. I agree. Clojure wins this round. |
lace, the local government quango that oversees the official database of addresses used by councils and emergency services.Constructing a fair 3 sided coin
For a 2 sided coin, the kind we are all familiar with, being "fair" means that P(Heads) = P(Tails) =.5. What would a 3 sided coin look like? Can a 3 sided coin be made "fair" so P(Heads) = P(Tails) = P(Sides) = 1/3? And how do we know fairness can even be obtained? This informal paper explores these questions.
A 3 sided "coin" can take several shapes. I put "coin" in quotes because it won't be a coin as we commonly use the term. Here are several possible ways a 3 sided coin look, with their outcomes, Heads, Tails, and Sides, labeled.
The first 3 sided coin I thought of was a long triangular prism. In the first version, each long face is an outcome, and the triangular edges could be rounded to prevent the coin from landing on the ends. In the second version, each triangular end is an outcome, and the long faces collectively count as one outcome.
Some real life examples of this are the delicious Toblerone chocolate bars, and a ruler (which is not delicious).
One could also make a 3 sided dreidel (please forgive my Paint skills!).
As interesting as these shapes are, I was more interested in maintaining the coin shape as much as possible, so I chose to focus on a right circular cylinder.
Here is a diagram of a right circular cylinder, our 3 sided coin
David Boll made some postings on this topic on internet newsgroups, and I contacted him around 1998, saying that I'd be interested in flipping the coins he made.
Here are the coins, or varying heights, that he made, with a quarter for reference
The coins, going from left to right, not including the quarter: h =.5r, h =.75r, h = r, and h = 1.334r. David sent me the coins, and I ended up flipping three of these coins over 10,000 times total! From the data, it was determined that the coin where h = r was the most fair, with P(Sides) = 1240/3800 =.326. In David's own experiments, he obtained P(Sides) = 319/1000 =.319. Intuitively this makes sense, because having h = r makes the coin more die-like. However, the results could have been flukes.
It is important to note that it is not too clear how to fairly flip such a coin because we now have more than one axis of rotation to think about. When I flipped them, I tossed them, one at a time, as haphazardly as I could into a wall, and then the coin would fall on to a short carpet, sort of like rolling dice in a game of craps.
I set out to explore the mathematics behind these 3 sided coins. But first, what reason do we have in thinking fairness, that is, P(Heads) = P(Tails) = P(Sides) = 1/3, can be obtained?
For a 2 sided coin, h is small (see the quarter above), and therefore P(Sides) is very small. Conversely, think of a Pringles can, where h is very large, thus making P(Sides) very large. Therefore, it stands to reason that there is high probability that some h exists between the extremes where P(Sides) is "just right".
In Frederick Mosteller's Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability, Problem 38 reads (paraphrasing using my terminology of "height" for "thick" and "Sides" for "edge")
What height should a coin be to have a 1/3 chance of landing on Sides?
The story goes, the great mathematician John von Neumann solved this problem in his head and provided an answer to three decimal places, all in less than half a minute! Going by von Neumann's remarkable work, I tend to believe that story.
The solution: put the coin in a sphere, with the center of the coin being the center of the sphere, then select a random point on the surface of the sphere. Draw a straight line from this point to the center, and if that line hits the side of the coin, the coin can be considered to have landed on Sides.
Mosteller writes that a theorem from solid geometry simplifies this problem. Apparently when parallel planes cut a sphere, they produce an "orange-peel-like band" between the planes. This band is called a "zone". The surface area of a zone is proportional to the distance between the planes, and therefore our coin should have a height 1/3 of the sphere's height.
Let R be the radius of the sphere and r the radius of the coin. The Pythagorean Theorem gives
R2 = r2+(1/9)R2
Solving for (2/3)R, which is h, gives
(2/3)R = (sqrt(2)/2)r
or h ~.707r
Therefore, to obtain P(Heads) = P(Tails) = P(Sides) = 1/3, construct the coin so h =.707r. This theoretical result is surprising because it does not coincide with the experimental result of the best performing coin being where h = r. In fact, when I originally flipped the coins I obtained P(Sides) = 138/3800 =.046 using a coin where h =.75r, and David obtained P(Sides) = 88/800 =.11.
The discrepancies could be due to statistical flukes, the material of the coin, the material of where the coin was landing, the flipping method, the mathematical theory being too simple, or some combination of these.
For a detailed discussion of 3-sided coins, I strongly recommend the article Teaching Bayesian Model Comparison With the Three-Sided Coin by Scott Kuindersma and Brian Blais in The American Statistician, August 2007, Vol. 61, No. 3.President Barack Obama reportedly apologized to the international president of Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday, telling her the US will “make changes if necessary” to prevent the bombing of hospitals -- killing staff, patients, and children -- in the future.
White House spokesperson Josh Earnest explained that President Obama spoke with Joanne Liu and offered his condolences while promising there would be a thorough and objective accounting of the facts.
Doctors Without Borders, however, is not trusting the US to investigate itself, and is calling for an independent investigation to be carried out by The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission.
The commission was established in 1991, but has never actually been used before. To begin their work, they need to have a request by one of the 76 nations that have signed on to it.
Jason Cone, the US executive director for Doctors Without Borders, told Sputnik that they do not have any leads yet identifying a nation willing to request the investigation. However, they formally sent letters on Tuesday to each nation signed on the commission.
"Governments up to now have been too polite or afraid to set a precedent," Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders, told CNN on Wednesday. "The tool exists, and it is time it is activated."
Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, has stated numerous times that they believe the bombing of the hospital was a war crime.
“This was not just an attack on our hospital,” the organization said in a statement. “It was an attack on the Geneva Conventions.”
President Obama also spoke to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday, and pledged to continue working closely the Afghan government.
The airstrike, carried out by the US on Saturday, killed at least 12 members of MSF medical staff, and ten patients, three of whom were children. An additional 37 people were injured.
© AP Photo / Médecins Sans Frontières No Excuse for US After Bombing Hospital in Afghanistan
"In Kunduz our patients burned in their beds, our doctors' nurses and other staff were killed as they worked, our colleagues had to operate on each other,” Cone said. “One of our doctors died on an improvised operating table, an office desk, while his colleagues tried to save his life."
The US reportedly continued bombing the hospital for approximately an hour.
"Their description of the attack keeps changing — from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government," the group said in a statement.Pin 0 Shares
If you're looking to buy a home or refinance anytime in the near future you may have been happy to hear the news this past week that mortgage rates are now at the lowest levels in years. It is good news for those looking to buy, but there is a big caveat. Not everyone will be able to take advantage of the low rates because of a variety of factors.
We're currently looking to do one or the other – either refinance – or if we find the right situation – buy a new home. So what is all the hub-bub?
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Fixed Mortgage Rates Lowest In Six Decades
Freddie Mac announced this week that the rates for a 30 year mortgage were at their lowest level in 6 decades – down to 4.12 pecent.
Fixed mortgage rates fell this week to the lowest levels in six decades. But few Americans can take advantage of the rates to refinance or buy a home. The average rate for the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 4.12 percent, down from 4.22 percent, Freddie Mac said Thursday. It's the lowest level on records dating back to 1971. And Freddie Mac says the last time rates were cheaper was 1951, when most long-term home loans lasted just 20 or 25 years. The average rate on a 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, fell to 3.33 percent from 3.39 percent. That's the lowest on records dating to 1991 and likely the lowest ever, according to economists.
So rates are extremely low, down to the low 4 percent range. I know that's definitely lower than when we bought our home a few years ago. That's great news if you're looking to buy or get a lower mortgage payment. But even so most experts aren't expecting this news to energize the depressed home market.
Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell to an all-time low this week. An uncertain outlook for the U.S. economy has led many investors to shift money out of stocks and into the safety of Treasurys, lowering the yield. Still, few expect record-low rates to energize the depressed home market. Over the past year, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage has been below 5 percent for all but two weeks. That compares with five years ago, when the average 30-year fixed rate was near 6.5 percent. Yet prices and sales remain unhealthy and are holding back the overall economy. Sales of new homes are on pace to finish the year as the lowest on records dating back a half-century. The pace of re-sales is shaping up to be the worst in 14 years.
Most Can't Take Advantage Of Low Rates
While rates are low, the unfortunate thing for homeowners and buyers is that most can't take advantage. The reason? Either their credit isn't good enough after the last couple recessionary years, or they don't have enough of a down payment.
Many Americans can't take advantage of this rare opportunity. Some are in no position to buy. Unemployment is high, few Americans are getting raises and many are struggling to shrink their debt loads. But others can't qualify for the lowest rates. Banks are insisting on credit scores above 700 and 20 percent down payments for first-time buyers. Many repeat buyers have too little equity invested in their homes to meet loan requirements.
Studies have shown that about 40% of U.S. households have credit scores necessary to get a prime mortgage rate, but most people just don't have enough for a 20% down payment. In fact a huge number of folks are now in an underwater mortgage, and won't be able to move any time soon.
So are you in a situation where you can take advantage of the low mortgage rates? Why or why not?
Pin 0 SharesIT was game two of the 2015 State of Origin series in Melbourne at the MCG and I’d had a gutful of David Klemmer, the big, baldheaded New South Wales forward.
I might not have liked what I’d just heard spew out of his mouth, but I wasn’t surprised by it.
My anger towards him hadn’t just started on the field that night, it had been brewing for a couple of years.
During the 2014 pre-season, Klemmer’s NRL club, Canterbury, played Melbourne, captained by my good mate Cameron Smith, in a trial match at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. Klem was only 20 at the time, had only played a handful of first-grade games, and was trying to make a name for himself, as most young blokes do.
When a scuffle broke out during the game, Klem grabbed Smithy and screamed at him, ‘You’re too old. Give it away.’ Smithy looked at him and — as he told me later — his initial thought was, Who the heck are you? because Klem was coming into only his second season of first grade.
A young David Klemmer has words with Corey Parker. Source: News Corp Australia
The funny thing was, Klem made the Australian squad for the end-of-season Four Nations tournament later that year and I think he’d forgotten all about it. But Smithy, now his team captain, hadn’t forgotten and neither had I.
In that Origin game in Melbourne, tension built when fullback Billy Slater resented a facial from James Tamou and threw the ball at his head. Then we almost had fireworks in the second half.
Klem had only just come onto the field and he was packing into the front row. He had this dirty big armguard on and he grabbed me in a headlock and worked me over with it.
When the scrum broke up, I half blew up at him about it. Then, later in the game, he hit JT in a late tackle after he’d passed the ball and that was when I snapped.
‘Show some respect,’ I told him, prompting his expletive- laden reply.
Why did I say that? Why is respect so important to me? Maybe it’s because I had it drummed into me by my mum and dad when I was growing up. Or maybe it’s because I learned it the hard way when I was a teenager playing for Broncos Colts in the Toowoomba competition and then the Clydesdales in the Queensland Cup.
Or maybe it’s because I’d had to show it myself to Brisbane Broncos players, even though I wasn’t a big fan of the culture back in the beginning. Or maybe it’s because I’d learned to respect the Maroons jumper after spending five long years in representative exile. Or maybe it’s because I thought of playing for the Kiwis when Australia wouldn’t pick me.
Whatever the reason was, I couldn’t cop David Klemmer and what he was doing any longer. Some people say maybe I saw a bit of myself in him that night in the sense that I was once a baldheaded, brash young front-rower who didn’t take a backward step from anybody.
Well, that might be true but there was one big difference between us which was that I never would have sworn at him the way he did to me that night.
I don’t mind if players want to carry on like pork chops, and Klem was pumped up that night and certainly had a good game for them, but I couldn’t wear him carrying on like he had to the Australian captain, Smithy, and the best player in the game, JT.
Corey Parker gives David Klemmer a head massage. Source: Getty Images
Later in the book, Klemmer gives his side of the story...
“State of Origin is a combative arena, it’s the pinnacle of our sport. Queensland have had a
lot of success and part of my job as a New South Wales player, especially as a front-rower, is to take on that challenge head-on.
Corey has been one of the Maroons’ best and most consistent players for a long time, he puts his stamp on each game and doesn’t take a backward step.
A lot has been made about Corey and me going head- to-head, but I’ve always had a huge amount of respect for him. You have to. He’s played over 300 NRL games for the same club, won State of Origin series and represented Australia.
How many players have done that? I made a point after his last Origin game of congratulating him, because I felt he deserved it.
I’m still a young player in the game, but if I could achieve what he has by the time I retire I’d be a happy man.”
This is an extract from Iron Man by Corey Parker, RRP $34.99, Macmillan Australia, out now!
Download the new FOX SPORTS App to get the latest news and scores from your NRL team.Image copyright PA Image caption Former home secretary Theresa May with former education secretary Michael Gove
Former cabinet minister Michael Gove says Theresa May was right to sack him after she became prime minister.
"If I'd been in her shoes, I would have sacked me too," he told the BBC.
Mr Gove said he regretted standing for the Tory leadership, saying he made "mistakes" in the way he withdrew his support from Boris Johnson.
He now had to take the consequences of his decision, including the fact that an act of treachery has become widely known as "doing a Gove", he said.
The 49-year-old former justice secretary made the comments during an interview with Fern Britton, to be broadcast on BBC One on Sunday.
'Not the way to do it'
He appeared to suggest he had not given up on a return to front-line politics, saying he hoped to "make a contribution" in the future.
Mr Gove said his decision to back Leave in the EU referendum had placed a "significant strain" on his relationship with his long-term friend David Cameron.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Michael Gove told Fern Britton that his friendship with the Camerons was put under "significant strain"
Image copyright PA Image caption Michael Gove changed his mind about supporting Boris Johnson as Tory leader and PM
He and his wife, Daily Mail journalist Sarah Vine, had been close friends with Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha - but the two couples have not had a "proper conversation" since the 23 June poll, he said.
Mr Cameron quit as prime minister after he lost the EU referendum, sparking a leadership campaign which saw Mr Gove back Boris Johnson.
He then changed his mind and decided to run himself, publicly questioning Mr Johnson's ability to do the job.
Mr Gove would not reveal what Mr Johnson said to him when they spoke after he withdrew his support, but he conceded that "the way in which I declared my stand for the leadership, I shouldn't have done it that way".
"As I look back on that time, I think that there were mistakes that I made...
"I also think that my initial instinct that I was not the best person to put themselves forward as a potential prime minister, well most of my colleagues agreed."
'Nothing is forever'
After Mrs May entered Downing Street, Mr Johnson entered the cabinet as foreign secretary, while Mr Gove remains on the Conservative backbenches.
"When Theresa May became prime minister she said that she no longer had a place for me in the cabinet and, to be honest, if I'd been in her shoes I would have sacked me too," said Mr Gove.
"So I entirely accept that sacking me at the time was the right thing to do.
"I had six years when I was a government minister. I had a chance to make a difference - I hope that I did."
But he conceded that "nothing is forever in politics".
"I have to accept that the way in which I spent the final week or so of my ministerial life involved my making mistakes and having made mistakes you have to take the consequences."
Mr Gove said he is now focusing on his work on the Commons committee on exiting the EU and wanted to campaign for children at risk of abuse or neglect.
Fern Britton meets Michael Gove can be seen on BBC One at 10:00 GMT on Sunday, 11 December.The statement below was released by the Socialist Party of Malayaia (PSM) on July 10.
* * *
The PSM is deeply concerned about the ongoing Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) free trade agreement. The 18th round is to commence in Kota Kinabalu in east Malaysia from July 15 until July 25.
Since its first inception as the United States-Malaysia bilateral Free Trade Agreement in 2006, the PSM has consistently protested the decision of the Malaysian government to enter into such negotiations. It was very clear since then, that the FTA is part of the agenda of US corporations to expand and control trade in the region.
Having failed to impose their interests via the World Trade Organisation, US corporations quickly lobbied Congress to start bilateral agreements with the countries in Asia.
Threatened by the growing economies of China and India, the US and European Union are competing to control trade for their respective interests. It is another form of imperialism that will negate our national sovereignty.
Now, after the fast track to negotiate the FTA during the Bush administration expired in 2007, the TPPA is a renewed approach for the same goals. TPPA is FTA on steroids.
In order to shield themselves from arguments that the US is the main driving force, now they call it a “partnership” of interested countries. The current TPPA participating countries are Malaysia, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and USA.
It is obvious that the TPPA is to protect and enhance US corporate interests, where even the US Congress to date is in the dark about the contents of the negotiating text. On the other hand, all the 29 chapters prepared for negotiating were shared with key US corporations.
The PSM strongly feels that the TPPA negotiations must be discontinued at once by the Malaysian government because:
· US pharmaceutical companies are insisting on extending drug patents, via expansion of patent protection for new forms, uses and methods of known substances. Thus minor variations on old drugs can be patented again for another 20 years, eliminating any possibility of cheaper generic drugs to be produced.
· Even medical procedures carried out by surgeons will be patented, thus making such procedures available only to those who can afford it.
· The Investor to State Dispute Settlement System gives extensive powers to corporations to sue governments that impose regulations on them, even though these corporations may be found to be destroying the environment or dumping toxic waste.
· The governments will be forced to cut back on the health budget, due to the rise in medicine prices. The number of HIV patients receiving drugs from government hospitals will drop further.
· Tariffs on imported products will be brought down to zero, thus making US products more competitive and cheaper than local products. The TPPA demands “fair and equal” treatment of foreign and local companies by participating governments.
· Experiences from the North American Free Trade Agreement and trade liberalisation in Latin American countries has proven that such free trade agreements and lowering of tariffs will cause huge job losses and greater unemployment.
· The TPPA will cause further worsening of labour standards as investors will resist any regulations or new laws to enhance workers' benefits introduced by government. They will claim that their future profits have been expropriated and will threaten to sue the government, a right provided by the TPPA. Governments cannot insist on transfer of technology to the local workforce.
· Higher unemployment will also drive down wages nationally.
The PSM thus calls on the Malaysia government to immediately:
1. Halt all negotiations until the negotiating text is presented and debated, thus must be dealt with differently through parliament scrutiny.
2. Call for a referendum amongst the rakyat (people), to evaluate if they support the TPPA being signed. As it effects all Malaysians, it is only just and proper that the rakyat has to be informed of the content of the agreement and they decide on its benefit.
3. Make public all cost-benefit analysis (if any) done by the government ministries on how the TPPA will be beneficial to the rakyat.
The PSM has been aggressively campaigning to inform and educate the rakyat of the TPPA concerns. Together with unions and civil society, we will take our concerns to parliament and hand a memorandum to the government and the opposition, calling for the above three demands.
The PSM has no illusion about the true colours and intent of the TPPA/FTA as an agenda of US mega corporations. The US unions and people are also up in arms against the TPPA. The PSM stands firm in the insistence that we should stop the TPPA immediately and walk away from negotiations. Such agreements only benefit key Malaysian companies and not the 99% of the rakyat.Matthew Norman Niskanen (born December 6, 1986) is an American professional ice hockey defenseman currently playing for the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was drafted by the Dallas Stars in the first round, 28th overall, in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. He won the Stanley Cup with Washington in the 2017–18 season.
Playing career [ edit ]
Amateur [ edit ]
Niskanen attended the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). At the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, he was selected in the first round, 28th overall, by the Dallas Stars.
In 2005–06, his freshman season for the Bulldogs men's ice hockey team, he recorded 14 points in 38 games. Before that, Niskanen played for the Virginia/Mountain Iron-Buhl boys' hockey team and helped bring the Blue Devils to their first state high school tournament appearance in school history. During 2006–07, his sophomore season at UMD, he scored 9 goals and 22 assists in 39 games. Niskanen was named to the 2006–07 All WCHA First Team,[2] and the All WCHA academic Team.[3]
Niskanen decided to leave college and turn professional after his sophomore season at UMD.[4] On March 19, 2007, he signed an amateur tryout contract with the Iowa Stars—the Dallas Stars' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate at the time—for the remainder of the 2006–07 season. He later signed a three-year NHL contract with the Dallas Stars which began in 2007–08. He subsequently made the Stars' 2007–08 NHL roster out of training camp.
Professional [ edit ]
Niskanen made his NHL regular season debut against the Colorado Avalanche on October 3, 2007. He recorded his first NHL points against the Boston Bruins two nights later with two assists. His first NHL goal came on October 29, 2007, against the San Jose Sharks. Niskanen had an excellent rookie start with the Stars, leading the team in plus/minus at mid-season, which resulted in his being invited to the Young Stars game during the 2008 NHL All-Star weekend.
On February 21, 2011, Niskanen was traded (along with teammate James Neal) to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for defenseman Alex Goligoski.[5]
During the 2013–14 season, on March 4, 2014, Niskanen had his first multi-goal game with a two-goal effort in a 3–1 win over the Nashville Predators away at the Bridgestone Arena.[6] In the final year of his contract with the Penguins and approaching free agency, Niskanen finished the season establishing new career highs in goals (10) and assists (36) for 46 points.
On July 1, 2014, Niskanen signed a seven-year, $40.25 million contract as a free agent with the Washington Capitals.[7]
Career statistics [ edit ]
Regular season and playoffs [ edit ]
International [ edit ]
Year Team Event Result GP G A Pts PIM 2006 United States WJC 4th 7 0 0 0 6 2009 United States WC 4th 9 1 2 3 2 2016 United States WCH 7th 3 0 0 0 0 Junior totals 7 0 0 0 6 Senior totals 12 1 2 3 2
Awards and honors [ edit ]SHARE Aron Arvelo
By of the
When former Milwaukee County jail guard Aron Arvelo was charged recently with two felonies accusing him of secretly recording female co-workers, it wasn't the first time he had run into trouble for harassing women.
Just 21/2 years earlier, officials tried unsuccessfully to fire Arvelo after he was caught stalking a co-worker. But a five-member citizen panel refused to follow the recommendation, putting Arvelo back in his old job.
One Milwaukee County Board member said Friday that the Personnel Review Board erred by returning the guard to the county payroll.
"It's not a close call," said Supervisor Mark Borkowski, vice chairman of the Judicial, Safety and General Services Committee. "This is abnormal behavior."
Records show Arvelo, 26, repeatedly called and sent text messages to a fellow guard beginning in March 2010, even going so far as to move into her apartment building, where he was caught peering into her windows, according to county documents released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The harassment continued on the job and in the parking lot at the County Corrections Facility-South where they worked, prompting a supervisor to warn Arvelo to back off, records show. But his harassment escalated, with Arvelo following the woman around work, staring at her.
In late 2011, Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. recommended Arvelo be fired for multiple violations, including refusing to follow an order and "threatening, intimidating, coercing or harassing employees."
But the county's Personnel Review Board rejected Clarke's recommendation less than a year later, finding the penalty was "too severe" because of Arvelo's clean record. The board also found that there was "no evidence of (the victim) telling CO Arvelo to leave her alone" — though the report does say the victim had gone to supervisors at least twice.
The order concludes: "In the interest of both parties, the Personnel Review Board strongly suggests that both parties work in different facilities, if possible, to avoid further problems in the future."
The order was signed by board president Coral Pleas, vice president Patrick Doyle and board members H. Fred Delmenhorst, Florence Dukes and Frances Bauer. The first three were appointed by Gov. Scott Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive. The final two were chosen by County Executive Chris Abele.
The board has turned over completely since this decision.
"That's in the past," said Dukes, who is no longer on the personnel board, declining to comment further.
Abele declined on Friday to comment on the Arvelo case but noted that the personnel board had been a source of concern.
"When I first got to the County, one of the most common complaints I heard from department heads was how difficult it is to discipline employees when those decisions were often overturned by the PRB in a manner that seemed arbitrary," Abele said via email. He has replaced all five board members in the past couple of years.
Instead of firing Arvelo, the personnel board gave him an eight-month unpaid suspension — which he had already served — and put him back on the job.
Tony Gibart, speaking for End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, said it is important to respond immediately to allegations of harassment or stalking.
"Stalkers often escalate their behavior over time when left unchecked," Gibart said. "Escalation in stalking cases takes the form of increasingly disturbing violations of the victim's privacy and personal security."
Within a year of being back on the job, Arvelo's harassment of female co-workers appeared to be escalating — he allegedly secretly recorded women with small cameras, according to court documents.
In summer 2013, Arvelo tossed a camera with an illuminated blue light under a co-worker's skirt, according to a search warrant related to the current charges. Late last year, Corrections Officer Antonio Rivera spotted Arvelo walking out of a women's locker room, the same document said.
It is unclear whether the 2013 incidents were reported to Clarke's Internal Affairs Division.
Sheriff's office spokeswoman Fran McLaughlin did not respond to questions about those 2013 incidents. She stressed that Clarke recommended Arvelo be fired in 2011.
Clarke refused to comment for this story.
In January, female guards found a miniature camera hidden in their locker room. Sheriff's internal affairs investigators recovered video taken of female guards undressing in a locker room.
Video also was taken of the women getting in their cars in the parking structure. According to court records, the video shows a partial view under a woman's dress. Arvelo allegedly set up a camera under the driver's side view mirror.
Investigators also recovered a drawing in Arvelo's locker of one of the women, with a tattoo that would only be visible when she is undressed, according to court documents.
One of the women Arvelo recorded told investigators he hit on her in late 2013 and bought her an unsolicited Christmas present. She described him as "creepy."
Arvelo did not return phone messages last week seeking comment.
His attorney, Susan Roth, declined to comment.
Arvelo, who resigned from his $39,000-a-year county job earlier this year, has pleaded not guilty to two felonies that accuse him of capturing and keeping nude images without permission, and three misdemeanor counts of invading privacy and one for disorderly conduct. He is set to face trial in July.
The earlier case of harassment for which Clarke tried to fire Arvelo unfolded over more than a year, records show.
According to records:
In March 2010, less than two years after Arvelo was hired by the county, he began calling and exchanging text messages with a female guard he worked with on third shift at the County Corrections Facility-South, now called the House of Correction.
The female guard said Arvelo asked her out. She refused, saying she would not date a co-worker. She said they were friends but the relationship was never sexual.
In October 2010, Arvelo moved into the female guard's apartment complex. She didn't try to dissuade him but said there were plenty of other places to live.
In his termination hearing, Arvelo said he had been to the woman's apartment to watch television and for breakfast and she helped him pick out a puppy.
In late summer 2011, the woman stopped texting with Arvelo. Shortly after, Arvelo was spotted standing outside her building, staring into her window for five to 10 minutes, records show. Arvelo then backed up and kept looking into her window. The woman said she later realized someone could see better into her windows from that farther distance.
Arvelo also stood outside of the woman's car at work, staring at her, as she sat inside, the report said.
On Sept. 24, 2011, a supervisor confronted Arvelo about stalking the female co-worker by looking in her window. Arvelo said he "was just walking his dog." The lieutenant told Arvelo to walk his dog somewhere else.
After he was admonished, Arvelo immediately called the woman and sent her a text message, telling her he was obsessed with her. A supervisor changed Arvelo's work location to keep him away from the woman, but Arvelo switched shifts, allowing him to be in the same building as the woman.
On Sept. 28, 2011, Arvelo followed the woman to the bathroom. As she tried to quietly leave the restroom, she encountered Arvelo standing in the dark watching her, the order says. She reported that to supervisors.
Again, Arvelo was confronted by supervisors. "Stay away from (the victim), do not talk to her, just stay away," the supervisor said, according to the report.
Arvelo did the opposite. He texted the woman. He later said he didn't realize being told to stay away by the supervisor was an order. Clarke recommended he be fired a few weeks later.
Borkowski, the County Board member, said there are two problems with Arvelo's case.
First, there has been heavy turnover on the personnel board, making it difficult for the panel to have consistent standards in how it handles disciplinary cases, Borkowski said. Despite that, he said, there also appeared to be no reason for the board to flip Clarke's recommendation in this case.
"This is not brain surgery," the veteran supervisor said. "That was abhorrent behavior."
The Arvelo case has similarities to that of fired Milwaukee police officer Alex Lopez, who harassed and stalked a woman after she broke off a relationship with him.
In that case, however, Lopez was charged with a felony and fired. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received probation. He is appealing his termination.
Arvelo is the third staffer in the sheriff's office to be charged with at least one felony this year.
Another correctional officer has been charged with five counts of second-degree sexual assault of an inmate by a correctional officer. Last month, a sheriff's clerk was charged with felony misconduct in office on allegations that the clerk stole $1,200 in cash that had been paid for restraining orders and other court documents. Both quit their county jobs.
Also, Capt. Keona Garth-Dickens, who oversaw the guards at the County Jail, resigned last month after Clarke tried to fire her for a wide range of salacious and unprofessional conduct — from performing a lap dance on a fellow worker to leaving the jail for lengthy periods with her so-called "work husband" to run personal errands.
Borkowski said the number of incidents was incredible from the sheriff's office, especially given how Clarke likes to run a tight ship.
"I would understand one, maybe two of these a year," Borkowski said. "But it seems like there's something new every other week."
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Twitter twitter.com/john_diedrichWell, this is no surprise:
SANTA ANA, Calif. A federal judge Friday denied Libertarian presidential hopeful Bob Barr’s bid to be included in a presidential forum in Lake Forest with Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama or stop the event as a violation of federal campaign law.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter refused to issue |
the ECHL, Burrows' energetic play in the minors earned him a two-way contract[notes 1] with the Moose's NHL affiliate, the Vancouver Canucks, on November 8, 2005.[18] He had appeared earlier in the Canucks' training camp for the 2005–06 season, but was sent back to the Moose.[19] After recording 30 points in 33 games with the Moose, he was recalled by the Canucks on January 2, 2006.[20] Eight days later, Burrows scored his first career NHL goal against Ed Belfour of the Toronto Maple Leafs.[21] He also added an assist as the Canucks won the game 4–3.[21] Establishing himself on the Canucks roster, he added his first NHL career hat trick on March 27, 2006, in a 7–4 win against the Los Angeles Kings.[22] He finished with seven goals and 12 points over 43 games in his NHL rookie campaign. Burrows' ascension to the NHL has been attributed to his hard-working and abrasive style of play, generating momentum for his team and aggravating opposing players.[23]
Burrows completed his first full campaign with the Canucks the following season in 2006–07. He contributed primarily on the team's penalty kill,[24] which ranked first in the league.[25] Burrows' average shorthanded ice time per game was second among team forwards, behind Ryan Kesler.[26] He struggled to produce offensively, however, and recorded a career-low three goals and nine points in 81 games.
In 2007–08, Burrows formed an effective duo with centre Ryan Kesler on the third line as defensive forwards, countering opposing teams' top players while contributing offensively, as well.[27][28] During the season, he was fined an undisclosed amount by the league after spearing Detroit Red Wings forward Aaron Downey at centre ice during the two teams' pre-game skate on February 23, 2008.[29] He finished the campaign with 12 goals, 31 points and a team-high plus-minus of +11.[30] He was voted by Canucks' fans to receive the team's Most Exciting Player Award and the Fred J. Hume Award, given to the team's "unsung hero" as voted by the Canucks Booster Club.[31]
After remaining on the third line with Kesler at the start of the following season, head coach Alain Vigneault separated the two after the All-Star break, placing Burrows on the first line with Daniel and Henrik Sedin, beginning on February 12, 2009, during a game against the Phoenix Coyotes.[32] Burrows' crash-the-net style – skating hard to the opposing team's goalmouth for rebounds or tip-ins – combined well with the Sedins' cycling plays.[33] Vigneault's line adjustments were precipitated by a losing streak in January, which Burrows was instrumental in breaking. The Canucks' home winless streak had extended to eight games, a franchise record, when Burrows broke a 3–3 tie with a shorthanded breakaway goal with 82 seconds remaining in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes.[34] This sparked a resurgence in the Canucks, spearheaded by Burrows, who then immediately followed their record setting home losing streak with a record setting home winning streak, winning their next 10 games at home. Shortly thereafter, the Canucks extended his contract with a four-year, $8 million deal on February 4, 2009,[35] quadrupling his $525,000 salary.[36] Following a game against the Edmonton Oilers on April 4, Burrows received a $2,500 fine from the league for punching Oilers enforcer Zach Stortini from the bench.[37]
Late in the campaign, he was selected by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association as the Canucks' nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, awarded for perseverance, dedication and sportsmanship.[38] Burrows was not shortlisted for the award, however.[39] Prior to the last game of the season, he received his second consecutive Most Exciting Player Award.[40]
Playing in a more offensive role on the first line for the latter part of the season, Burrows finished the 2008–09 campaign with 51 points. His 28 goals broke Andrew Brunette's mark for the most in a single season by an ECHL alumnus (27 in 2006–07).[41] In the subsequent first round of the 2009 playoffs, Burrows scored the series-winning goal in overtime to sweep the St. Louis Blues. It was his second goal of the game.[42] The Canucks advanced to meet the Chicago Blackhawks in the second round, who defeated them in six games. Burrows' level of play was noticeably diminished in the Chicago series and it was revealed afterwards that he required surgery to remove bone chips in his left wrist.[43][44] He finished the playoffs with three goals and an assist over 10 games.
Burrows at the Canucks 2009 Skills Competition
The following season, Burrows recorded back-to-back hat tricks against the Columbus Blue Jackets and Phoenix Coyotes on January 5 and 7, 2010, respectively.[45] It marked the first time an NHL player notched consecutive three-goal games since Ilya Kovalchuk in November 2007 and the first time a Canucks player did so since Petri Skriko in 1986.[45] With six goals and an assist over two games, Burrows was named the NHL First Star of the Week on January 11, 2010.[46]
NHL officials controversy [ edit ]
The night of his first star of the week selection, Burrows and the Canucks played a controversial game against the Nashville Predators. With the game tied 2–2 in the third period, Burrows was penalized twice by referee Stéphane Auger – once for diving and the other for interference.[47] The latter call was deemed questionable by media sources, including TSN and the National Post.[48] The interference penalty along with an additional penalty committed by Henrik Sedin resulted in Nashville's game-winning, 5-on-3 powerplay goal late in the game.[47] With three seconds to go in regulation, Burrows skated by Auger and protested the interference penalty, resulting in an unsportsmanlike minor and a ten-minute misconduct.[47]
Following the game, Burrows accused Auger of having a personal vendetta against him for a play against the Predators the previous month that had made him look bad. After Burrows had been hit into the boards by Nashville forward Jerred Smithson during a game on December 8, 2009, Auger assessed Smithson with a five-minute major and a game misconduct. However, the league later rescinded because it was believed Burrows had embellished injury.[49] Burrows claimed that Auger told him before the January 11 game: "you made me look bad [for calling the Smithson penalty] so I'm going to get you back tonight." He went on to tell reporters that Auger "should stay out for the rest of the year making calls like that... We just blew two points because of his officiating tonight."[47]
The following day, the NHL fined Burrows US$2,500 for publicly criticizing Auger and deemed that his claims "cannot be substantiated."[50] Later that week, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)'s Hockey Night in Canada telecast aired an 11-minute segment hosted by Ron MacLean and NHL vice-president Colin Campbell reviewing Burrows' past transgressions, spanning two years. The segment was widely criticized for being biased against Burrows and failing to illustrate both sides of the argument.[51][52] Burrows' parents subsequently issued a formal letter of complaint to the CBC, accusing MacLean of "verbal assassination" and for displaying "no journalistic balance."[53]
The following Saturday after the segment aired, the Canucks refused any interviews with the CBC before, during or after their game against the Chicago Blackhawks, which was broadcast on Hockey Night in Canada.[54] The boycott was ordered by Canucks general manager Mike Gillis after MacLean refused to apologize.[54] CBC and Canucks representatives later agreed in a conference call to "move on" and team players were allowed to resume interviews. MacLean later issued an unofficial apology aimed to clarify the situation.[54]
Later in the 2009–10 season, Burrows left during a game against the Los Angeles Kings after being hit in the throat by a Jarret Stoll slapshot.[55] He was not injured, however, and did not miss any games thereafter. Playing a full season on the Canucks' top line with the Sedins, he recorded a career-high 35 goals, 32 assists, 67 points and a +34 rating. His goals total ranked first on the Canucks.[56] Fans voted him as recipient of the team's Most Exciting Player Award for the third consecutive season.[57]
The Canucks first line struggled to score in the playoffs, however. In 12 games, Burrows scored three goals, two of which were into empty nets,[58] and notched three assists. The Canucks advanced to the second round past the Los Angeles Kings, where they were eliminated by the Chicago Blackhawks for the second consecutive year. It was revealed in the off-season that Burrows was suffering from a shoulder injury, which he later received surgery for.[58]
While Burrows' offensive numbers increased from playing on the top line, the Sedins' mutually benefitted from playing with him.[59] Daniel and Henrik had not had a constant linemate on the first line since Anson Carter played with them in 2005–06. Since then, Vigneault had used a variety of wingers, including Markus Näslund, Taylor Pyatt and Steve Bernier, to fill in the unit.[60] In those years, Daniel and Henrik were point-a-game players; with Burrows on their line, they vaulted into top scorers in the league, as Henrik won the Art Ross Trophy as the league's leading point-getter (Daniel scored at a similar pace, but played less due to an injury).
Burrows with the Canucks in 2012
Due to rehabilitation from the shoulder surgery, Burrows missed the first ten games of the 2010–11 season. Continuing to play with the Sedins upon his return, he recorded 48 points (26 goals and 22 assists) in 72 games, sixth in team-scoring. Winning the Presidents' Trophy, the Canucks entered the 2011 playoffs as the first seed in the West and matched up against the Blackhawks for the third consecutive year. With a 3–0 lead in the series, the Canucks lost their next three games, resulting in a game seven. In the deciding game, Burrows scored two goals in a 2–1 overtime win, helping Vancouver eliminate Chicago. After defeating the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks in rounds two and three, the Canucks reached the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 17 years. Playing the Boston Bruins, Burrows received much attention of the series for allegedly biting opposing forward Patrice Bergeron during a scrum at the end of the first period in Game 1 of the series. While the two players were being held apart by a linesman, Burrows appears to be shown biting down on Bergeron's finger, while both players were pushing and shoving at one another. The incident was reviewed by the league, but was ruled unsuspendable with "no conclusive evidence that [he] intentionally bit [Bergeron's] finger."[61] The following game, Burrows scored his second overtime-winner of the playoffs, part of a three-point effort (two goals and an assist). Occurring 11 seconds into the extra period, it was the second-fastest goal scored from the start of an overtime game in Stanley Cup Finals history (Montreal Canadiens forward Brian Skrudland scored nine seconds into overtime in Game 2 of the 1986 Stanley Cup Finals against the Calgary Flames).[62] With two overtime goals in one playoff season, Burrows tied the NHL record, which was held by 28 other players.[63] After leading two-games-to-none in the series, Vancouver went on to lose the Stanley Cup to Boston in seven contests. Burrows finished the post-season with 9 goals and 17 points over 25 games.
In 2011–12, Burrows recorded 28 goals and 52 points in 80 contests, helping Vancouver to a second consecutive Presidents' Trophy. Facing the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Kings in the first round, they were eliminated in five games. Burrows had one goal during the series. The Los Angeles Kings went on to become the 2012 Stanley Cup champions.
On March 16, 2013, Burrows scored a goal six seconds into a game against the Detroit Red Wings, setting a Canucks record for fastest goal scored to start a game. This surpassed the previous record of nine seconds set by Trevor Linden and was also the fourth-fastest goal scored to start a game in NHL history.[64] Burrows managed 13 goals and 11 assists in the lock-out-shortened 2012–13 season.
Burrows had a forgettable 2013–14 season,[according to whom?] scoring only 5 goals and 10 assists. In 49 games played, he did not score until game 36, where he scored two goals against the Winnipeg Jets.[65] His 15 points on the year were the third-lowest of his career and his lowest since 2006–07. The 2013–14 season was also forgettable for the Canucks as a whole,[according to whom?] as they failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2007–08.
Burrows in the Canucks' commemorative Vancouver Millionaires jersey in March 2015
The 2014–15 season saw the Canucks sign free agent Radim Vrbata, who replaced Burrows as the Sedins' primary linemate. Burrows played only a handful of games with the Sedins, mainly in the latter part of the season.[66] Playing mainly on the second line, Burrows tallied 18 goals and 15 assists in 70 games.
Burrows finished the 2015–16 season with 9 goals and 13 assists in 79 games, splitting time on the third and fourth lines. Towards the end of the season, it was speculated the Canucks would buy-out the final year of Burrows' contract in favour of playing a younger player. In March 2016, he was reportedly told by Canucks coaching staff "younger players were a roster priority".[67] However, in the ensuing off-season, the Canucks instead bought-out the contract of teammate Chris Higgins and stated they would not be doing the same to Burrows.[68]
Ottawa Senators (2017-2018) [ edit ]
After Burrows was asked to waive his no trade clause, on February 27, 2017, he was traded to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Jonathan Dahlén.[69] Ottawa immediately signed Burrows to a two-year contract extension.[70] He made his debut for the Senators on March 2, 2017, scoring both goals in a 2–1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche.[71] Burrows played 15 games in the 2017 playoffs before suffering an injury in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals on May 17, subsequently ending his season.[72] His Ottawa Senators were eliminated in seven games by the eventual Stanley Cup champions Pittsburgh Penguins.
On February 7, 2018, Burrows was suspended ten games for kneeing New Jersey Devils forward Taylor Hall in a game on February 6, 2018.[73][74] Burrows himself lamented on the incident: "Obviously, I messed up on that one. I let the emotions get the best of me."[75] While serving the suspension, the Senators placed Burrows on waivers, but he went unclaimed by any of the NHL's other 30 teams.[75]
Burrows' first full season in Ottawa was a disappointment, with the forward recording six goals in 71 games. On June 27, 2018, the Senators placed Burrows on unconditional waivers for the purpose of a buyout. Since his contract was signed after he had turned age 35, his salary would still represent a full cap-hit for the team.[76]
Retirement and subsequent coaching (2018-present) [ edit ]
On July 6, 2018 it was announced that Burrows had retired and that he would join the AHL's Laval Rocket as an assistant coach.[77][78]
International play [ edit ]
Following his seventh NHL season, Burrows received his first invite to the Canadian national team for the 2012 IIHF World Championship, held in Finland and Sweden.[79][notes 2] Burrows' Vancouver Canucks had been eliminated in the first round of the 2012 playoffs, making him available for selection.[notes 3] At 31 years old, he was the oldest player on the Canadian roster.[59] Making his Team Canada debut against Slovakia in the first game of the tournament, he fell to the ice and hit his head after colliding with two opposing players. After leaving the ice, he was kept out of the contest with concerns that he had sustained a concussion. The following day, Burrows' agent, Paul Corbeil, told reporters that while he was symptom free, a return to the line-up would not be possible for four-to-five days, as per team protocol in scenarios in which a concussion is suspected.[80] Returning to the line-up a week after the hit,[81] he scored his first career international goal against Finnish goaltender Kari Lehtonen in a 5–3 win.[82] The following contest, he scored a shorthanded goal in an 8–0 win against Kazakhstan to earn player of the game honours for Canada.[83]
Ball hockey career [ edit ]
Medal record Representing Canada Ball hockey World Championships 2005 United States 2003 Switzerland
Burrows began playing organized ball hockey at the age of 19.[84] In 2001, he won his first national championship with the Montreal Red Lites in Burnaby, British Columbia.[85] Burrows went on to win the national championship in every year he played with the Red Lites.[85] He was the tournament scoring leader in 2002 and 2003 and earned All-Star Team honours from 2002 to 2004.[86][87][88] In 2005, Burrows scored two goals in a 5–2 win against the Toronto Midnight Express in the national final to capture his fifth consecutive Canadian title with the Red Lites.[89] Burrows was named the Tournament MVP by the Canadian Ball Hockey Association (CBHA).[90] He returned the following year to lead the Red Lites to a sixth consecutive title in 2006.[84]
Burrows made his first appearance on the international stage in ball hockey when he was named to Canada's national ball hockey team for the 2003 World Championships in Sierre, Switzerland.[91] He helped Canada beat the Czech Republic 6–1 in the final.[85] Tying for the lead in tournament scoring with five goals and 10 points,[5] Burrows was named the Most Valuable Forward.[92] Two years later, in 2005, he won his second World Championship in as many appearances with Canada in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[19][89] He capped the season off by being named the 2005 International Player of the Year by the International Street and Ball Hockey Federation (ISBHF).[93] The following year, he was voted in a Canadian poll as the country's greatest ball hockey player ever.[84]
Burrows has credited ball hockey for his fitness and discipline which has carried over to the NHL.[84] Following his first full season with the Canucks in 2006–07, Burrows retired from his ball hockey career. In 2010, he was inducted into the CBHA Hall of Fame, along with national teammate and goaltender Michel Perodeau.[85] He is also a member of the ISBHF Hall of Fame.[94]
Personal life [ edit ]
Burrows in 2010
Burrows was born in Pincourt, Québec, to parents Rodney and Carole.[95] His father emigrated from London, England, at 23, while his mother, a Québec native, is an elementary school principal. Burrows has two sisters as well – one older and one younger.[95][96] He grew up speaking mostly French and attended French schools.[95] His English has a noticeable Québecois accent.
In July 2010, Burrows married his longtime girlfriend, Nancy Roy.[97] On April 27, 2011, Nancy gave birth to the couple's first child, a girl named Victoria.[98] Alex became a second time father on March 4, 2013 to a daughter named Lexie.[99] On November 15, 2015, the couple's third child and first son, Jacob was born.[100] They live in Montreal during the offseason.[36]
Burrows was the closest friend on the Canucks to former teammate Luc Bourdon, who died in a motorcycle accident in May 2008.[101] In the hockey season following his death, Burrows occasionally celebrated goals with a bow-and-arrow mime, a gesture that Bourdon himself did after scoring during his junior career.[101] He and his wife (girlfriend at the time) remained close to Bourdon's girlfriend, Charlene Ward.[37]
In the 2009 off-season, Burrows was involved in an assault incident while playing in a summer ice hockey league. Police were called to an arena in Kirkland, Québec, on July 21 after Burrows allegedly struck a goaltender, 19-year-old Koray Celik, in the face. No arrests, however, were made at the scene.[102]
Career statistics [ edit ]
Regular season and playoffs [ edit ]
International [ edit ]
Year Team Event Result GP G A Pts PIM 2012 Canada WC 5th 5 3 0 3 2 2014 Canada WC 5th 6 0 1 1 4 Senior totals 11 3 1 4 6
Awards [ edit ]
ECHL [ edit ]
Award Year All-Star Game 2004
Vancouver Canucks [ edit ]
NHL [ edit ]
Award Year First Star of the Week January 11, 2010
Ball hockey [ edit ]
Award Year Canadian National Championship (Montreal Red Lites) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2003,
2004, 2005 and 2006 CBHA All-Star Team 2002, 2003 and 2004 World Championship (Canada) 2003 and 2005 CBHA MVP 2005 ISBHF International Player of the Year 2005 Canadian Ball Hockey Hall of Fame inductee 2010
Notes [ edit ]
^ [17] A player's salary on a two-way contract is dependent on whether he plays in the minor leagues or the NHL. ^ Burrows had played for Canada's national ball hockey team, which was unaffiliated with Hockey Canada ^ The scheduling of the IIHF World Championship and Stanley Cup playoffs annually conflict with each other. As a result, only NHL players who did not qualify for the playoffs or were eliminated early in the post-season (ie. first or second round) are available for the international competition.SAN FRANCISCO — Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — the “Terminator" action hero who made "I'll be back" one of filmdom's most iconic phrases — may be mulling a political comeback, according to several GOP political insiders in California.
The prospect of Schwarzenegger’s return to elected politics in a 2018 U.S. Senate run — possibly as an independent — is generating increasing buzz in state Republican circles, fueled by the former governor’s seeming ability to get under the skin of President Donald Trump on social media.
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The president’s caustic tweets about Schwarzenegger, the recent host of "Celebrity Apprentice," and their running feud has sparked talk that the intensely competitive Schwarzenegger — a seven-time Mr. Olympia world bodybuilding champ — may be interested in more than merely a verbal posedown with Trump.
His entry into the 2018 Senate race — when Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein would be 85 years old and up for reelection — “would give Arnold the stage to jam Trump for the next 16 months,’’ according to one veteran GOP strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It would also enable Schwarzenegger to draw a contrast with the president on key issues, including climate change, political reform and even immigration.
Schwarzenegger spokesman Daniel Ketchell did not rule out a possible Senate run when asked to respond to the speculation.
“Right now Gov. Schwarzenegger’s focus is on using his platform to bring some sensibility and coherency to Washington by fighting for redistricting reform, like we did in California,’’ Ketchell told POLITICO via email Thursday. “We are keeping all of our options open as far as how we can accomplish that.”
Schwarzenegger, who as governor pursued political reforms including the “top two” primary system and a redistricting commission, has recently launched a major drive to end gerrymandering, a tradition he argues has benefited only partisan politics and gridlock — not the voters.
On Facebook, Schwarzenegger has taken both parties to task on the issue, warning that “Republicans and Democrats are incredibly skilled at screwing over the voters — and keeping them in the dark about their trickery.”
The attacks on both major parties is leading some to suggest Schwarzenegger, a lifelong Republican, may be eyeing a future role as an independent candidate.
Longtime California politics watchers say a Schwarzenegger return to the political stage would be riveting — and is entirely plausible.
As a candidate, “he would become an instant player,’’ not only on political reform but also on his signature issue of “cap and trade and climate change,’’ said political analyst David McCuan of Sonoma State University. “[Schwarzenegger is] someone who could play a huge role if Republicans wanted any hope of having relevance in California.’’
Republicans currently lag Democrats by nearly 20 percentage points in voter registration in the state, having lost ground since Schwarzenegger held office from 2003 to 2011.
McCuan notes that, more than a decade before Trump’s presidential run, it was Schwarzenegger’s shocking 2003 recall victory in California — as a political outsider who issued a call to “Sweep Sacramento Clean’’ — that served as a template for political revolution.
“He was going to “Drain the Swamp” before Trump even had that language,’’ McCuan said.
View Schwarzenegger to Trump: Let's switch jobs Arnold Schwarzenegger responds to President Donald Trump on Thursday.
But Schwarzenegger supported Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the Republican presidential primary and refused to vote for Trump in the general election. Trump returned the favor in January by mocking Schwarzenegger after the new “Apprentice” show debuted in early January, tweeting that it “got swamped” in the ratings.
The two have continued their running feud since then, with Schwarzenegger criticizing Trump for bypassing former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado for agriculture secretary and knocking Scott Pruitt, Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, for leaving open the possibility that the administration could undermine California’s vehicle emission standards.
Schwarzenegger also ripped the president’s initial executive order barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, calling aspects of its implementation “crazy.”
Last weekend, it was Trump’s turn to respond. In the same tweetstorm in which he accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his phones, Trump took a shot at Schwarzenegger.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show,” the president tweeted.
Bill Whalen, who served as speechwriter and strategist for former Gov. Pete Wilson, described a political climate in which Trump and Schwarzenegger would both disrupt and “feed off each other.”
For the president, he noted, tweeting about Schwarzenegger usually sends the media off on a distracted goose chase that draws attention away from more serious inquiries like Russia connections. For Schwarzenegger, the president’s attention “gives him relevance.”
But Whalen noted that a Schwarzenegger Senate run would have its own hurdles. "First, he’d have to get past Dianne Feinstein,’’ he said, noting that the challenges would be greater for an independent candidate under the top-two primary system that Schwarzenegger himself backed.
Morning Score newsletter Your guide to the permanent campaign — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Veteran GOP political consultant Luis Alvarado, founder of California-based Luis Alvarado Public Affairs Consulting — and a strong #NeverTrump Republican voice leading up to the election — says the timing might be right for a Schwarzenegger political move.
“In politics after Donald Trump, nothing is crazy any longer. We’re in the third dimension here,’’ he said. “Arnold Schwarzenegger, who actually has more political experience than Trump, would certainly seem to fit a mold to what some of the electorate would find attractive.”
And the so-called Governator’s return to politics would be seen by many Republicans as “almost like a silver bullet” to counter the president, Alvarado said.
“Donald Trump has had the ability to manipulate all the news and cameras to him, and Arnold Schwarzenegger would be like kryptonite, or an anti-matter device, that would somehow restore balance in this universe of madness.”London (AFP) – London was on course to become the first EU capital with a Muslim mayor as voters went to the polls Thursday following a bitter campaign that stayed ugly to the very end.
Labour’s Sadiq Khan, the son of a bus driver from Pakistan, voted early in his multi-ethnic constituency of Tooting in south London.
His main rival, environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, cast his ballot in the posh Richmond neighbourhood west of the city centre.
The vote is seen as the first major electoral test for opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose party has been riven by infighting over allegations of anti-Semitism.
The results of the regional elections that are also being held in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will likely set the tone for the final seven weeks of campaigning ahead of Britain’s June 23 EU membership referendum.
In the Scottish Parliament, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s pro-independence party is looking to tighten its hold on power as it seeks to build support for a second vote on seceding from the UK following a failed referendum on the issue in 2014.
If Britain as a whole votes to leave the European Union but Scotland votes to stay in, Sturgeon says that would be a pretext for her Scottish National Party to demand another independence referendum.
– Khan v Goldsmith –
In London, polls show the city facing a straight choice between Labour candidate Khan and his Conservative rival Goldsmith.
The campaign has been dominated by negative campaigning, with Goldsmith seeking to establish links between Khan and Muslim extremists, which Khan has consistently dismissed as “desperate stuff”.
Cameron echoed the theme in parliament on Wednesday in terse exchanges with Corbyn.
Khan, 45, is the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver who became a human rights lawyer and government minister, while ecologist Goldsmith, 41, is a son of the late tycoon financier James Goldsmith, a scion of one of Britain’s wealthiest families.
Despite the surface-level rancour, both candidates accept that the sky-high cost of homes and the city’s creaking transport system are the dominant issues for voters.
Of the 12 candidates, second preference votes for the top two are added on to determine the winner. Final opinion polls put Khan 12 to 14 points ahead on second preferences.
London’s Evening Standard newspaper endorsed Goldsmith on Wednesday, as he spent the last day of campaigning on a 24-hour tour of the city.
“Of the two strong candidates, he has more compelling ideas on tackling pollution and congestion,” it said.
During a visit to a street market in south London on Wednesday, Khan told AFP his rival had run a “negative, divisive and increasingly desperate campaign”.
“I’ve had a positive campaign from day one, talking about how my experience, values and vision will lead to me being the mayor for all Londoners,” he said.
The new mayor replaces the eccentric Conservative Boris Johnson, whose eight-year term in office included the London 2012 Olympics and the launch of a cycle hire scheme dubbed “Boris Bikes”.
Out of London’s City Hall, the fiercely-ambitious Johnson — a leading figure in the EU referendum’s “Leave” campaign — is the bookmakers’ favourite to become Britain’s next prime minister.
– Acid test for Corbyn –
The elections are a much bigger test for Corbyn, the socialist stalwart who won the Labour leadership in September in a surprise landslide.
If Labour loses ground, moderates and centrists within the party — who held the ascendency under prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown — could seek to stage a leadership challenge, according to newspaper reports.
While London chooses a new mayor, there are also elections to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies, and 124 local authorities scattered across England.
In Wales, polls put Labour on course to retain their dominance. The Conservatives and nationalists Plaid Cymru are vying for second place.
In Northern Ireland, where power is shared between parties, the Democratic Unionists (pro-British Protestant conservatives) were narrowly ahead of Sinn Fein (left-wing Irish republicans) in the final opinion polls.Hey Toledo! Let's Pay it Forward
Ok Toledo. We made it to the other side and the water crisis is now, for the most part, over. While we spent a few days in relative unease over not knowing when this situation would end, I was struck by how easily most of us were all able to get by without clean city water. Resources from all around us were available very quickly. Speaking for myself, this experience was nothing more then a minor inconvenience. I’m sure all of our personal experiences vary, but I can’t imagine the kinda hell we would live in if we didn’t have access to fresh water. What if we weren’t surrounded by cities with vast amounts of drinkable water? What if we didn’t have a government that was working hard to resolve our issue? What if you and your family were one of the one billion people who have no clean water to drink.
Yes, nearly a billion people.
Let’s take this little lesson and pay it forward. I started a little charity group, and I am asking you to donate.
100% of the money will be used to build clean water projects, and when they’re complete, charity: water will send us photos and GPS coordinates so we can see the exact community we helped.The NBA has heard enough about the ongoing spat between Charles Oakley and Knicks owner James Dolan, who are attempting to settle their differences following a meeting with commissioner Adam Silver.
Silver, Dolan and Oakley met Monday, with Michael Jordan joining via telephone, the NBA announced.
MORE: Spike Lee criticizes James Dolan while wearing Charles Oakley jersey
Jordan, the owner of the Hornets, is one of Oakley's former teammates and friends who wants to see the spat come to an end.
“Both Mr. Oakley and Mr. Dolan were apologetic about the incident and subsequent comments and their negative impact on the Knicks organization and the NBA," Silver said in a release. "Mr. Dolan expressed his hope that Mr. Oakley would return to MSG as his guest in the near future."
Dolan and the Knicks have engaged in bizarre back-and-forth finger pointing since Oakley's arrest Wednesday, releasing a series of statements pleading for Oakley to "get some help soon" and painting him as the aggressor who started the scuffled last week. Dolan insinuated Friday that Oakley is an alcoholic, which Oakley denied.
The Knicks owner said Oakley is banned from stepping foot inside Madison Square Garden as a result of the altercation, which has owned headlines across the NBA and added yet another ring to New York's circus this season.
NBA players like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, J.R. Smith and Chris Paul have expressed their support for Oakley, who spent 10 seasons with the Knicks and was an All-Star in 1994.
Former Pacers guard Reggie Miller also supports Oakley and asked why any potential free agent would want to play for an owner who "treats past greats like this".A heated controversy has erupted in the wake of a lecture on “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters” delivered at Vassar College on February 3 by Jasbir K. Puar, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. While Puar’s critics charge that her lecture provided especially offensive examples of contemporary anti-Semitism in the form of age-old anti-Semitic tropes updated and applied to Israel, her supporters insist that her work is based on solid scholarship and that the criticism of her talk at Vassar should be seen as a threat to academic freedom and the right to free speech. But the claim that Puar is merely exercising her academic freedom and right to free speech in her lectures does not seem to imply that everyone should have the right to hear what she has to say: Puar recently cancelled a scheduled lecture on “the biopolitics of debility in Gaza” at Fordham University when the university administration insisted on recording her talk and making it publicly available; and she has also threatened legal action against anyone who would make an existing audio recording of her Vassar lecture public.
The circumstances leading to Puar’s cancellation of her talk at Fordham were reported by the New York Daily News, which had previously published a scathing editorial on her lecture at Vassar. According to the paper’s report, “Fordham President Rev. Joseph McShane has made clear that, as an institution, the school condemns much of Puar’s outlook on Israel,” but that the university was nevertheless prepared to host Puar for a lecture “as a matter of free expression.” However, in the interest of “academic transparency” and in order to shield Puar from the alleged “mischaracterizations” that followed her talk at Vassar, McShane reportedly “directed aides to inform Puar she could speak only if she was recorded and the recording was made public.” Professor Puar preferred to cancel her talk at Fordham.
Puar’s reluctance to be recorded was also highlighted in one of the first reports about her lecture at Vassar, when William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection noted that the speaker introducing Puar at Vassar requested that audience members “refrain from recording” Puar’s talk, even though it was explicitly acknowledged that such a recording “is not against the law.” Despite this, |
the goal. It is a combination of sick hands, practice, positioning, the amazing Mr Marner, and some bad choices by Anders Nilsson.
Back before the puck ended up on Zaitsev’s stick, van Riemsdyk had it behind the net and passed it over to the half boards. Nilsson was hugging the post hard and in good position, but in the ensuing play, he never went back to that.
At the moment shown above, he seems to be assuming the puck will go to Bozak, a pass van Riemsdyk never considered. Nilsson’s skate is not on the post, his glove is down, and that is a wide open door for a man like van Riemsdyk who has already practiced that sort of shot and got himself in position. Nilsson has zero useful defensive support on the play, as Rasmus Ristolainen is only covering the potential pass to Carrick if Carrick moves in very deep, which he wasn’t doing.
Marner and van Riemsdyk were great while Bozak played the positional shell game perfectly; he drew all eyes to him. Nilsson didn’t make the goal happen, but his decision to assume the pass made it easier.
Goal Against
There are three choices for goals against. One was Andersen giving the puck away on a horrible clearing attempt, the second was a clean win by a good shot, and the third was just weird.
Brian Gionta takes a breakout pass, stops, gets the puck past van Riemsdyk and up the boards to Girgensons without any trouble, and Girgensons and William Carrier have an innocent two on two on the Leafs. The two defenders are Roman Polak and Matt Hunwick. [ominous music plays]
Hunwick has moved into position to take away Girgensons’ pass. Polak, on the other hand, never moves into the shooting lane, and he doesn’t check Girgensons.
By the time Girgensons passes the puck, he has inside position on all but Polak’s stick, and Polak started out with the advantage of the angle and should have been able to maintain the superior position with ease. Girgensons easily sent the puck over airborne.
Andersen is in position, tracking the puck, his glove is up, he’s covering the five hole, all should be well if Girgnesons shoots it.
Meanwhile on the other side, Carrier is driving hard for the net and gaining positional advantage on Hunwick, who has played the entire thing like he is alone on a two on one. By focusing on Girgensons, Hunwick loses track of Carrier speeding past him, and the passing lane becomes wide open.
The fact that the puck is airborne and Carrier bats it down out of the air to score made it seem like an oddity, and if it had been flat on the ice, Andersen might have had it, but at its heart, this is simply a failure to effectively cover a routine play by the defence. Carrier’s skill and positional smarts made it possible for the Sabres to take advantage of the opening they were given, but they were given a gift.
Much has been made about blown leads, late goals and the Leafs third pair. I’ll grant Hunwick a little slack here because he had played a lot of minutes in a game that had five defenders for most of it, and he clearly has trust issues with Polak. He nearly went over and covered Girgensons himself. But it is his inattention to Carrier that allows the passing lane to pivot out in front of him and out of his reach that led to this goal.
But the time of the game is incidental. If you want to claim this is part of a pattern, I need to see some evidence of that, and that evidence would have to include plays they both succeed on as well as fail. So count me as still very skeptical of the theory that they are responsible for blown leads. They’re likely responsible for first period goals too.
Today’s lesson is:
You can only play your own position. Covering for the guy who is not where he should be didn’t work for Anders Nilsson, and it didn’t work for Matt Hunwick either.Bishops and pastors of Pentecostal and para church organisations of Punjab said here on Saturday that the census, which is conducted by the government after a decade, did not tell the actual number of the Christians residing in Punjab.
While interacting with mediapersons on the sidelines of the state-level assembly of the Christian leaders, organised at Virsa Vihar here, a Christian leader Imanul Rehmat Masih said, “In reality, our population is 7 to 10% in the state, but the latest census shows us less than 1% under a deep-rooted conspiracy against the fast emerging religion.”
“Despite our sizeable population in Punjab, no political party has given us representation in the state legislative assembly, Parliament and executive since the country got Independence, which is injustice with us,” he said. He further alleged that the successive governments had never addressed demands of our community, nor given them the rights they deserved for.
“Even, we are being deprived of the reservation under backward classes. When, any member of the Christian community applies for a reservation certificate, he is asked to produce conversion certificate which is impossible generally,” he added.
He also criticised the state government for not allotting him a ground for performing last rites of the dead as per Christian tenets.
When asked about their support to any political party in the upcoming assembly elections of 2017, the leaders said they would support a party that accepts their conditions.
Commenting on the alleged obstacles being created by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in the propagation of their religion, they said the constitution has given right to every citizen of the country to adopt any religion, according to his will and no direct and indirect restriction can be imposed on anyone.
They also formed a state-level united front of the bishops and pastors to fight for their rights. Masih was elected the front’s chairman, while Ulfat Raj was appointed president.
First Published: Sep 05, 2016 15:54 ISTLegions of Santas are currently perched in malls all over the country, waiting for your children to climb atop their laps and whisper to them their most secret desires. The Mall Santa thing has to be one of the creepiest traditions we have, and yet it seems like it will never die -- and as a result, a lot of people out there in internetland have embarrassing pictures of themselves as kids posed with Santa, and sites like sketchysantas are there to redistribute the most humiliating of those memories for the rest of us to enjoy.
This first creepy Santa is a vintage found photograph owned by collector Albert Tanquero, who has an amazing array of vernacular/found photos on his Flickr page. It's easily the scariest picture of Santa I've ever seen, if not one of the creepiest photos I've ever come across, right down to the taxidermied donkey.
The following Santas were found in the voluminous archives of sketchysantas:
Santa should at least try and look like he's having fun, right?
Santa's about to have a complete mental breakdown. He's got the crazy-eye, as they say.
How can she be so calm with this leering maniac's arm around her?
Note to Santas everywhere: masks are scary. If you look so unlike Santa Claus that you must make use of a mask to sustain the illusion, you might consider another line of work.
Santa looks like death warmed over.
I think Santa and his lap-dweller might be the same age. So much gone horribly awry here...
Santa's got a Percodan addiction.
80s glasses look weird on Santa. Also, Santa looks a little like Mark Borchardt from American Movie (then again, maybe it's just the 80s glasses).
Merry Christmas, people!Art Basel is just a month away. Last year the fair attracted 73,000 visitors to the Miami Beach Convention Center and this year's 14th edition looks to be even bigger and better, with 267 galleries from 32 countries exhibiting from December 3rd to the 6th -- plus the former head of NYC's Armory Show, Noah Horowitz, is now running the fair.
Rendering of the new Miami Beach Convention Center
Work on the $615 million renovation of the convention center is scheduled to begin as soon as AB/MB ends, so look for big changes next year. The $20 million re-do of Lincoln Road is also moving along with NYC's James Corner Field Operations, the firm that did The High Line, winning the contract to update the original Morris Lapidus design from the 1950s.
All the AB/MB side-sectors return, including SURVEY with 14 booths showing "historically informed" works; NOVA, where you'll find 34 younger galleries showing new works; and sixteen POSITIONS galleries focusing on emerging artists, including Villa Design Group's installation of 10 doorways derived from the scene of the 1997 murder of Gianni Versace on Ocean Drive and, "Polyrhythm Technoir," a filmed "allegory to contemporary electronic music" by Henning Fehr, Danji Buck-Moore and Phillip Ruhr, presented by Galerie Max Mayer.
UNBUILT
Yves Behar is the recipient of the 2015 Design Miami "Design Visionary Award" and he'll be honored with a special exhibit in the D/M venue behind the convention center from December 2 through 6. A student team from Harvard was chosen to design the fair's entrance pavilion for their submission, "UNBUILT," a collection of foam models of unrealized design projects. Expect thirty five exhibitors including Firma Casa from Brazil, showing new works by the Campana Brothers, and Italian gallery Secondome,with hand-crafted limited editions.
Several changes and new editions are coming to the numerous -- 18 and counting -- satellite fairs: Miami Project and Art on Paper move into the Deauville Beach Resort (6701 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach), the former site of the NADA fair; while the 13th edition of NADA heads down the street to the Fontainebleau (4441 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach).
The Miami Project is also launching a new spin-off this year called SATELLITE that will show various "experimental" projects in unoccupied properties up near their 73rd Street base. One of those, "Artist-Run," will fill the rooms in the Ocean Terrace Hotel (7410 Ocean Terrace, Miami Beach) with different installations from 40 artist-run spaces, curated by Tiger Strikes Asteroid. It's open from December 2nd to 6th, with a VIP/media event on December 1st from noon to 10 p.m. ALSO: Trans-Pecos, the music venue out in Queens, New York, and Sam Hillmer from the band Zs, are putting together a 5-day music program in the North Beach Amphitheater, emphasizing "musical practitioners with some form of art practice."
Grace Hartigan
X Contemporary also joins the crowd with their inaugural edition in Wynwood running from December 2nd through Sunday, and a VIP opening on December 1st from 5 to 10 p.m. Twenty eight exhibitiors will be on hand, plus special projects including "Grace Hartigan: 1960 - 1965" presented by Michael Klein Arts; a look at the "genesis of street art" curated by Pamela Willoughby; and "Colombia N.O.W." presented by TIMEBAG.
Kate Durbin's "Hello Selfie" / Courtesy of the Artist/Photographer Jessie Askinaz
PULSE Miami Beach returns to Indian Beach Park (4601 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach) starting with a big "Opening Celebration" at 4 p.m. on December 1st featuring a panel discussion put together by Hyperallergic, an interactive piece by Kate Durbin called "Hello, Selfie!" and a live performance by Kalup Linzy. On December 5th, PULSE celebrates the City of Miami via a talk at 5 p.m. on "Future Visions of Miami" and a "Sunset Celebration" from 5 to 7 p.m. Fair visitors can check out "TARGET TOO," an installation referencing items sold at the stores, originally on view in NYC last March. There's a complimentary shuttle from the convention center, and the fair is open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Saturday.
Wynwood Walls
Wynwood Walls (2520 NW 2nd Avenue, Miami) has a lot planned this year including "Walls of Change" with 14 new murals and installations and the debut of a new adjacent space called "The Wynwood Walls Garden." The walls are by Case, Crash, Cryptik, el Seed, Erenest Zacharevic, Fafi, Hueman, INTI, The London Police, Logan Hicks and Ryan McGinness. Over in the "garden," the Spanish art duo Pichi & Avo are doing a mural on stacked shipping containers and in the events space, Magnus Sodamin will be painting the floors and walls. The VIP opening is on December 1st in the early evening, but then it's open to the public from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. Goldman Properties' CEO Jessica Goldman Srebnick talks about how art transformed the Wynwood neighborhood in THIS Miami New Times piece. We also hear that New York developer (and owner of Moishe's Moving, Mana Contemporary etc.) Moishe Mana is planning a new mixed-use development on his 30 acres of land in the middle of Wynwood.
The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU (10975 SW 17th Street. Miami) will have 5 exhibitions featuring 4 Miami-based artists: Carola Braco, Rufina Santana, Carlos Estevez and Ramon Espantaleon. Plus there will be a show called "Walls of Color" with murals by the post-war NY artist Hans Hofmam and, this year, the annual "Breakfast in the Park" on Sunday, December 6th, 9:30 a.m. to noon, honors American sculptor Alice Aycock.
Pauchi Sasaki's speaker dress
The Mandarin Oriental Miami (500 Brickell Key Drive, Miami) and Peru's gallery MORBO host an exhibition called "Pure Abstraction" by American artist Alex Brewer, aka HENSE, in the hotel's Peruvian restaurant, La Mar by Gaston Acurio. There's a VIP preview in the restaurant on December 3rd featuring a violin performance by Pauchi Sasaki who'll be wearing her dress made from speakers.Advertisement Feds: Terror attack suspect said ‘he felt good about’ rampage Share Shares Copy Link Copy
The suspect in a deadly truck rampage was inspired by the Islamic State group’s online videos and plotted his New York City attack for two months, renting a truck ahead of time to practice turning it, federal authorities said in a criminal complaint bringing terrorism charges against the Uzbek immigrant.Sayfullo Saipov chose the attack date to target Halloween crowds, according to the criminal complaint. And after his trail of terror was halted by a police bullet, he asked to display the Islamic State group’s flag in his hospital room, saying “he felt good about what he had done,” authorities said.Brought to court in a wheelchair, Saipov was held without bail on charges that could bring the death penalty. Separately, the FBI was questioning people who might have information about his actions before the attack, including a second Uzbek man.The charges against Saipov, 29, came just a day after the attack near the World Trade Center killed eight people. Investigators in multiple states raced to retrace Saipov’s steps and understand his motivations, which they said were illuminated by a note he left by the truck: “Islamic Supplication. It will endure.” The phrase “it will endure” commonly refers to the Islamic State group, and Saipov had a cellphone loaded with the group’s propaganda, an FBI agent said in the criminal complaint.READ THE FULL LIST OF CHARGES HEREHandcuffed and with his legs shackled, Saipov nodded his head as he was read his rights in a brief court proceeding that he followed through a Russian interpreter. Outside court, his appointed lawyer, David Patton, said he hoped “everyone lets the judicial process play out.”“I promise you that how we treat Mr. Saipov in this judicial process will say a lot more about us than it will say about him,” Patton said.Watch the NYPD officer give statement on subduing the suspect in the player belowThe FBI released a poster saying it was looking for one of Saipov’s associates, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, only to announce less than 90 minutes later that it had found him. A law enforcement official said Kadirov was a friend of Saipov’s and may not have any role in the case. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.A married father of three and former commercial truck and ride-hailing driver, Saipov began planning an attack a year ago and settled on a truck assault a couple of months ago, according to the criminal complaint.During the last few weeks, Saipov searched the internet for information on Halloween in New York City and rented a truck to practice turns. He chose a route along a lower Manhattan highway and initially hoped to continue to hit more pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge, the complaint said.Ultimately, Saipov sped down a bike path on a riverfront esplanade in a rented truck for nearly a mile Tuesday, running down cyclists and pedestrians, before crashing into a school bus, authorities said. He was shot after he jumped out of the vehicle brandishing two air guns and yelling “God is great!” in Arabic, they said. Knives were found in a bag he was carrying.In the past few years, the Islamic State group has exhorted followers online to use vehicles, knives or other close-at-hand means of killing people in their home countries. England, France and Germany have all seen deadly vehicle attacks since mid-2016.Saipov’s court appearance came just hours after President Donald Trump said he would consider sending Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba — an idea the White House reinforced by saying it considered Saipov to be an “enemy combatant.” Detainees at Guantanamo accused of supporting militants have faced military tribunals, rather than trials in the U.S. legal system.By afternoon, though, Saipov was in federal court facing charges that include providing material support to a terrorist group. Trump’s administration could, at least in theory, still send the suspect to the U.S. base in Cuba later, though such a step would be unprecedented.Late Wednesday night, the president took to Twitter to say that Saipov should get the death penalty.Trump also has called for eliminating the 1990s visa lottery program that Saipov used to come to the U.S. in 2010.John Miller, deputy New York police commissioner for counterterrorism, said Saipov had never been the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI or New York police, but appears to have links to people who have been investigated. He wouldn’t elaborate.The attack killed five people from Argentina, one from Belgium and two Americans, authorities said. Twelve people were injured.City leaders vowed New York would not be intimidated and said Sunday’s New York City Marathon would go on as scheduled, with increased security.Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammad Al-Attiyah (photographed here in Doha on August 3, 2015) said his country would consider launching a military intervention against the Syrian government. (AFP/Karim Jafar)
Syria has warned Qatar of a “harsh response” after Doha threatened that it may intervene militarily in the Arab country.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad made the remarks in response to comments by Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid al-Attiyah, on Thursday.
"If Qatar carries out its threat to militarily intervene in Syria, then we will consider this a direct aggression... Our response will be very harsh," Mekdad was quoted by the Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen television as saying.
On Wednesday, the Qatari foreign minister said his country would consider launching a military intervention against the Syrian government “with our Saudi and Turkish brothers.”
"If a military intervention will protect the Syrian people from the brutality of the regime, we will do it,” Attiyah said.
However, Attiyah added that Doha preferred political dialog from a “position of strength.”
The remarks by Qatar comes as Doha, and a number of its Arab neighbors, namely Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and their Western allies, have been angered by recent advances made by the Syrian army against Daesh, as well as airstrikes carried out by Russia, which have been targeting terrorist positions in the country since late last month.
On October 19, different militant groups fighting Damascus admitted that they had received supplies from countries opposing Syria, including the US, via neighboring Turkey as recently as October 16.
Syria has been embatteled in a civil war since March 2011, which has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people so far.
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source materialFrance ordered four C-130Js Super Hercules military transport planes from US company Lockheed in January (AFP Photo/Senior Airman Christine Griffith)
Paris (AFP) - Germany and France announced plans Tuesday to share an air base and transport planes as part of a military shake-up in the wake of Britain's vote to quit the European Union.
The two countries signed an agreement with a view to sharing C-130J Super Hercules military transport planes, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in Paris.
His German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen, in Paris to sign the deal, told reporters both countries wanted to have the new arrangement in place by 2021.
France ordered four C-130Js from US company Lockheed in January.
Germany was looking to acquire between four and six of the same aircraft and to base them in France, said Von der Leyen. The two countries were looking at using an air base in Orleans, central France, she added.
A member of Le Drian's team said the idea was to make the planes operational for both French and German crew in a first for the two air forces.
In July, just weeks after Britain's referendum vote to quit the European Union, Von der Leyen said London had "paralysed" European efforts for a more closely integrated policy.
The EU should seize the opportunity to change that, she argued.
French officials told AFP last month that Paris and Berlin were drawing up plans for a more "active and useful" defence policy.Hadar Buchris, a 21-year-old Israeli woman from Safed, was seriously wounded and later declared deceased after a stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank on Sunday afternoon. IDF troops from the Kfir Brigade shot and killed her attacker.
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The young woman suffered stab wounds to her head and was taken to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem in very serious, unstable condition where doctors were unable to save her life.
Young Israeli woman seriously wounded in Gush Etzion stabbing attack (צילום: מועצה אזורית גוש עציון)
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The attack happened at a hitchhiking station where two terrorists who tried to commit a stabbing attack were shot to death three weeks ago.
On the left: Treating the wounded victim, on the right: Guns-drawn pointed at the terrorist (Photo: Elisaf Hillela)
Scene of the attack at Gush Etzion junction where Israeli teenage girl seriously wounded (Photo: Gush Etzion Firefighters)
On Sunday morning, two stabbing terror attacks were thwarted in the West Bank when a 16-year-old Palestinian girl tried to stab Israelis near Itamar and a Palestinian taxi driver tried to stab an Israeli man after failing to run over pedestrians near Jerusalem. Both terrorists were shot dead, while an Israeli was lightly wounded.
A Palestinian taxi driver tried to run over Israelis at the Kfar Adumim junction near Jerusalem. When he was unsuccessful, he got out of the taxi and tried to stab an Israeli driver.
Attempted stabbing and vehicular attack at Kfar Adumim junction (צילום: tps ודוברות מד"א)
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Shmuel Shapira, 51, from Eilat, was lightly wounded in his hand and taken to the Hadassah Medical Center at Jerusalem's Mount Scopus for treatment. Another civilian who was on the scene shot the terrorist dead.
The terrorist was identified as Shadi Hassib, 32, from al-Bireh near Ramallah.
The scene of the attack at Kfar Adumim junction near Jerusalem (Phoo: Oren Rond)
Less than an hour before that, the former head of the Samaria regional council, Gershon Mesika, helped thwart a stabbing attack at the Samaria junction, at the southern entrance to Nablus in the West Bank.
Attempted stabbing at Samaria junction near Itamar (צילום: הצלה יו"ש ומועצה אזורית שומרון)
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Mesika, who saw a female terrorist trying to stab civilians at the entrance to the Samaria territorial brigade's military base, ran her over with his car.
"I was at the hitchhiking stop picking up passengers, when all of a sudden I saw a big woman chasing after another woman wielding a knife. I veered to the right and ran into her," Mesika told Ynet.
Gershon Mesika's car after running over the terrorist (Photo: Moshe Shimon)
Another civilian, who was driving behind Mesika and noticed what was happening, exited his car and opened fire at her, along with IDF troops who were on the scene, shooting her dead.
She was identified as Ashraqat Qatanani, 16, from Nablus.
Ashraqat Katanani at the scene of the attack (Photo: Moshe Shimon)
Following the foiled attack near Itamar, a Twitter page associated with Fatah posted a picture of Gershon Mesika with a target on his face, inciting to violence against him.
Fatah affiliated Twitter page incites against Gershon Mesika
Some 300 settlers from Kiryat Arba, including young students, protested outside the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, demanding more is done to improve the security situation.
Protesters hold a sign that says 'No Arabs, no terror attacks' (Photo: Gil Yohanan)
They called on the government to close roads used by both Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank, and slammed Bayit Yehudi ministers for not doing more for their voters.
"We are facing terrorism by individuals. This is not the terrorism of organisations, this is terrorism by individuals, sometimes with knives, incited mainly by social media," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of the cabinet meeting.
"It is very difficult to hermetically prevent the arrival of such knife-wielding, or other, terrorists to this or that place," he said, calling on citizens to be on high alert.
"I instructed the security agencies to coordinate their efforts in the Hebron district, from which most or all of the attacks are originating. We are carrying out – inter alia – arrests and roadblocks there and are boosting our forces. We did this in Jerusalem from which most of the attacks had originated," the prime minister continued.
The attacks on Sunday morning came a day after a Palestinian attacker stabbed four people in southern Israel. Following hours of an extensive manhunt, police forces found the 18-year-old Palestinian hiding late Saturday in the yard of a home close to where he carried out his stabbing spree in the southern town of Kiryat Gat.Wimbledon’s skyline could soon be restored after more than £100,000 was raised to repair the iconic windmill sails on the common, but there is still a long way to go.
In August last year, a ton of wood from the iconic windmill sail crashed through the roof of the Wimbledon Museum, spraying debris onto parked cars.
August 2015: Windmill sail smashes through Wimbledon Common museum roof
The damage devastated the Grade II-listed museum and since then the fundraising has been in earnest to get repairs underway.
The damage when it happened last year
Now, the Wimbledon and Putney Common Conservators say work can start in May after a £100,000 Heritage Lottery Grant and £4,250 in donations.
But they still need several thousand pounds more to pay for the damage.
August 2015: Wimbledon skyline loses iconic landmark as Grade-II listed windmill sheds sails for restoration
Chief executive Simon Lee said: “We want everything to be finished and restored to its iconic state by 2017 in time for the bicentenary of the windmill.”
He added: “We have already received £4,250 from the local people of Wimbledon which we are extremely grateful for. We still need to raise a further £4,000 for the repairs. That’s why it has taken so long. It takes time to build up the funds to restore such a prestigious building.”
Not only are repairs taking place on the sails of the windmill but prior to the incident which caused one of the sails to dramatically fall through into the first floor, Mr Lee had identified that there was a problem with water leaking into the windmill on the first floor.
It is the water damage over a number of years that led to the degradation of the building’s structure, contributing to the sails collapse last summer.
“This is also a major piece of restoration that needs to be addressed. We have decided that whilst we have scaffolding up for the other jobs we will take the opportunity to complete smaller jobs such as painting,” he said.
The windmill was built in 1817 by carpenter Charles March as a corn mill. It was converted into cottages in the 1860s, when Earl Spencer, the Lord of the Manor of Wimbledon, bought a section of the Common.
In 1975 it was restored by Mr Plastow after a public appeal was launched to raise £20,000.
Professional millwrights will do the restoration works on the Grade-II listed building.
With the restoration process loaming closer, Mr Lee also wanted to emphasis their desire for more community engagement. “We are in desperate need for additional volunteers to help us manage the windmill now and after the restoration. It is currently managed by a group of trustees who are always eager to have new volunteers help maintain the prestigious landmark.”
Donations can be made at the ranger’s office at Manor Cottage, Windmill Road, Wimbledon Common.Image copyright EPA Image caption The Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre is in the Sainte Foy area of Quebec City
A Canadian town has voted to oppose a zoning change that would allow a Muslim cemetery to be built.
The referendum was held on Sunday in Saint-Apollinaire, a town of about 5,000 located just outside Quebec City.
Provincial rules meant only 49 people were eligible to vote; the nays won 19-16 and one ballot was rejected.
The cemetery was proposed by the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, which was the site of a shooting that killed six people and injured 19 in January.
"We never thought people could oppose the installation of a cemetery," the centre's president Mohamed Labidi told Radio-Canada. "What are they afraid of?"
The Islamic cultural centre had purchased a plot of land in a wooded area next to an existing cemetery after the shooting. The only Muslim cemetery in Quebec is in Laval, hours from Quebec City.
The town's decision to oppose the cemetery has led to an outcry amongst Muslims and civil-rights advocates across the country and may lead to a human rights complaint, Mr Labidi said.
The mayor of the town supported the cemetery and has said he fears his town's reputation has been hurt.
"They do not know these people so they base their decisions on hearsay," Mayor Bernard Ouellet told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Opponents went door to door to gather signatures to call for the referendum, since building the cemetery would require a minor zoning change. A provincial law allows referendums to be held on zoning matters, with only people who live in the affected area eligible to vote.
That meant only 49 people in a town of 5,000 were eligible to vote, and only 36 people cast ballots.
"We need cemeteries that welcome everybody, no matter their religion, where they are from, their skin colour, their culture. You have to think about that because in 20 years it is going to be a problem," opponent Sunny Létourneau told the CBC.
She says she only supports non-denominational cemeteries.The GAA has intervened to stop London GAA holding a vote to remove a British Army team from their local club championships.
GAA director general Páraic Duffy made the move after Harrow-based hurling club Granuaile made a proposal to rescind last year’s decision to allow the Irish Guards compete in the junior football championship.
The Irish Guards are the first British Army regiment to become affiliated with the association.
A vote was expected to be made in Ruislip on Monday night but London GAA decided to suspend the motion following contact from Duffy.
British security forces have been allowed to join the GAA since Rule 21 was historically lifted in 2001.
GAA president Aogán ó Fearghail confirmed Duffy’s intervention, saying: “I'm aware of that, it's been brought to my attention.
“Páraic and I have had discussions on it and Páraic, in discussion with myself, we've written to the London GAA board and we've asked them not to make a decision on that until we, as a management, have a look at that.
"Because it's nothing to do with one club, it's all clubs. We've close to 2,000 clubs. If we accept a club into our association, having done that, then it shouldn't be so simple to just remove them."
The president indicated that the issue would be discussed at Friday night's management committee meeting.Posted December 26th, 2016 by Joanne Johns
Intervjuo: Elizabeth Sekelj parolis pri Tibor Sekelj
Kanto: el la kompaktdisko Destino Tero de J. Dan kaj B. Horst “Vojaĝigu min”
Legado: Karlo el Fervoja mondo de Jindrich Tomiŝek “ Aŭtobusoj de la Aŭstria fervoja kompanio (OBB)”
Laszlo el Monato “Vojaĝo tra la alfabetoj de la mondo” de Pierre Grollemund.
Kanto: el la kompaktdisko Bela Revo de Anjo Amika “ Ŝipo de la pac”
Legado: Karlo el Monato “ Novaj vagonoj por la giganta rado” de Walter kaj Renate Klag
Laszlo el Budapeŝta Esperanto portal de Laszlo Szilvasi “ Mi lavis la barbon de Zamenhof”
Kanto: el la kompaktdisko Amu min de Ĵomart kaj Nataŝa “ Min vokas iamo”
Legado: Karlo el Monato “ Maljunulviandbiskvitfara fabriko” de Said Baluäi kaj Marianne Perquin
Laszlo el Sennaciulo, informo de Labourstart “ Ni subtenu la membrojn de la sindikato, kiuj batalas por savi la arbaron de Cerattepe”
Franciska: mesaĝo de Vinilkosmo
Kanto: JoMo kantas “ Cigano preĝis” el la kompaktdisko Ĵomo slavumasAsylum-seeker status preventing 18-year-old from going to university is behind her upset and disappearance, says sister
A teenager who disappeared after taking out the rubbish was upset because her family's asylum-seeker status barred her from attending university.
Nida Ul-Naseer, 18, of Newport, South Wales, has not been seen since leaving her home in Linton Street on 28 December.
Her family revealed on Tuesday that their attempt to seek asylum in the UK from Pakistan was turned down a year ago.
It resulted in Nida opting to retake a business studies course she had already passed.
Her sister, Shamyla, 23, told a press conference that she believed Nida's disappearance stemmed from being upset because she could not attend university.
"I think that not being able to go to university is the reason for her leaving," she said, speaking alongside other family members at Newport Central police station.
She said her sister had been upset and angry about the situation before she vanished.
Nida might also have been barefoot when she disappeared three days after Christmas, it has emerged. Police said it was not known if she had taken anything to put on her feet, although if she had planned to leave it was likely.
The teenager suffers from a medical condition and needs medication without which she is likely to become anaemic.
Her sister revealed on Tuesday that Nida had been taking iron supplements and also suffered from heartburn.
The teenager had been unhappy for some time about not being able to attend university. Her sister said she had seen friends who did less well in their exams go on to university. She went to college instead but remained unhappy.
Before she left she had argued with her family about her inability to go to university and was said to be shouting and crying.
Her father, Naseer Tahir, who was also at the press conference, said in broken English that he was happy for his daughter to attend university.
He added that he was sad he was not able to provide her with what she wanted.
The conference heard that Nida did not have a boyfriend and was described by her family as very religious.
The family has been seeking asylum in the UK for five years. Their passports are held by the Home Office.
Shamyla began the interview with a direct appeal to her missing sister, saying: "Nida, please come back home. Nida, please come back home. We are desperately worried about you. Nida, we need you. Nida, please come back home, we cannot live without you."Jonathon Grant is a very paranoid writer and illustrator. He specializes in works of horror. He also suffers from hellish nightmares and delusions. Now he must convince everyone that something is seriously wrong with his wife and that it is not his paranoia. Sarah Grant is married to Jonathon. But after six years of marriage something is happening to her. Something dark and twisted. Dr. Vincent Stone is the mysterious psychiatrist that Jonathon sees. He hopes Stone will help him with his paranoia. Dr. Stone thinks Jonathon's wife is having |
know to use a sterilized mix.
* Posted by: Celestial Z6b/Eagle,ID (My Page) on Tue, May 7, 02 at 12:03
1) After searching/not finding/asking about seed starting mix, believing the guy at the nursery who told me "they" used Whitney Farms Potting Soil as their seed starting mix [read: TONS of dampening off]
2) Planting roses in the lawn - Hello Mildew!
* Posted by: storey_z8b_TX z8b TX (My Page) on Fri, May 10, 02 at 20:43
NEVER let a younger family member (he was 20, I was 23) help in your garden. We laugh about it now, but... Anyway, I was busy moving small peppers and veggies from a seeding bed to growing beds and he noticed a few big caterpillars munching on some larger blackberry canes and wanted to help. I told him where the insecticidal soap was, he got it, and sprayed most of the flowering canes. Helpful right? Well two weeks later we found out he picked up the Round Up instead of the soap. Got rid of the bugs though :)
* Posted by: Ermine z9CA (My Page) on Sat, May 11, 02 at 16:54
Although I've been gardening for years I always make stupid mistakes. I'm looking at one right now. 25 HUGE tomato plants that are all indeterminate! These babies will be bearing fruit past Thanksgiving and I'm scheduled for back surgery this summer!!
Thank God there are the local food banks to take a lot off my hands as I also went way overboard with the summer squash and chilies too. I can't believe I once again planted a veggie garden this big for just my husband and me. LOL.........
* Posted by: poinciana South West (My Page) on Sat, May 11, 02 at 22:18
What a great thread, just look here if you need a good laugh! The turnip story wins for me. A relative would not touch turnips for years and years because she had to eat them almost exclusively during the war. Apparently, one can also get sick of turnips in a rather short time. :))
I have made many of the above mistakes and then some. These days I am a very experienced gardener as well as a (ahem)?professional? to boot; and still, I keep making mistakes. Most of these come under the, not following my own advice category such as planting things too close, because I don?t like bare ground; subsequently having to move tons of plants while killing a few in the process.
The other mistake I constantly make is that my greedy little garden coveting brain won?t let me purchase within bounds. I always buy too much. Imelda coveted shoes; I covet plants. As a consequence, I have scores of little plants or bulbs that are never planted due to a lack of time or energy. At this writing, there is a whole box of winter and summer bulbs in the garage?all have sprouted. Everyday I look at them and say,?Yes, yes, tomorrow, I?ll get to you.? I see them sadly beckoning to me, like marooned sailors on a raft without water.
These days, swallowing my pride, I use?little helpers? to ease the hard work. I am learning that no matter how well I think I have explained a procedure it frequently is done incorrectly.
Recently I enlisted my young, teen helper to transplant some Vincas into our little wooded area. I suggested he water them first, told him which spade to use, etc. and went to the front garden to dead-head the roses. After a while, I returned to find him sitting on the ground with a hand trowel, scraping out a fist size hole in the hard clay with his bare hands. I then watched in horror as he forced a bare-root Vinca into the hard, unwatered hole and pulled mulch over it.?Where is the soil that you dug up with the plant???Oh,? he said,?I shook it all off.? I turned around and sure enough, there was a stack of poor little Vinca plants with their bare roots exposed to the afternoon sun, waiting for?planting.? Good thing they are tough plants. After further instructions on how to properly transplant, my helper did a nice job. They all looked fine the next day. I just hope it will not be yet another mistake, because Vinca can be invasive. :->
One day I casually mentioned to my husband that I needed to prune the beautiful Virburnum plicatum tomentosum Marisii, which was blocking the front window, (another?mistake?) before transplanting it. I began to prepare dinner and did not notice that my husband had disappeared. After about 20 minutes he came back in, a triumphant look on his face and loppers in hand.?Where have you been?? Proudly he announced,?I pruned the Viburnum for you.? I rushed outside, fearing the worst. Gasp! There was the fully-grown Viburnum, its arm size branches lying on the ground, neatly stacked. He had?pruned? the massive plant completely to the ground. I cried; my hapless husband looked devastated. We nevertheless transplanted it?not without great difficulty, because the roots were huge?and prayed. Miraculously, that Viburnum (after about 4 years) is again fully-grown and had the best horizontal display ever, this year.
* Posted by: buckeye_newbie USDA 5 (My Page) on Tue, May 14, 02 at 15:23
I may have made a mistake... I have just bought a new house complete with overgrown yard and a terraced hillside with LOTS of landscaping. Right away, I noticed tall purple flowers (weeds?) growing right from the tree?s lawn, down the terraces and halfway into the yard. I pulled every single one out by the roots (they came out pretty easy, but had kind of a "creeping" root, especially round the rocky areas). Now I think these might have been phlox.
My question is, is phlox a flower or a weed? Is it desirable to have in the garden?
This could be my first mistake, but surely won't be my stupidest yet!
* Posted by: Dances_in_Garden 7a-CDN 6-US (My Page) on Tue, May 14, 02 at 16:35
Hmmmm. This is a toughie. ROFL!
I also plant too close together, but I am well aware that I have to move things when I do that - so it's not a mistake. Just because the lavender has been moved four times does NOT mean I did anything wrong. It just hasn't found it's home yet :).
It is probably planting lemon balm and chinese lanterns. They are ugly, smell bad, and come up everywhere no matter what I do. DH still won't forgive me for that. The rampant chives he forgives because people line up for blocks in the spring to dig up a clump for themselves, so the problem fixes itself - tee hee.
* Posted by: RoseOOPs z5MI (My Page) on Tue, May 14, 02 at 18:06
My biggest mistake was weed whacking weeds that were growing around the trees in the backyard. The line of trees is about 500 feet. It was a hot summer day and I wore shorts and a tank top. Whacked down all the weeds cleaned everything up. It sure looked good. Later now I had a nasty itching rash all over my legs, arms and neck. the weeds that I weed whacked was poison ivy. That was last summer and I still have a few scares on my legs.
* Posted by: crimso1 z7 MD (My Page) on Mon, May 20, 02 at 23:09
Perhaps not my stupidest garden mistake but certainly my grossest...
I was weeding my Emerald and Gold Euonymus that had taken over the front bed. I was doing this bare-handed so that I could feel what I was doing since the plant was so dense. I reached in and realized I had stuck my thumb into something cold and wet. Yuck...bird doo... or so I thought. Well, shades of Little Jack Horner. I had skewered a large slug! It took forever to get the goo out from under my nail.
*Posted by karenm ) on Fri, Jul 26, 02 at 17:50
Anyway, I?m new to gardening (just moved into our house 2 years ago) and it seems everything I do is a mistake, but I?m having fun.
Two of the most recent are:
1. Our yard is mostly sun so we don?t get a lot of leaves in the fall and the few we get I run over with the mower and rake into the yard. So to amend my compost I decided to pick up bags of leaves off the side of the road. Felt like thief in the night as I hefted three huge bags into my trunk. Got them home and dumped one whole bag into the compost. Started working it in when I realized that it was full of gumballs. Then had to lug the other two bags to the curb. DH was kinda curious as to why I would transfer someone else?s garbage to our curb.
2. This was not really my mistake, but I joined a gardening magazine and got some free seeds with it. They were red poppies and I thought they would be great under my roses. I had never grown poppies before so did not know what to expect. They just grew and grew. The anticipation of seeing them bloom was intense. DH rarely comes out to check out the flowers but one afternoon with a glass of wine, we walk over to where they were and he exclaims,?Yea, you decided to put in some tomatoes!?
They had given me the wrong seeds. I got all cut up by the roses trying to move those things. Then I moved them, planted them right beside each other, and staked them with little 10-inch stakes. Grew huge in a matter of weeks. Were sprawling all out in the yard. Turned out they were cherry tomatoes. I finally got so frustrated with the whole lot of them (about 25 in a 2 x 12? bed) that they are now compost. Lot?s and lots of tomato compost. That will probably be my mistake for next year. The PH will probably be WAY off. Oh well, live and learn.
* Posted by: SoCal_Janine z10 CA (My Page) on Tue, Jul 30, 02 at 12:44
Well, it's not my stupidest mistake, just the most recent one...
I planted sunflowers this year for the first time. When they got to be about a foot high, I staked them. I used that green training wire stuff to tie them to the stakes - all 30 or so plants.
Fast forward about 2 months later...the sunflower plants are huge, over six feet tall, with great big flower heads getting ready to open. I can barely contain my excitement, running outside to look at them every day as soon as I come home from work. One day I went out and found that several plants were wilted and dying. WHAT could be the problem?
Remember that green training wire? Well...it doesn't stretch! The stems of the plants are now about 5 times wider than they were when I first staked them up, and that little green wire is cutting right into the stem. I was able to untwist the wire and save most of the plants, but I did lose quite a few, because the wire had cut in so deeply that the stem was damaged beyond help.
So - next year I will use the green stretchy tape stuff instead of the wire. Doh!
* Posted by: ILUV2GRDN 9 Palm Springs (My Page) on Fri, Aug 2, 02 at 22:49
My stupidest mistake was thinking that I can move my plants from one location to another when I bought my house. I have lost almost everything I brought with me. Even my cannas aren't doing too well this year. My agapanthus are turning yellow, and didn't bloom this year. They are west facing and are getting very HOT sun in the afternoon alot of wind too. I'm thinking of moving them to the east side of the house this fall. Anyone have any suggestions?
* Posted by: LianaMackey 9 (My Page) on Sun, Aug 4, 02 at 1:42
When I bought my house it had two old perennial beds, which to me, a never-been-a-gardener, looked like Eden. But as I began to learn, I could see the dandelions and a few other weeds, and other symptoms of neglect, so I began to clear out the weeds. Several sections had a lovely, fine, long grass and I thought "Ah! This must be some of that stuff called "ornamental grasses" so in the fall, I carefully left it in, pulled weeds around it and began the long process of amending the soil in these neglected beds. Fast forward through the next summer and the "ornamental grasses" had tripled in size to 6-foot-wide swaths -- and I then learned that what I had was fescue lawn grass that had escaped into the flower beds -- and I'd given it the green light to turn the bed into a new lawn! We're talking 12-inch deep roots here, and backbreaking spade work to rogue it out. oy......
To Plam Springs: Agapanthus getting too hot? Hard to believe! It's the only thing I used to be able to grow in a concrete and swimming pool back yard! You might want to let them stay for one more season, cutting back the yellowed foliage, and see if they just need a year to recover. Also might want to take some and move them to the east side and see what works. They do want good watering until well-established, after which they'll handle some drought.
* Posted by: Shines4U z7GA (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 12:35
WE have lived in our home just under a year. This is my first experience with gardening besides containers on various apt decks. There was a small area around our new patio that needed some serious landscaping. Well -- we thought we killed all the grass -- but NOPE! The bed looked beautiful for a month of so -- from then on it has been hard to control the grass in the bed. It's everywhere. We are at a loss. I can't believe that we will have to dig all those bushes and trees up just to kill that grass. Any other advice?? Thanks!
* Posted by: dijoy 8b (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 20:56
Shines4U, try placing several layers of newspaper or maybe some cardboard on the ground around your bushes and plants, and then cover that with mulch. That should kill out the grass while not harming your bushes and plants. You might want to water the area before you put down your paper or cardboard and mulch.
* Posted by: somara z8 - Austin, TX (My Page) on Wed, Aug 7, 02 at 14:32
This is my first year of gardening, as well as my first year on the Garden Web. I've made way too many mistakes so far, but this is the one that I'm still feeling guilty about.
I went to my first plant swap earlier this spring in San Marcos, TX. Wonderful people with wonderful plants... and I wanted a little bit of everything. Luckily everyone seemed to have a bumper crop, so someone like me with very little to trade was able to fill up the back up my truck (between two of us) with all kinds of green goodies. What I didn't think about, was that I didn't have many beds prepared for planting, and I didn't know where the heck most of it was going to go anyway. So even with most of my Saturdays and Sundays being spent working in the yard, many of the plants died before I could get them into the ground.
However, I don't regret attending. Some of the plants that are not only coping in the Texas sun, but are blooming like mad are plants that were given to me at the swap meet. So I'll be attending the fall plant swap, but I'll just be a little more careful about how much I bring home this time (and thanks to the people who were so generous, I now have some plants of my own to trade).
* Posted by: Kathy547 z8 AR (My Page) on Mon, Aug 12, 02 at 8:37
This has to do with a vegetable garden but here goes... My husband is a distributor for a bread company & I work for him (& yes, it's never a good idea to be married to someone who "thinks" he's your boss!). Anyway, because it's in the contract that the 2 days that we don't deliver to major stores, we still have to go in them & "pull up" - which is just getting bread from the back & making the shelves look full. So basically we work 7 days a week. My point in saying that is that I told hubby not to do the same thing he had done the year before: let the man we pay to disk & bush hog our garden area decide what & how much he would plant in OUR garden. Well, hubby ignored me. So we got our whole garden except for 2 rows that we had already planted tomatoes, peppers, okra, squash, & onions planted with purplehull peas. So, everything got ready to be picked but we couldn't keep them picked because of the 7-day a week job. So lots dried on the bush. My husband leaves the house at 4 a.m. & I leave after I take the kids to school so I would get up with him, & be completely dressed waiting for it to get light enough outside for me to go pick peas. There are snakes - some poisonous & there's no way in hell I go to the garden or anywhere else in the dark! Anyway, I managed to get several rows picked but wouldn't have time to shell them. So they got left in baskets or on trash bags in the floor until I had time to shell them. Well, you're not supposed to do that I learned. Spread out on a sheet or newspaper or they'll mold. So, out of probably 1/2 - 1 acre of purplehull peas, we may have put up 1 or 2 rows.
This year the fool was going to do it again until I went crazy on him & he had to listen to me gripe every day. But the guy with the tractor managed to get 9 rows of purplehulls planted before I told him that was enough.
My plans now are to start taking what I have extra every year to the farmer's market to sell. With whatever money I make I'll put back until I have enough money to buy a used tractor. Then, I'll do the disking & bushhogging myself! Maybe even plant stuff hubby doesn't like!
* Posted by: nlbenj caz9 (My Page) on Tue, Aug 13, 02 at 22:42
This was my first year of gardening, so I've done my fair share of stupid mistakes.
Flowers are supposed to die - that doesn't mean the plant is dead - which means that I spent the last few years throwing out plants from my deck that I thought were dead.
I also learned to put my contacts in BEFORE I plant. Artichokes are planted 4-6 feet (NOT, I stress, inches) apart.
* Posted by: carolynkelsea San Jose (My Page) on Thu, Aug 15, 02 at 15:42
Thanks for all the laughs you guys... I'm new to gardening too and my stupidest mistake this summer was transplanting several bushes in the middle of a heat wave... Need to learn to wait for the right time of year and not just do whatever I want when the whim strikes me!
* Posted by: sufigirl z7 NYC (My Page) on Fri, Aug 16, 02 at 23:17
I lent my brother my lopping shears to cute down a very sick rose bush he had in his back yard. When he returned them, it was just in time for fall pruning of my container roses. The following spring as they began to produce foliage, I noticed yellow leaves that dropped from the slightest breeze and black spot that could not be controlled. The cause? I never cleaned my shears after my brother used them. His rose spread its disease to mine via the lopping shears. I eventually had to burn my roses. The disease was incurable. Now, I clean all my gardening tools regularly in a bleach water solution.
* Posted by: animas z5-SW Colo (My Page) on Sun, Aug 18, 02 at 17:03
I thought it was a good idea to really "work" the soil on a hillside outside the kitchen. I double-dug the dirt and added organic compost and spread wildflower seeds -- ignoring, of course, the seed-sellers advice to merely spread the seeds and rake lightly.
By digging, I managed to reawaken and germinate years and years of dormant weed seeds. And I chopped up bindweed in tiny little pieces, thus distributing it everywhere. Thistle sprang up. Crappy grasses of all ilks burst to life. My "wildflower hill" was choked with the hardiest, thickest weeds imaginable.
* Posted by: Storey z8b TX (My Page) on Mon, Aug 19, 02 at 11:47
I'm somewhat new to gardening, but I've made more than my share of entertaining mistakes :) The most recent was finding two small, interesting little plants growing through the mulch near my tub containers. I potted one and left the other to grow up a nearby fence. Both took off and in three weeks I had healthy 6ft tall plants with tendrils attaching itself to anything it could grab. Now I can recognize poison ivy easily, but I've never seen poison oak before. The nursery people I brought a two foot cutting to for identification were petrified and must have thought I am crazy. The problem is I don't react to poison ivy or poison oak so I never know when its around :) Hope me neighbors didn't look to close at what I was growing.
Stephen
* Posted by: Mooch 6 ) on Mon, Aug 26, 02 at 10:33
After watching Paul James show for almost a year and finally buying my first house, I order 50 maiden grasses online. I figured I would plant these instead of a privacy fence on one side of our yard. Took me a whole weekend to plant. After weeks of watering they reached a height of about 6-10 inches. Me and my wife went away for 1 weekend and came back and all the grasses were gone! Since it was on the border of our neighbors yard, they thought it was a weed and "weeded" them for us.
I can laugh now but next time I will plant poison ivy there I think.
* Posted by: Pirate 8 NC (My Page) on Mon, Aug 26, 02 at 10:58
My first garden was full of donations. Someone had given me some of their mint. I loved the smell and leaf texture.
Not knowing it was extremely invasive, I put it in the middle of my garden. It took me a long time to clear it all out. Some of the root pieces that were left in kept growing. I believe it's all out. I now know to read up on any plant I put in.
* Posted by: audrey_mi 5/6 ) on Tue, Aug 27, 02 at 23:26
Most of you are new gardeners, but do not feel so bad. I've been gardening over 30 yrs. This year again I decided to grow my own vegetable plants from seeds. Especially tomatoes. I was careful I thought to label each variety. My bounty of plants provided many neighbors & friends with vigorous plants. I grew Big Boy, Ace, Romas & 100 cherries. Everyone got their share. Everyone has their bounty. HOWEVER, my garden is overrun with cherry tomatoes!! I pick 7 lbs a day!! I guess my seedlings looked good, but not the ones I wanted. Be aware, tomato seedlings look the same. Oh well, we will have lots of juice etc. I goofed and will remember this one next year! Audrey
* Posted by: kansasgard z5 KS (My Page) on Thu, Sep 5, 02 at 15:07
This is a great post. I am a newbie to gardening. 2nd spring in our new house, I decided that I wanted sunflowers growing up at the end of the yard, near my fence so I can stake it. I spent two weekends digging beds, dug too deep, got all the weeds coming up later...Returning to my story - Sowed sunflower seeds right before we had a terrible Kansas storm. Waited for two weeks, when I didn't see any seedlings emerged. I guessed the rain had washed the seeds away. So I sow again. Can see the seedling emerge. Now its hot and the temperatures are rising, so I thought, well let me mulch the bed. I put cut grass clippings on the bed...completely smothering all the seedlings. Never saw a single sunflower. I guess I should have put down DRIED grass clippings. Oh anyway, my husband never stops teasing me about my sunflowers but I do have a perennial bed starting up there this Fall.
* Posted by: daylillylover 6a PA (My Page) on Thu, Sep 5, 02 at 20:34
Stupidest garden mistake, not paying attention to how "tall" or wide plants will get. I spent half the summer moving plants around as they came into bloom so they weren't all covering each other up!
* Posted by: electraMerc z9Ca (My Page) on Mon, Sep 9, 02 at 16:37
I just get a kick out of reading this post, I too have had my share of disasters. Lets just keep our chins up high, we'll make it to pro-gardener status one day. Well, from what I read in other forums we all make mistakes.
* Posted by: ChandraLynne (My Page) on Tue, Sep 10, 02 at 15:23
I broke off a relationship, left my gardens behind and started new in a rental house. I decided my first project, while still getting over the grief of leaving my beloved plants behind, would be something I've never tried before - poppies - bright, colorful, glorious poppies. I hand dug a spot for them, spread the seeds and proceeded to water and care for the spot daily. I had something to look forward to! I pointed the first sprouts out to friends and family, proclaiming them brand-spanking-new seedlings and "just watch them grow!" I fertilized and watched over them, rushing to look at them every day after work.... When it all was said and done - I ended up with a great big spot of carefully grown crab grass!! Talk about feeling stupid!!
* Posted by: stretchwny5 w.n.y,5 (My Page) on Mon, Sep 23, 02 at 11:01
when all else fails there?s always next year LOL
* Posted by: Patti Fielder 5 ) on Sat, Sep 28, 02 at 19:19
Anybody out there have a mulberry tree? Whatever you do, don't try digging up whatever is on the ground underneath. I wanted to put in a groundcover but it was choked out by literally thousands of tiny mulberry trees. Seems EACH fruit that drops sprouts it's own tree! I was renting & moved shortly after but I've always wanted to go back to see my grove of mulberry trees!
* Posted by: Judy_ON 6A ON (My Page) on Sun, Sep 29, 02 at 20:49
This is a great post - let's keep it going as we're all learning a thing or two still. Hands down to Mrs. Beasley and her turnip story, and second goes to Shirley B. with her tomatoes. Very very funny and so true.
Anyways, my "mistake" has a bit of a different twist to it, (although I have lots of "oops" that I can relate to on this forum).
A bit of background: I had a lovely cross lab/shepherd dog that loved to go across to the bush and bring us home her findings - dead/rotting carcasses of dear, skunk, raccoon, etc - you get the picture. She would normally just leave them in the yard for us to find them (and dispose of). Well, it was a beautiful spring day for clean up and I was in one of my gardens transplanting a few of my gems from one place to another. (Yup, you know where this is going...) I was working in my bare hands, (no gloves) and was digging up some iris bulbs to move elsewhere. These iris bulbs were creamy white and long - when I dug in I found that they weren't coming out near as easily as I initially thought - therefore I got in there with my hands to help loosen the soil, so's not to damage any of the root/bulb. Needless to say, I got the shock of my life and totally - I mean totally - grossed out when I pulled up a hoof/leg of a deer!! - Yuk, yuk, & yuk --I freaked just a "wee" bit, and had everyone running over to see what the commotion was about. Of course the guys were killing themselves laughing, I cursed the dog over & over, and had the heepee jeepies for a while trying to figure out what else she had "left" for me to discover.
To this day, I am very careful about how and what I dig up - lesson learned - you just don't know sometimes.
Keep writing your stories folks,
* Posted by: BeverlyAL 7a (My Page) on Tue, Oct 1, 02 at 14:16
We had just purchased a house and having weeded vegetable gardens for years I thought I knew a weed from a flower. I weeded the shrubbery and later found out I had pulled up all the Lantanas except for one. The one I have left is 6 or 7 feet in diameter. I am sick because I pulled up the others!
* Posted by: happygardening z6 CT (My Page) on Wed, Oct 2, 02 at 9:05
My dh was complianing that my butterfly bushes and 2 most favorite rose bushes, and 2 weeping pines, were to tall for where they were. I got sick of listening to him complain so I transplanted them in the middle of the 90 degree summer, in the middle of a drought!!! Needless to say only the 2 butterfly bushes made it. uuuuggg what a dummy I am....I do no better.Words fail.
Details:
A devout Catholic deacon was stabbed to death at a Long Island halfway house where he worked for decades trying to help those living on society’s margins, police and friends said Saturday.
The violence unfolded Friday night at around 10:20 p.m., when Andre Patton, a resident of the home, Anthony House in Roosevelt, attacked deacon Patrick Logsdon, and then fled, Nassau County police said.
Responding officers found Logsdon, 70, unresponsive in a pool of blood, with multiple stab wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to officials, who said it was unclear what sparked the senseless violence.
Logsdon worked at Anthony House for more than 30 years and dedicated his life to coaching the thousands of ex-cons who cycled through the home and elsewhere, his friends said.
“He would talk to incarcerated men maybe seven times a day at half-hour a clip,” said Jim Pfeifer, 60, who worked at the home with Logsdon for four years — and was married to his wife by the deacon.
“The top of that house right there is a study, a little place he went to pray, and he must’ve gone up there five times a day to meditate, pray. The guy owned nothing. Slept on the floor.”
Another pal, Robert Auricchio, choked back tears as he remembered the charitable legacy of “Deacon Pat.”
“He was the kindest, most unselfish man of amazing faith and humility and charity,” said Auricchio, 57. “He gave his whole life for that ministry to give all these poor guys that were in prison for such a long time [a new life].She often picked up her newspaper and read the reports of young people who died. She thought their profiles were beautiful.
"You see these pictures of beautiful young people and their stories. We couldn't do that. Not when it's death by suicide," said the mum, who can't be named.
"When we wrote his death notice, we were told you can't mention suicide. From the get-go, it was like this dirty little secret."
The mother, who lives in Christchurch, lost her son on November 24, 2013. He was 18 years and nine months old.
READ MORE:
* Let's talk about suicide
* The 10 lessons I learned after my young son killed himself
* Suicide toll reaches highest rates since records kept
As the anniversary of his death approached, she wanted to celebrate him. She spoke to a reporter, but then, a coroner suppressed the details around her son's death.
The family can not be identified because as part of the suppression ruling, her son's name may not be associated with the mention of suicide.
But not being able to talk about what happened has forced her to bottle up her grief. She wanted to celebrate him. She wanted to stop it happening to someone else's son or daughter. She wanted public accountability for his death.
"For me, to have lost him and for it to just stop at losing him. I couldn't reconcile that in my head. There had to be something more. The circumstances around his death were utterly tragic," the mother says.
"I loved my child. I really loved him. I had a huge amount of pride and I wanted to celebrate him, and to have someone say 'no, you can't'. I couldn't understand it. I want to be able to talk about my boy."
The mother says the chief coroner's decision to "muzzle the media" to prevent suicide was not working. Instead, it isolates people. It makes it a dirty word.
Last year, 569 deaths were ruled as a suicide or suspected suicide in New Zealand. It has now risen to its highest figure since the coroner's office started to release the statistics.
The year before, that number was 529.
Timaru-based Dr Ollie Bourke says silencing the noise around suicide causes more harm than good.
"With suicide, the shutters come down straight away. The general excuse is it might encourage copycat suicides, there's always a risk of that but with copycats there will always be an underlying issue to address, like bullying," he said.
"In this day and age, we're not winning the war against suicide."
Bourke says the medical profession "has never been good or open" about the situations that contribute to suicide.
About 25 per cent of New Zealanders will experience depression at some stage in their lives, but Bourke says the medical fraternity "doesn't treat it properly".
"It's really hushed up everywhere. It's wrong. We should be far more open about it. The medical profession, they cover it up, sweep it under the carpet and hope it will go away," he says.
"I ask that question, have we the courage? Have we the courage to talk more openly about suicide?"
Some do. Like the mum who lost her son. She's told her story. But she can't tell you all of it.
A MOTHER'S STORY:
I thought I was never going to be a mum, I wasn't expected to live through my teenage years.
He was born on February 24, 1995. He was eight pound three. When they passed him to me, he was having a bit of a squawk. They lay him on my chest. He had one eye open, and one eye closed. It was instant love. He was my miracle. He was my baby.
He was a very clever kid right from the start. I have a daughter too, they had a very good relationship. He was her person, as well as her big brother.
The earthquakes changed everything for him. [REDACTED]
He never really settled back into school after that.
He got a part-time job[REDACTED] I think he looked at joining the army but because he was in a job and earning money he didn't want that to stop.
I think he was trying to grow up too quickly.
He was 18 years and nine months when he died. [REDACTED]
He ended up moving back [REDACTED]and he didn't have a job so he bowled up into a bar and ended up managing the place. But by July, he had no job again. [REDACTED]
He didn't want me to know. I think he was quite embarrassed by it.
Talking to him later, there was a degree of self-consciousness and embarrassment.[REDACTED]
I knew he had been unwell, but he said he had stomach issues.
Two days after[REDACTED]we had a family movie night. He didn't look well, he looked really sick. He was gaunt in complexion and although he didn't look well, he seemed okay-ish, he said it was something wrong with his stomach. It was a pleasant evening, we went to a wee bar near the cinemas and then watched a movie.[REDACTED]
The next day I got a call about 10ish. [REDACTED]
I was quite distressed. I was literally sitting in the main entry way, crying my eyes out. About 15 or 20 minutes later,[REDACTED]I was told [REDACTED]he was okay. [REDACTED]
When I saw him, he was outside smoking and he was bashful and a |
I’ve pioneered and the techniques I’ve employed seem to be gaining widespread acceptance.”
While VR has yet to gather significant momentum, De la Peña has seen a marked increase in interest in her work. “For many years, it was a bit lonely out there for me as one of the only journalists building immersive news stories in this way,” she says. “Now that there’s interest, it’s exciting to see others joining my field.”
De la Peña has recently received funding to produce a number of new pieces, both documentary-style and immersive fiction narratives. “After so many years of pushing these ideas up a hill, it is astonishing how quickly it is all now moving.”Back in 2006, after the second US invasion of Iraq culminated if not with the discovery of the WMDs (which were the pretext for the invasion in the first place), but the unearthing (literally) and kangaroo court trial of Saddam Hussein, the US was quick to announce "mission accomplished." Recent events have made a mockery of that claim, however what is truly the straw that broke the back of poetic justice, to mix metaphors, are reports from local media that as part of its blitz-campaign to take over northern Iraq, ISIS found and the promptly executed Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman, the judge who sentenced Saddam to death: a death which to many was the crowning moment of the second US invasion of Iraq, and the confirmation of successful US foreign policy.
It goes without saying that if true, the murder of the man who indirectly did the US bidding in slamming the book shut on the Saddam regime (and with it US claims of Iraqi "liberation") and was responsible for Saddam's death, means the last "Mission Accomplished" posted can now be safely taken down.
As LiveLeak first reported, Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman was the replacement chief judge of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal's Al-Dujail trial of Saddam Hussein in 2006. His background, from Wikipedia:
Abd al-Rahman was an ethnic Kurd from Halabja, the site of the 1988 Halabja poison gas attack. He replaced Rizgar Mohammed Amin as chief judge on 23 January 2006. Amin had resigned after being criticised in the Iraqi media for appearing "too soft" on the defendants by allowing them to speak aloud in court without being recognized. After Amin's resignation, Abd al-Rahman headed the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal during the rest of the trial of Saddam Hussein for genocide, and when it sentenced him to death. He also sentenced to death some of his top aides. In December 2006, Abd al-Rahman took his family to Britain on a travel visa, and three months later applied for asylum. He later cancelled his application. In 16 June 2014, Abd al-Rahman was arrested by ISIS rebels during 2014 Northern Iraq offensive. Two days later, it was reported that ISIS captured and executed him.
More details from Almesryoon.com, google translated.
There were reports the execution of Iraqi judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, who spent the same judgment on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to confirmed the pages on the social networking site, without official confirmation from the Iraqi government.
The pages on social networking sites, including Page MP Jordanian Khalil Attieh on the site "Facebook" to "revolutionaries Iraqis arrested him and sentenced him to death in retaliation for the death of the martyr Saddam Hussein," he said, adding that Rauf tried to escape from Baghdad after wearing uniforms dancers.
She page Izzat al-Douri, vice-president Saddam Hussein, the "Facebook" to the rebels Iraqis were able to arrest the Kurdish judge Rauf Rashid, who issued a death sentence against the former Iraqi leader, which is currently in the "grip of the soldiers of the Islamic State and the men of the Baath Party."
She page address, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, "Judge Rauf Rashid in the grip of Mujahideen equipped Aahalki neck", in reference to al-Maliki, also falling in the hands of insurgents.
Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman presided over the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the successor to the judge Rizgar Amin, following the latter's resignation in protest against foreign interference in the work of the court. Following the verdict on Saddam hanging out in the October 5, 2006, and was appointed justice minister in the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Although he was seen as an advocate of human rights, but he faced charges because of the way his administration for sessions trial of Saddam and the symbols of his regime, because Thamlh defendants, for being a city of Halabja, which came to the bombing of a chemical at the end of the eighties.
Over the past week, fell several cities in northern Iraq, in the forefront of Mosul, and Tikrit, Salahuddin province, in the hands of groups of armed Sunni, led by the organization "Daash", after the withdrawal of army troops, in moves considered leaders tribal Sunni "popular revolution Sunni against injustice and sectarian government (Prime Minister outgoing Nuri) al-Maliki, the Shiite, "while the frequency of the authorities as" attacks from terrorist groups."LOS ANGELES - MAY 18: Demonstrators hold sign reading, 'homosexual marriage is an act of terrorism' as they chant slogans against same-sex marriages at an anti-gay rally on May 18, 2004 in Los Angeles, California. Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriages yesterday prompting fears among the mostly-religious gathering that California might do the same. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
In the wake of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's announcement that he will sign a bill banning so-called "conversion therapy" for gay teens, the Pew Research Center pointed to recent research that more than one in three Americans believe sexual orientation can be changed.
On Tuesday Pew republished the data -- gathered in 2012 -- in a sobering reminder of just how far this country has to go in terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender acceptance. The survey concluded that slightly more than half of all Americans believe an LGBT individual cannot change sexual orientation -- while 36 percent believe it's possible.
These numbers reflect a small shift toward increased tolerance from a decade ago, according to Pew, which in 2003 found that 42 percent of Americans felt being gay was changeable, while 42 percent believed it was not.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, LGBT advocacy group GLAAD's Director of Religion, Faith & Values Ross Murray explained that New Jersey's gay conversion ban "focuses on the harm that comes from trying to force someone's sexual orientation."
The widely disputed idea that sexual orientation is "curable" or changeable is bad enough, but even worse is that many people who end up in gay conversion therapies are minors, Murray told HuffPost. "[They] did not choose the program for themselves," he said, "and may have been forced into it by a parent who was influenced by religious leaders."
Over the past decade the percentage of white evangelical Protestants and black Protestants who consider homosexuality sinful has remained relatively stable, according to Pew Research Center studies. Among white evangelical Protestants, 78 percent still consider homosexual activity a sin, as do 79 percent of black Protestants. The percentage of black Protestants opposed to homosexual behavior actually rose slightly during the last 10 years.
The New Jersey ban, along with a similar bill signed last year by California Governor Jerry Brown, are good signs, according to Murray. A practicing Catholic, Governor Christie told Piers Morgan in 2011 that he believed "people are born with the predisposition to be homosexual," and that he does not consider them sinners. But as the Pew data indicates, there are still plenty of Americans -- many of them religious -- who are not as accepting as Christie.
In June, the Pew Center noted that while the vast majority of LBGT adults felt American society is more accepting now than it was 10 years ago, 45 percent of Americans still considered "homosexual behavior" a sin.
"There are people out there," Murray agreed, "that continue to peddle the notion that you can change your sexual orientation... the false notion that you have to change your sexual orientation, that that's what God requires of you."
This relatively strong undercurrent of anti-gay sentiment among certain religious Americans may also help explain why the U.S. continues to lag behind much of the Western world in terms of LGBT acceptance. An international survey conducted by Pew researchers between March and May of this year found Americans generally less accepting of LGBT individuals -- and more religious -- than their peers in Spain, Germany, Britain and Canada.
Still, Murray said he remains optimistic that a shift in cultural norms -- even among conservative religious leaders -- is coming.The results are now in from the first sample of Mars regolith to be baked in Phoenix’s oven. It’s not good news… there’s no water. After a difficult time of actually delivering the sample to the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) – a.k.a. the “oven” – scientists were hopeful for a clear science run. They were finally able to sift the clumpy regolith through the TEGA screen last week. However, the sample was waiting on the deck of Phoenix for some time until tests could be carried out on the sample; it seems probable that any water ice will have sublimed into the thin atmosphere. This first null result by no means suggests the area is devoid of water, Phoenix has many more water-finding tricks up its sleeves yet…
On June 11th, Phoenix mission control breathed a sigh of relief as they found a solution to the problem of getting the clumpy Mars regolith through the oven screen. Over the weekend they were able to carry out the first tests on the sample and it appears that everything functioned as it should when the sample was heated to 35°C (95°F). At this temperature any water in the sample will have melted. In the second phase of the test, the sample was heated up to 175°C (350°F). No water vapour was detected.
“We saw no water coming off the soil whatsoever” – William Boynton, TEGA team leader, University of Arizona.
Scientists are in no way surprised or discouraged about this early result. The regolith sample sat atop the lander’s TEGA hatch for several days whilst scientists tried to find an answer as to why no particles had fallen into the oven. It is believed that any water ice in the sample will have quickly vaporized in the Martian sunlight and thin atmosphere. As the atmospheric pressure is so low on Mars, exposed water ice cannot melt into liquid water, it will sublime straight to water vapour (by-passing the liquid phase).
Over the coming days, scientists will instruct Phoenix to fire up the TEGA again to heat the sample to 1000°C (1800°F). This will vaporize minerals that might be chemically bound to H 2 O, CO 2 or SO 2 and then use instrumentation to measure the vented gases. Scientists are very confident that, although water has not been directly detected today, they will detect evidence of its existence in the next round of tests.
Whilst the drama unfolds in the lander’s oven, Phoenix continues its excavation work on the surface with its robotic arm. It has just expanded a trench (a 3D visualization can be seen at the top of this post) by linking the two trenches “Dodo” and “BabyBear” into a new united “Dodo-Goldilocks” trench. This is the location where scientists noticed white sediment last Friday, so they will be keen to learn whether this is water or salt.
Source: Space.comHungary is facing a frontal assault from US financier George Soros, the vice-chairman of the ruling Fidesz party has said, after the billionaire released a statement accusing the Hungarian government of “lying” about his agenda.
Fidesz vice-chairman Gergely Gulyas pushed back against Soros’ claims that his government was spreading disinformation, and denied that it was stoking anti-Muslim sentiments and embracing anti-Semitic stereotypes. Instead, Gulyas accused Soros of attacking his country through his NGOs and EU bureaucrats, and using them to push a pro-migrant agenda.
“What Soros writes about immigration, in general, is a pro-immigration stance that is open about its disdain for the nation state,” Reuters quoted Gulyas as telling news conference on Monday. “Decisions made in Brussels echo that in the field of immigration policy.”
Read more
“Days before a recent immigration decision in the European Parliament, Soros was meeting with the rapporteur on the subject as well as five different EU commissioners. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but this holds some clues.”
On Monday, George Soros released a statement in response to seven allegations the Hungarian government made against him in their National Consultation survey on the “Soros plan.” The statement attempted to offer a rebuttal to those claims, for example that Soros wants to resettle 1 million refugees throughout Europe each year. The statement countered that in 2016, Soros acknowledged that circumstances had changed and that instead, the EU should make a “commitment to admit even a mere 300,000 refugees annually.”
The statement also dismissed claims that Soros wants to undermine European culture, launch attacks on countries which oppose immigration and called for migrants to receive reduced sentences for their crimes, as lies.
The conservative Hungarian government, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has made no secret of its disdain for George Soros and his political activities, accusing him of undermining European borders and values by helping facilitate the flow of refugees and asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa. In May, Soros accused Hungary of being a “mafia state,” words that Orban considered a “declaration of war.”To be honest, we haven’t heard all that much complaining from DROID X users running Android 2.2, but apparently Motorola has. In a forum post, Motorola listed several issues being experienced and reported by DROID X users who have upgraded their devices to Android 2.2. The list includes: stuck on Motorola logo after boot, random rebooting, Wi-Fi connection stability, Battery Manager “Force Close” error, media not playing, and music files cutting out early. Hit the jump for the full explanation and let us know if you’re seeing any of these issues.
If you have already upgraded to 2.2 for Droid X, you have found some new capabilities. Unfortunately, some owners also found new issues. Here are some of the known issues raised by forums members, with some information about each. It is not intended to be a complete list at this time — there are many more fixes and improvements in the works. I’ll update this list as information becomes available.
Stuck on Moto logo after reboot – this was tough on a few owners. Very sorry about that. A fix has been developed for this and should eliminate the problem. It will be distributed in a future software release. If you are still experiencing this issue, click here.
– this was tough on a few owners. Very sorry about that. A fix has been developed for this and should eliminate the problem. It will be distributed in a future software release. If you are still experiencing this issue, click here. Random rebooting – while there always seem to be new conditions that can cause an electronic device to panic, we do have improvements coming that address and eliminate identified panic states. They will be distributed in a future software release.
– while there always seem to be new conditions that can cause an electronic device to panic, we do have improvements coming that address and eliminate identified panic states. They will be distributed in a future software release. WiFi connection and stability – improvements in WiFi have been developed, to address several problem areas. They will be distributed in a future software release.
Battery Manager “force close” errors – under some circumstances, pressing the battery icon under Menu > Settings > Battery Manager results in a forced close error. A fix has been developed for this and should eliminate the problem. It will be distributed in a future software release.
Media won’t play – includes “sorry the player does not support this type of audio file,” custom ringtone stop working, video won’t play, etc., until after a reboot. We believe we have identified the cause of these errors. A fix has been developed for this and should eliminate the problem. It will be distributed in a future software release.
Music files cutting off the final four seconds or so – a solution has been developed. It will be distributed in a future software release.
At this time I don’t have information about when the next software update will be available — when I have it, I’ll share it here.The units in this sale are being sold as open box condition. That means that they have been opened due to being a photo sample, a tested good customer return or having damaged packaging. Some non-essential items may be missing from the box. The unit may not be shipped in retail packaging. That is the reason for the reduced sale price and the reduced warranty.
Meet the new Toshiba Chromebook—the first device of its kind to feature a 13.3-inch diagonal HD display. Powered by Chrome OS, this Chromebook has everything you need, already built in. It boots in seconds. Has no annoying updates. Browses faster. Sleek, lightweight and always up to date, the Toshiba Chromebook is an ideal choice for everyone. It is easy to use, easy to manage and convenient for everyday use.
More to see and do
It's the only Chromebook to deliver the best of the web on a gorgeous 13.3-inch diagonal HD TruBrite screen. Offering more room for web browsing, document creation, video chatting and apps than a tablet and is better suited for productivity—just like a laptop. A full-size Chrome keyboard and spacious touchpad makes getting work done a cinch online with an increasing number of productivity-driven apps like Gmail, Calendar, Docs and more that enable users to continue working even when not connected.
Designed for life on the go
With up to 9 hours of battery life, the Toshiba Chromebook is highly portable with a sleek and lightweight design. It weighs just 3.3 pounds and features a slim, less-than-an-inch profile and textured finish. Powered by the Intel Celeron processor, plus 2GB of RAM and a 16GB solid state drive, it starts up in seconds and enables you to breeze through the web at lightning speed.
Upgrades and security - built in
Chromebooks are designed from the ground up with security in mind, to help keep you safe from viruses and malware without having to buy and install security software separately. They also update themselves automatically, for free. And you won't have to purchase or install upgrades manually. Now that's easy.
Made to share
Ideal for growing families, Chromebook features multi-user support so you can create a custom experience for each user. Just turn on your Chromebook, tap your photo and sign in to your own homescreen, apps, email, photos and storage.
Work online and offline, synchronized across your devices
Start drafting a Google Doc on your Chromebook and finish it on your tablet or smart phone. All your emails, files, photos, apps and bookmarks from your Chromebook are easy to access from your phone, tablet or PC. So your productivity doesn't have to miss a beat.
All the essentials
This Chromebook is also equipped with laptop essentials for greater usability, including two USB 3.0 ports, a full-size HDMI port, security lock slot and a memory card reader, plus Bluetooth 4.0 and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi.
Key Features:
Intel Celeron 2955U Dual-Core processor; provides powerful processing capabilities for problem-free computing
2GB of DDR3L memory; improves system speed for seamless multitasking
16GB solid state drive for an amazingly smooth and fast computing experience
USB 3.0 has transmission speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s, which is 10 times faster than USB 2.0
13.3" HD TruBrite LED-backlit display; delivers outstanding visual quality
Intel HD Graphics; enhances graphics performance great for movies and games
2x2 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless Networking; provides an easy, high-speed connection to available networks for smooth Internet access on the go
Shipping Note: Shipping to Alaska and Hawaii is not available for this item.
A physical address is required for delivery. No Military or PO Box shipments available
Warranty: 30 Day WootGeneral view of a Volkswagen logo in Wolfsburg, Germany September 22, 2015. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The California Air Resources Board will broaden its testing of Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) cars with diesel engines to include those with 3.0-liter V6 engines sold by two subsidiaries, a spokesman for the state regulator said on Tuesday.
The latest models to be examined are the Porsche Cayenne and the Audi A6, Stanley Young, communications director for the Air Resources Board, told Reuters.
Porsche declined to comment. Audi did not respond to a request for comment.
Volkswagen said on Tuesday that engine software connected with a scandal over falsified U.S. vehicle emission tests could affect 11 million of its cars worldwide as investigations of its diesel models multiplied.
The California Air Resources Board’s testing uncovered software in several Volkswagen models that allowed the company to cheat state and federal emissions requirements by switching performance levels between testing and real-world conditions.
“That investigation looked at two-liter four-cylinder engines,” said Young. “Now we’re going to start looking at six-cylinder, three-liter diesel engines.”
Young said VW engineers acknowledged the use of a so-called defeat device - in fact, a software algorithm - to circumvent state and federal emissions standards during a Sept. 3 meeting in the board’s El Monte, California testing headquarters, attended by senior engineering executives of the regulator and the car company.
It was the 10th meeting between the two sides, called by CARB to resolve the discrepancy between pollution levels measured on the road and those obtained under controlled testing conditions.
“They literally ran out of excuses,” Young said, describing the meeting in which the car manufacturer “admitted there was a defeat device.”Archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh - the subject of the oldest "book" in history.
Gilgamesh was believed to be two-thirds god, one-third human
The Epic Of Gilgamesh - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name.
Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King.
"I don't want to say definitely it was the grave of King Gilgamesh, but it looks very similar to that described in the epic," Jorg Fassbinder, of the Bavarian department of Historical Monuments in Munich, told the BBC World Service's Science in Action programme.
Magnetic
In the book - actually a set of inscribed clay tablets - Gilgamesh was described as having been buried under the Euphrates, in a tomb apparently constructed when the waters of the ancient river parted following his death.
"We found just outside the city an area in the middle of the former Euphrates river¿ the remains of such a building which could be interpreted as a burial," Mr Fassbinder said.
Who can compare with him in kingliness? Who can say, like Gilgamesh, I am king?
The Epic Of Gilgamesh
He said the amazing discovery of the ancient city under the Iraqi desert had been made possible by modern technology.
"By differences in magnetisation in the soil, you can look into the ground," Mr Fassbinder added.
"The difference between mudbricks and sediments in the Euphrates river gives a very detailed structure."
This creates a magnetogram, which is then digitally mapped, effectively giving a town plan of Uruk.
'Venice in the desert'
"The most surprising thing was that we found structures already described by Gilgamesh," Mr Fassbinder stated.
Iraq has long been the site of some of the most important historical finds
"We covered more than 100 hectares. We have found garden structures and field structures as described in the epic, and we found Babylonian houses."
But he said the most astonishing find was an incredibly sophisticated system of canals.
"Very clearly, we can see in the canals some structures showing that flooding destroyed some houses, which means it was a highly developed system.
"[It was] like Venice in the desert."To read more from EW’s Untold Stories issue, pick up the new Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday, or buy it here. Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.
James Gunn is now one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers thanks to his overseeing of the two Guardians of the Galaxy films. But Gunn’s first movie, the horror-comedy Slither, nearly killed his directing career before it had really begun. Released in March 2006, this tale of a small town cop (Nathan Fillion) facing off against a local car dealer (Michael Rooker) who has been infected by an alien parasite placed a lowly eighth at the box office over its opening weekend. There was a silver lining for Gunn, however, and it was provided by the monthly horror magazine Fangoria. The publication not only put Rooker’s grotesquely made-up visage on the cover but later awarded Slither its “Highest Body Count” trophy at Fangoria‘s annual Chainsaw Awards, a televised event at Los Angeles’s Orpheum Theater which Gunn himself attended. “I don’t really collect articles or covers,” says the director. “But I do have my Fangoria cover up in my office. Fangoria was a huge magazine to me growing up.”
There is every chance you have never picked up a copy of Fangoria. You may have never heard of the title before now. But it is hard to overestimate the New York-based magazine’s importance to the horror genre. The title boasts on its cover that Fangoria has been “First in Fright since 1979.” The truth is that for much of its life-span — and in particular during the pre-Internet age — the magazine was pretty much the only source of in-depth information about a type of film most media outlets considered too disreputable to cover. The magazine turned directors like David Cronenberg and Sam Raimi into genre stars while helping inspire Fangoria-reading Hollywood hopefuls such as Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright, and future Hostel filmmaker, Eli Roth. “For anyone that was a VHS kid in the ’80s, bingeing on horror films, the only source of information we had was Fangoria,” says Roth.
Alas, it is possible that the next generation of horror hounds will be learning about new films or classic releases elsewhere. Although Fangoria has not officially closed, and articles continue to appear on its website, no new edition of the title has been published since camp horror icon Elvira graced the cover of issue #344 in the fall of 2015. Tony Timpone, who was the magazine’s editor-in-chief from 1986 to 2010, says the apparent demise of the title has hit longtime readers hard. “It’s a great crowd, the Fangoria fans,” he explains. “They were very dedicated to the magazine and they’re heartbroken to not have it to hold in their hands anymore.” Those fans include director David F. Sandberg, who had a huge hit with his debut film, 2016’s Lights Out, and then found more success with this year’s Conjuring universe prequel, Annabelle: Creation. “I’m so sad they’re not around any more,” says the Swede. “My dream was to have a movie featured in Fangoria, you know — and now that magazine doesn’t exist any more.”
Fangoria Entertainment
Fangoria was the brainchild of independent publishers Kerry O’Quinn and Norman Jacobs, who put out the science-fiction and fantasy magazine Starlog through their company, Starlog Group, Inc. The pair planned to premiere a new title which would cover much the same ground, but with an emphasis on monsters. Fangoria No. 1 hit newsstands in 1979 with Godzilla on the cover. Yet it was an article showcasing special effects wizard Tom Savini (George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead) which proved particularly popular with readers and acted as a gore-splattered signpost for the title’s future direction. “Seventy-nine was the year that horror became mainstream again with Alien,” says Michael Gingold, who, as a 12-year-old, bought the first issue of Fangoria and would go on to become the magazine’s managing editor as well as one of its most prolific writers. “They found that the horror articles were the most popular in the magazine, so they gravitated more and more towards that.”
Before long, early cover stars like Leonard Nimoy’s Spock (issue No. 4) and the Star Wars robots C-3PO and R2D2 (issue No. 6) were being superseded by Jack Nicholson in The Shining (issue No. 7), a maggot-covered ghoul from director Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (issue No. 8) and a chainsaw-wielding, pig mask-wearing maniac from Motel Hell who graced the magazine’s 9th issue. “I used to save up any money I made from selling baseball cards to buy back issues,” says Roth. “The holy grail was Fango No. 9, which had the Motel Hell ‘chainsaw-pig’ on the cover. I don’t know why — but that was the most expensive one.”
Fangoria Entertainment
The magazine debuted the year after the release of director John Carpenter’s original Halloween and the year before the first Friday the 13th movie. Fangoria rapidly established itself as the place to learn about the burgeoning slasher genre and its homicidal villains Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger, the latter of whom began terrorizing onscreen teens in Wes Craven’s 1984 horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street. “The slasher stalwarts were our bread and butter in the 1980s,” says Timpone. “When I joined the company in ’85, that was right when Freddy Krueger was dawning in popularity, and Fangoria‘s circulation just went through the roof. The magazine had a real heyday.”
It also had clout. Fangoria was an early booster of Sam Raimi’s franchise-inaugurating Evil Dead with editor Bob Martin writing a piece about the micro-budgeted and yet-to-be-released first film in the Nov. 1982 issue. The film’s star, Bruce Campbell, believes the article played a “huge” role in turning the film into a hit. “Fangoria mattered,” says Campbell. “It was like, s—, we got an article in Fangoria! They were very important.”
In 1985, the magazine partnered with convention organizers Creation Entertainment and launched a long-running series of events, called Fangoria‘s Weekend of Horrors. “The conventions were just amazing,” says Timpone. “I got to meet all my horror heroes. Vincent Price, Christopher Lee. Jack Nicholson was at a convention in Los Angeles and I got to introduce him. That was a real thrill.” The conventions helped publicize upcoming releases by hosting panels attended by the movie’s talent during which clips from the film would be premiered to attendees. Hmm, that sounds familiar. “I don’t know when exactly Comic-Con became more oriented towards film than comics but, yeah, we were [ahead of the game],” says Gingold. “Of course, we were the proto-horror convention. Now, there’s a convention practically every weekend somewhere in the U.S.”
Fangoria Entertainment
The Chainsaw Awards began in 1992. Early ceremonies were notable for the lack of attending winners. “The first year, Silence of the Lambs won everything and we didn’t get anybody from that, obviously,” laughs Gingold. “Second year, Bram Stoker’s Dracula won everything — didn’t get too many of them either. Third year, Army of Darkness (the Evil Dead threequel) won, so Sam, and Bruce, and everybody showed up for that, which was great.”
For a few years, Fangoria actually produced movies, starting with 1990’s low budget Mindwarp, starring reader favorites Campbell and Angus Scrimm, from the Phantasm horror franchise. “It was a post-apocalyptic Jeremiah Johnson movie,” says Campbell. “I thought, Okay, this is cool, Fangoria is getting into the movie business.” Mindwarp did not achieve Evil Dead-level success and Fangoria Films was shut down just a few years later, which meant Fangoria missed out on the opportunity to produce an early screenplay by Quentin Tarantino. “I did some script-reading for what would have been the second round [of Fangoria productions],” says Gingold. “One of those scripts was From Dusk Til Dawn. It was interesting to see that take off later.”
While Fangoria itself may not have had success making movies, the title proved inspirational, and of practical use, to a host of future directors. “They had this feature, ‘Notes from the Underground,’ where these indie filmmakers would write about their experiences making low budget horror,” says Annabelle: Creation director Sandberg. “That was super-interesting to me, who wanted to make my own horror movies.”
Fangoria also helped filmmakers by continuing to highlight the work of special effects artists, like Savini and Rob Bottin (The Thing). “Essentially, it was a manual, if you wanted to be a special effects magician,” says Roth. “I would read the recipes for fake blood. I learned about latex. I learned all about makeup. I’ll never forget reading about a movie called The Mutilator, where they had this photo of this body ripped in half. When I made Cabin Fever, I ripped my character in half to try and replicate that photograph.” Roth’s devotion was rewarded when Timpone put Cabin Fever on the cover of Fangoria No. 224 in the summer of 2003. “All my 12-year-old-self ever wanted, was to be on the cover of Fangoria,” he says. “To me, that was better than winning an Oscar.”
Fangoria Entertainment
The Cabin Fever cover was a typically gruesome affair, which showed the face of actress Jordan Ladd eaten away by the film’s flesh-consuming virus. But Timpone recalls that it was sex and bad language rather than gore which caused problems for the title. “I ran a photo from a movie called Breeders,” he says. “These women were covered in this alien slime but one of their nipples was visible and I got in trouble for running nudity in the magazine. Another time, it was a quote from a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, where Freddy says to Zsa Zsa Gabor, ‘Who gives a f— what you think?’ Our writer put that in the article, so we got thrown off some newsstands for dropping the f-bomb.”
Another problem for the title was studios’ reluctance to give the magazine images of their monsters and slasher villains. “Sometimes studios did not want to show the monster on the cover — or anywhere,” says Gingold. “They wouldn’t get us the photos. Dimension Films used to be awful about that. We covered Halloween 6 and they would not send us any photos of Michael Myers, because they wanted to preserve the mystique of a character who had already been in five other films.”
Timpone stepped down as editor-in-chief in 2010, by which time the title’s fortunes were being negatively affected by the rise of rival horror websites. “There was a day when we were the only guys visiting the set of a horror movie,” says Timpone. “When the internet came along, we’d wind up getting lumped in with six or seven horror websites, all getting the same material.”
Being featured in Fangoria still meant the world to many readers-turned-filmmakers and could make a big difference to their careers. Mike Flanagan’s genre credits over the past few years include the haunted mirror movie Oculus, the horror sequel Ouija: Origin of Evil, and the recent Stephen King adaptation, Gerald’s Game. But the filmmaker says he might not have made any of those movies without Fangoria’s support for his 2011 film, Absentia. “I owe a lot of my career to Fangoria,” he says. “They really championed Absentia and I’m not sure that I would have gotten the traction necessary to make Oculus if they hadn’t.”
Fangoria Entertainment
Timpone’s replacement, Chris Alexander remained editor-in-chief for five years — a tenure which included an issue guest-edited by Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller — before he was succeeded by Gingold. The Fangoria veteran survived just seven months before being let go by the title’s current owner, Tom DeFeo, in May of last year. “I only edited two [issues] and they were only digital,” he says. “By that point the company was in pretty bad financial shape.” Gingold is a much-liked figure in the horror scene and his firing prompted director Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy) to tweet “Fangoria will never be the same w/o him.”
Gingold was replaced by writer Ken Hanley but his tenure proved equally short-lived. On Feb. 11 of this year, Hanley wrote on Twitter that he was no longer involved with the magazine and that “there will likely never be another issue of Fangoria, especially in print, unless there’s new ownership.” Hanley’s message prompted sadness in the horror community but not much surprise, given the magazine’s continued absence from shelves and allegations that the title was becoming delinquent in its payments to contributors. Two days later, however, an item appeared on the Fangoria website which explained that a lack of advertising revenue had caused the stall in publishing but insisted “we’ll continue trying to conquer the uphill battle to restore our print issues that our fans urgently long for.” The piece further promised, “we will be working endlessly to make good on any funds owed…for articles written.” The article also contained an official statement from Fangoria owner DeFeo in which he thanked readers for their patience as the magazine dealt with its “internal issues.” (DeFeo declined to be interviewed for this article.)
So, is the print version of Fangoria dead? Maybe. Then again, in horror, things do have a habit of returning from the grave. “I go to Barnes and Noble and the newsstand is overflowing with film magazines, and genre magazines,” says Timpone. “It could be reborn. It really needs a new management, a new editorial team, a budget. I really think that there’s still life in the old corpse!”Even before, in 1964, the Leader of the Opposition, Arthur Calwell, had proposed such a change and pledged that his party, the |
a fabulous mansion together in sin with no women to be found. By casting 25 year old Chris O’ Donnell as Robin, and having him shack up with a Batman who was only ten years his senior (and looked even younger) in the form of Val Kilmer, the entire Batman and Robin relationship took a far less father/son vibe and just became all the more gayer, 50’s paranoia inadvertently brought to big screen reality. And nipples on the Bat suit? Probably didn’t help.
Also, Nicole Kidman’s character of Chase Meridian looks and acts far more like Batman’s 1950’s love interest Vicki Vale, who in the comics was a sexy red head who was obsessed with uncovering Batman’s secret identity, much like Kidman’s character was in the movie. Kim Basinger’s Vicki was really just Vicki in name only, and was far more like the generic women Bruce Wayne dated in the early comics.
Nitpicking: So Here Is Where My Theory Has Some Cracks
Even though Jim Carrey’s Riddler is behaving more like one of the mad scientist characters in any given 1950’s comic book, what with his mind controlling device (or whatever the fuck that was) the actual character of the Riddler never appeared once in any 1950’s Batman comic. Similarly, Two-Face only appeared in one Batman comic of the early 50’s before being banished along with the rest of the Batman rogues for being “too scary” for children. Other than this though, Batman Forever is just about as bad and overly “kiddy” as any issue of Batman or Detective from the 1950’s. It really is that hard to sit through.
Batman & Robin (1997) = Batman of the 60’s, (And The Television Series)
Somehow, despite no one I know actually liking the movie, Batman Forever made more money than Batman Returns, although only slightly. This must have made Warners confident in the decision to go even more lighter and sillier in tone than the previous movie for Batman & Robin. Whether it was intentional or not, the tone of the movie was direct reflection on that of the comics of the 1960’s, and more specifically, the campy tone of the Batman television show. Both Arnold and Uma Thurman’s turns as Mr.Freeze and Poison Ivy were so arch and over the top as to make it seem like they were on the set of the old tv show. Even the addition of Batgirl (even if she wasn’t the Barbara Gordon character from the comics or television series) felt like they were trying to evoke the old show.
Nitpicking: So Here Is Where My Theory Has Some Cracks
There is one key difference that keeps the original Batman show and Batman & Robin from being the exact same hot mess; the original show was deliberately campy and tongue in cheek, an outright parody, and a brilliant one at that. But Batman and Robin wanted to lift the aesthetics and tone of the old classic show and remain an actual action/adventure movie with real peril and stakes that the audience could invest in. They failed miserably, as you simply can’t have it both ways, and audiences reacted. Batman & Robin flopped, burying the series for eight long years. And when Warner Brothers decided to resurrect the franchise, they took a cue from DC comics in the wake of the cancellation of the old tv show: Back to Basics.
Batman Begins (2005) = Batman comics of the 1970’s
After the television series was cancelled, sales on the Batman comics dropped like a stone. The campy approach worked for awhile on the books while the show was on the air, and sales soared for a bit, but by 1970 the tone of the show had done what seemed like irreparable damage to the character of Batman. So writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams decided to take drastic measures, and do a total 180 on the comic book character and return him to his darker, 1939 roots. Robin was sent off to college and became an infrequent guest star, and Batman became more of a globe trotting James Bond like character. And those early 70’s comics added one major new villain to the Batman rogues gallery in the form of immortal mastermind Ra’s al Ghul.
Much like the comic series, the Batman movie series was left in dire straits after Batman & Robin tanked. Warner Brothers decided to reboot the franchise and go back to basics, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins was as much a reaction to the colorful excess of Batman & Robin as the stories of O’Neill and Adams were a reaction to the television series. Chris Nolan even used 70’s creation Ra’s al Ghul as his main villain, and Begins had a lot of the globe trotting aspect that was key to Batman’s 1970’s adventures. And once again, Robin was given the boot.
Nitpicking: So Here Is Where My Theory Has Some Cracks
While Batman Begins uses a lot of the tropes and characters from the 1970’s run of Batman comics, Christopher Nolan was just as heavily inspired by Frank Miller’s 1980’s classic Batman: Year One, if not more so. Also, the opening sequence, with a young Bruce Wayne falling into the cave and being scared by the bats was lifted from a sequence from 1986’s The Dark Knight Returns. In fact, the Nolan Trilogy really lifts from almost every era of Batman since 1970 or so, just some movies have more overt influences than others.
The Dark Knight (2008) = 1980’s Batman
Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke is seen as the definitive Joker tale; It’s a story that’s really all about how the Joker sees the world, and he presents his origin for the first time in these pages. Although, as he says in the story, he’s not sure if his memories are correct, and if he’s going to have a past of any sort, he would prefer it to be “multiple choice”. This is much like Heath Ledger’s Joker gives various different versions of his own origin in the movie. The Killing Joke version of Joker also spends the story trying to drive a good man insane, in this case James Gordon, by crippling and raping his daughter and making him witness it, trying to prove that all a good man needs to lose his mind is “one bad day”. He doesn’t break Gordon in The Dark Knight, but he does do it to Harvey Dent, and unlike The Killing Joke with Gordon, in the movie version he succeeds.
Nitpicking: So Here Is Where My Theory Has Cracks
With Dark Knight, things start to get trickier comparing it to any one decade of Batman comics, and I can readily admit this. TDK is very similar to some 80’s classics like Killing Joke, but also owes just as much a debt to stories from the 70’s, and even the 90’s and 2000’s. I couldn’t help but think, as Batman was gliding over Hong Kong, of those old globetrotting Denny O’Neill/Neal Adams stories of the 70’s. Also in the 70’s, Bruce Wayne was living away from Wayne Manor for the very first time, in a swanky playboy’s penthouse, which is also reflected in the movie as well.
Another huge influence on TDK is 90’s classic The Long Halloween. The “A Plot” in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s 1997 graphic novel is about the serial killer Holiday, who kills someone once a month on that month’s most prominant Holiday. But the “B Plot” is about how the the freaks begin to take over from the Mafia in Gotham, a theme thut runs heavy in the Dark Knight. The other major element in The Long Halloween is how the trinity of Lt. Gordon, Batman and Harvey Dent form to try to save Gotham, and the eventual transformation of Dent into Two Face. I’d say this one might have been a more prominent influence on The Dark Knight than maybe even The Killing Joke does.
Even aspects of comics as recent as 2005’s The OMAC Project were reflected in TDK; a very recent addition to the Batman mythos is Batman’s creation of OMAC, and orbiting satellite system created to watch and observe *cough*spy*cough* on every metahuman on the planet. Although not quite as Sci -fi as what was used in the movie, he creates a similar invasive monitoring system on the people of Gotham in the Dark Knight, much to the disgust of Wayne CEO Lucius Fox. In many ways, the succesful combination of so many elements from over thirty years of Batman comics helps makes The Dark Knight the ultimate Batman movie.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) = The 90’s Comics
Ok, so I haven’t seen TDKR yet, but lets just say I know enough, based on trailers and reviews, to know that the 90’s comic books were a huge influence on this particular Batman story. First off, the inclusion of Bane as the main antagonist speaks volumes, as Bane wasn’t created until 1993. In fact, Bane is one of the only Batman villains to reach iconic status that was created during this decade, mostly due to his breaking Batman’s back in 1993’s Knightfall saga, a storyline sure to be referred to in TDKR. Another 90’s story seemingly reflected (at least based on the trailers) is No Man’s Land, a story from the late 90’s where all the bridges to Gotham are destroyed, and the city becomes cut off from the rest of the United States and ultimately run by criminals.
Nitpicking: So Here Is Where My Theory Has Some Cracks
The main premise of The Dark Knight Rises has Bruce Wayne living in seclusion for the eight years after retiring Batman and taking the fall for Harvey Dent’s murder. This reflects were we find Bruce Wayne in the start of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, where he has been living in seclusion for ten years after retiring the Batman persona. Also, Anne Hathaway’s version of Selina Kyle seems very influenced by Miller’s take on the character in Batman: Year One. Even Holly, Selina’s sidekick from Year One, makes an appearance in the TDKR, played by Juno Temple. I should also note that Catwoman’s look in the movie seems very inspired by Julie Newmar in the 60’s television show, maybe the only place in Nolan’s entire trilogy that acknowledges the campy old show. It is a reference I doubt any fanboy will mind though.
So what’s next for the Batman movies? Start at 1939 all over again for a reboot? Go to the future for Batman Beyond maybe? It’ll be interesting to see where the future takes us for Batman in cinema, but one thing is for sure, he’ll be on the big screen again in some form or another. It is only a matter of time.Machines running the decade-old Windows XP make up a huge reservoir of infected PCs that can spread malware to other systems, a Czech antivirus company said today.
Windows XP computers are infected with rootkits out of proportion to the operating system's market share, according to data released Thursday by Avast Software, which surveyed more than 600,000 Windows PCs.
While XP now accounts for about 58% of all Windows systems in use, 74% of the rootkit infections found by Avast were on XP machines.
XP's share of the infection pie was much larger than Windows 7's, which accounted for only 12% of the malware-plagued machines -- even though the 2009 OS now powers 31% of all Windows PCs.
Rootkits have become an important part of the most sophisticated malware packages, particularly botnets, because they mask the infection from the user, the operating system and most security software. By installing a rootkit, the hacker insures the compromise goes undetected as long as possible, and that the PC remains available to the botnet's controller for nefarious chores, such as sending spam or spreading malware to other machines.
Avast attributed the infection disparity between XP and Windows 7 to a pair of factors: The widespread use of pirated copies of the former and the latter's better security.
"According to our stats, as many as a third of XP users are running SP2 [Service Pack 2] or earlier," said Ondrej Vlcek, the chief technology officer of AVAST, in an interview Thursday. "Millions of people are out of support and their machines are unpatched."
Vlcek assumed that many of the people running XP SP2, which Microsoft stopped supporting with security patches a year ago, have declined to update to the still-supported SP3 because they are running counterfeits.
Although Microsoft serves everyone, even pirates, its monthly security patches and service packs, most security experts believe that users of illegal copies are very hesitant to upgrade or even patch for fear that they'll trigger the black screen and anti-piracy nag notices that Microsoft slaps on screens when it deems a PC is running a counterfeit copy of Windows.Boa Sr (circa 1925 – 26 January 2010) was an Indian Great Andamanese elder. She was the last person fluent in the Aka-Bo language.[1][2]
Boa Sr is not to be confused with another Great Andamanese tribal member, Boa Jr; the two women were not directly related. Boa Jr's late mother, Boro (who was also the last speaker of her language, Aka-Kora) was Boa Sr's best friend and named her daughter in her honor.
Biography [ edit ]
Boa was born around 1925.[3] Her mother, To, belonged to the Bo people and her father, Renge, belonged to the Jeru people. Boa's early life was spent in Mayabunder, a town on Middle Andaman Island. She was married at a young age to Nao, another member of her father's people, although both he and their children predeceased her. She regarded the Jeru language as her mother tongue.[4][5]
Boa Sr. lived through the epidemic brought by the British to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which devastated the Great Andamanese population, and also through the Japanese occupation of the Andaman Islands during World War II.[4] In the 1970s, she and other Great Andamanese was forcibly relocated by the government of India to Strait Island, a small tribal reserve east of Baratang Island.[4]
Boa Sr. worked with Anvita Abbi, a professor of linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, since 2005. Abbi studied and recorded Boa's language and songs.[5] Other members of the Great Andamanese speech community had difficulty understanding the songs and narratives which she knew in Bo.[5] She also spoke the Andamanese dialect of Hindi, as well as Great Andamanese creole, a mix of the ten indigenous languages of Andamans.
Boa Sr. survived the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake by climbing a tree. She later explained her escape from the tsunami saying, "We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us the Earth would part, don't run away or move."[6]
Her husband, Nao Jer, died several years before she did and the couple had no children. She suffered from some vision loss during her later life, but was considered to be in good health until shortly before her death in 2010.[6]
Boa Sr. died at a hospital in Port Blair on 26 January 2010.[6] Boa Sr., who was approximately 85 years old, was the oldest living member of the Great Andamanese tribes at the time.[7] Boa Sr.'s death left just 52[6] surviving Great Andamanese people in the world, none of whom remember any Bo. Their population is greatly reduced from the estimated 5,000 Great Andamanese living in the Andaman Islands at the time of the arrival of the British in 1858.[6]
Legacy [ edit ]
Stephen Corry, director of the British-based NGO Survival International, issued a statement saying, "With the death of Boa Sr. and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory. Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands."[1] Linguist Narayan Choudhary also explained what the loss of Boa Sr. meant in both academic and personal terms, "Her loss is not just the loss of the Great Andamanese community, it is a loss of several disciplines of studies put together, including anthropology, linguistics, history, psychology, and biology. To me, Boa Sr. epitomised a totality of humanity in all its hues and with a richness that is not to be found anywhere else."AdaCore Releases GNAT GPL for Bare Board ARM
Freely available toolsuite brings power of Ada language to global ARM ecosystem
NEW YORK and PARIS, (July 24, 2014) – AdaCore today released a freely downloadable version of its GNAT GPL Ada cross-development environment for Bare Board ARM Cortex processors. Students, professors and other developers of non-proprietary software can now exploit Ada 2012’s reliability, safety and security benefits for ARM applications.
GNAT GPL for Bare Board ARM Cortex processors provides a complete Ada 2012 development environment, including a comprehensive tool-chain and GPS, AdaCore’s flagship Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It also includes a fully configurable/customizable run-time library consisting of the “Small Footprint” (SFP) and Ravenscar profiles that are particularly relevant to safety-critical systems. The SFP profile corresponds to a language subset with minimal GNAT run-time routines, and the Ravenscar profile is a subset of the Ada concurrency features with an efficient, predictable, small-footprint implementation. The resulting Ada subset has expressive power well beyond that of other languages used for ARM-based devices.
“There are now billions of ARM processors in embedded systems, which has created a global ecosystem with many developers looking to take advantage of Ada’s strengths,” said Dr. Pat Rogers, AdaCore Bare Board product manager. “By making an Ada cross-development environment freely available to the academic and hobbyist communities, we are responding to this demand and see great potential for significantly increasing the overall usage of the Ada language. With powerful ARM-based boards currently available for under $20, this new GNAT GPL release becomes a cost-effective development environment for everyone.”
The release of GNAT GPL for Bare Board ARM is part of AdaCore’s ongoing commitment to the Ada community. Fully featured releases of the GNAT technology are already available for GNU Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
"Finally, the substantial software engineering benefits of the Ada 2012 language are available for the huge ARM microcontroller family,” said Mike Silva, Software Engineer at the www.embeddedrelated.com community. “This is a ground-breaking achievement for the embedded programming world, offering the promise of higher quality embedded software delivered on shorter schedules."
“For our students, this is almost a game-changing new option, providing an academia-affordable, hands-on, high-integrity and fully real-world hardware/software environment for every individual student,” said Dr. rer. nat. Uwe R. Zimmer, Fellow at the Australian National University. “Tools which enable the combination of high-integrity, real-time systems with concrete, real-world hardware will open doors to dependable, physical systems for many more students.”
Availability
GNAT GPL for Bare Board ARM is available now from libre.adacore.com. The package includes a tutorial and example project showing how to use Ada and GPS for the “STM32F4 Discovery” (Cortex-M4) evaluation kit from STMicroelectronics. Additional Ada tutorials can be accessed via AdaCore University.
About the GNAT Technology
GNAT is a robust, flexible, and open Ada development environment based on the GNU GCC compiler technology. It comprises a full Ada compiler (including complete support for Ada 2012), an Integrated Development Environment (GPS, the GNAT Programming Studio), a comprehensive toolset including a visual debugger, and a useful collection of libraries / bindings. GNAT allows development of pure Ada applications as well as Ada components in multi-language systems. It is distributed with complete source code and is available on a wide range of host environments for both native and cross-development, including UNIX, Windows and GNU/Linux.
All brand or product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.
AdaCore Press Contacts
Jamie Ayre
AdaCore
press@adacore.com
http://twitter.com/AdaCoreCompany
Rainier Communications (for AdaCore)
Jenna Beaucage
+1-508-475-0025 x124
adacore@rainierco.comThe title of the 2009 book written by Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s pick to fill the conservative shoes of Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, pretty much says it all. It’s called, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Not “death with dignity,” mind you, but “assisted suicide,” which is how Gorsuch sees it ― and he’s clearly not a supporter.
In his book, Gorsuch upholds the principle of patient autonomy but makes the case against legalization of the practice of terminally ill patients taking the reins of their own deaths. Gorsuch wrote that “human life is intrinsically valuable and that intentional killing is always wrong.” He maintains that while a patient’s refusal of unwanted medical treatment is morally acceptable, any intentional efforts to accelerate death are immoral.
By deeming the practice “assisted suicide,” he leaves no doubt about where he stands.
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters President Donald Trump announced his nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Alarmed that death with dignity measures have gained popular support and legal standing, The Federalist heralded Gorsuch’s nomination as “a great relief to have a legal expert who stands with human dignity on the Supreme Court,” citing his book for building “a case against legalization based on moral and legal arguments.”
Of course, the response from those who feel quite the opposite about death with dignity came just as quickly.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) voiced “serious concerns” about the Supreme Court nominee Tuesday, saying in a statement that Gorsuch’s “opposition to legal death with dignity as successfully practiced in Oregon is couched in the sort of jurisprudence that justified the horrific oppression of one group after another in our first two centuries.”
Death with dignity laws essentially allow qualified terminally ill adults to voluntarily hasten death. The practice is legal in California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Montana and Washington.
The issue grabbed the national spotlight when Brittany Maynard, a California native suffering from terminal brain cancer, moved to Oregon (the first U.S. state to legally allow physician-assisted suicide) to be able to end her life. Before her death at age 29, on Nov. 1, 2014, she lobbied for California and other states to legalize doctor-assisted suicide, and her family has continued to advocate for the cause.Yung Gleesh has started something. Over the weekend, well-known social media comedian Retro Spectro dropped a video with MoeRoy doing Gleesh's dance moves, and now the clip is going viral. Watch it below.
The video begins with Retro walking up to No Limit rapper MoeRoy as he's doing Yung Gleesh's dance in a parking lot. Curious, the man asks the rapper what he's listening to as he's doing the dance before asking for him to play it out loud. Soon, both of them are busting Gleetchie's moves together.
The problem is, of course, none of them are doing it quite the right way. No matter, because seconds later, Gleesh himself pops up on the scene to show the two how it's actually done. "Fuck is ya'll doing," Gleesh says just before moonwalking on cement and going to work. "That is not how you Gleesh walk my nigga, this is how you do that shit."
By the time all three of them are dancing, it's one of the greatest promo clips we've ever seen. The video for his new track "Pew Pew" sparked the dance's recent popularity, but Gleesh has been busting moves for years, even getting flown out by A$AP Yams to dance in Rocky's "Multiply" video.
Gleesh has been doing his thing for years now, and this is really just another example of him bringing his unique style to the masses. Last year, the D.C. rapper appeared on the A$AP Mob's Cozy Tapes Vol. 1 cut, " Telephone Calls." He also collaborated with Keith Ape and UNOTheActivist for " Both Ways." Here's to hoping he drops more tracks like "Pew Pew"—and pops up in more videos like the one below—throughout the rest of 2017.TUNKHANNOCK, Pennsylvania — This guy must have skipped the part about swearing to uphold the law.
A Pennsylvania constable has been charged with selling crystal meth to police informants and now prosecutors are seeking to have him removed from his job.
Shane Ryan Fryer, 31, was arrested on Dec. 7 after allegedly selling drugs to the informants twice from a shed outside his home in Laceyville, the Wyoming County district attorney said, according to the Scranton Times-Tribune.
Cops say when they searched Fryer’s home the day after he made one of the sales, he stood and watched while wearing his badge and carrying his sidearm.
Last week, DA Jeff Mitchell filed a petition with the court to have Fryer removed from his post.
Mr. Fryer was elected to the position as Windham Township constable and took office in January 2014. His term ends in 2020.
The petition called the constable position an important public one that “requires ethical conduct and the trust of the public.” If the allegations are proven, the petition said they represent, “a violation of the public trust and requires his prompt removal.”
(Visited 253 times, 1 visits today)Salman Rushdie's Full "Fuck Adaptations" Speech
The day after the Academy Awards, Salman Rushdie made headlines in many unscrupulous publications after he remarked that the film "Slumdog Millionaire" (which won eight awards, including "Best Picture") irritated him, was badly-written, and was exploitative -- a sentiment echoed by many.Never one to mind pissing people off in huge numbers, Rushdie wanted to make sure that he was pissing people off for the right reasons, and that everyone knew exactly what he said during his lecture at Emory University. In case he was unclear.For this reason, he has published the entirety of his speech about film adaptations in "The Guardian," including thoughts about the upcoming adaptation of his own novel, "Midnight's Children."From the speech, this is what Rushdie had to say about "Slumdog Millionaire" and director Danny Boyle, on the record:"It's probably pointless to go up against such a popular film, but let me try.The problems begin with the work being adapted. Swarup's novel is a corny potboiler, with a plot that defies belief: a boy from the slums somehow manages to get on to the hit Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and answers all his questions correctly because the random accidents of his life have, in a series of outrageous coincidences, given him the information he needs, and are conveniently asked in the order that allows his flashbacks to occur in chronological sequence. This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name. It is a plot device faithfully preserved by the film-makers, and lies at the heart of the weirdly renamed Slumdog Millionaire. As a result the film, too, beggars belief.It used to be the case that western movies about India were about blonde women arriving there to find, almost at once, a maharajah to fall in love with, the supply of such maharajahs being apparently endless and specially provided for English or American blondes; or they were about European women accusing non-maharajah Indians of rape, perhaps because they were so indignant at having being approached by a non-maharajah; or they were about dashing white men galloping about the colonies firing pistols and unsheathing sabres, to varying effect. Now that sort of exoticism has lost its appeal; people want, instead, enough grit and violence to convince themselves that what they are seeing is authentic; but it's still tourism. If the earlier films were raj tourism, maharajah-tourism, then we, today, have slum tourism instead. In an interview conducted at the Telluride film festival last autumn, Boyle, when asked why he had chosen a project so different from his usual material, answered that he had never been to India and knew nothing about it, so he thought this project was a great opportunity. Listening to him, I imagined an Indian film director making a movie about New York low-life and saying that he had done so because he knew nothing about New York and had indeed never been there. He would have been torn limb from limb by critical opinion. But for a first world director to say that about the third world is considered praiseworthy, an indication of his artistic daring. The double standards of post-colonial attitudes have not yet wholly faded away."Rushdie didn't like any of the other movies up for Academy Awards either, but he did like that new Batman movie. He especially liked the part where the Joker was all like: "whooosh."LIVE STREAM VIDEO: Donald Trump Holds Rally in Ashburn, Virginia
Donald Trump is holding a rally today in Ashburn, Virginia at Briar Woods High School.
Live coverage of the event begins at 11:00 AM ET.
The line for the Trump rally goes on FOR BLOCKS…
Line at Trump rally in Ashburn, Va. pic.twitter.com/jnXFP1bZMt — Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) August 2, 2016
The rally filled up and still THOUSANDS were left in line outside the venue.
Trump Rally in Ashburn Va FULL with THOUSANDS STILL LINED UP pic.twitter.com/vKNOe5s4Rg — Sleepin w/1 Eye Open (@wornduglsgraves) August 2, 2016
In Ashburn, Va., where Trump will hold a rally later this morning. pic.twitter.com/6ikhsMtBWy — Sean Sullivan (@WaPoSean) August 2, 2016
Compare Donald Trump’s crowd to Hillary’s crowd on Monday where she had to fill the stands with high school kids.In NASCAR Cup Series competition the #33 car has started 1153 races and has 23 wins, 24 pole, 147 top 5s, 305 top 10s, and 312 DNFs.
Harry Gant has the most starts in #33 with 397 starts from 1981-1994, and 18 wins including 4 straight in September 1991 (in addition to 2 XFINITY wins that month) earning him the nickname Mr. September. Gant believed in walking away a winner rather than watching his glory days fade. Gant retired from Winston Cup and Busch Series racing at the end of the 1994 season, the prime of his career. He would later drive his #33 Truck in the Camping World Truck Series and subbed for the injured Bill Elliott in the 1996 All Star Race. Gant appeared as himself in the racing movies “Stroker Ace” and “Days of Thunder.”
After Gant retired, car owner Richard Jackson hired Robert Pressley to take over the #33 car for the 1995 season. Towards the end of 1996 Jackson was looking to follow Gant into retirement, so he sold the team to longtime crewchief of the #33 Andy Petree. After 1 race as owner, Petree fired Pressley who made 58 starts in the number. Todd Bodine and Greg Sacks drove the car for the final 4 races of the year.
For 1997 Petree hired Ken Schrader to pilot the #33 car. Schrader drove the #33 for 99 starts from 1997-1999, but struggled earning only 5 top 5s in 3 years. In 2008 Schrader drove #33 one more time as a RCR R&D car at the Coke 600.
In 2000 Petree hired Joe Nemechek to drive the car. Front Row Joe started the car 65 times in 2 years. 2000 was a steady season for Nemechek, finishing in the top 5 a total 3 times. 2001 saw it’s highs and lows. Nemechek missed 4 races after a crash in Dover left him with a broken shoulder, but he would recover nicely and win the 2001 Fall Rockingham race. Unfortunately, due to lack of sponsorship, Nemecheck would be forced to seek other opportunities in 2002.
In 2003 the unsponsored Petree team fielded #33 in just 5 races with brother’s Kenny & Mike Wallace driving. In 2004 the team ran 2 races with Paul Menard and Christian Fittipaldi before closing up shop.
In 2009 Clint Bowyer and RCR started fielding #33 and started racing Casey Mears in Bowyer’s previous #07 car. This move was necessitated by a sponsor’s request. General Mills did not want Mears, who had been driving in the 2008 season for rival cereal maker Kellogg’s, representing them, so Childress sponsors General Mills and Jack Daniels agreed to the swap for Bowyer. In his 3 years in the car Bowyer earned 3 win in the number, but only made the Chase for the Spint Cup once- 2010 with a 10th place overall points finish. Following the 2011 season Bowyer left RCR for Michael Waltrip Racing. He has 109 starts in the #33 car, 2nd most overall.
From 2004-2008 the #33 acted as the R&D car for Richard Childress Racing with drivers including Kerry Earnhardt, Mike Skinner, Scott Wimmer, Ken Schrader, Mike Wallace, Brian Simo, and Clint Bowyer back when he was driving for RCR in the XFINITY Series
Starting in 2012, following Bowyer’s full-time tenure in #33, RCR continued to run the car as an R&D project, but technically sold the team to Circle Sport Racing, though RCR continued to supply cars and engine. Part of this partnership between teams allows RCR to place it’s development drivers in #33 for select races giving Ty Dillon, Austin Dillon, Brendan Gaughan, and Elliot Sadler opportunities to make limited Cup starts.
When not fielding Childress drivers (which means without sponsorship support brought in by RCR), Hillman-Circle Sport has fielded the #33 with its own drivers like Alex Kennedy, Stephen Leicht, Landon Cassill, David Stremme, Brian Scott, Timmy Hill, Travis Kvapil, Bobby Labonte, Mike Bliss, Morgan Shepherd, Tony Raines, and Cole Whitt to make starts in the car. In 2015, Michael Annett made 1 start in #33 after failing to qualify his #46 cat Atlanta.
In 2017, Circle Sport (in partnership with The Motorsports Group) fielded the #33 car full-time with Jeffrey Earnhardt behind the wheel for 34 races, and Boris Said acting as a ringer on the 2 road course races.
Roy Mayne drove #33 in 20 starts from 1963-1964.
Wayne Smith drove #33 in 33 starts from 1969-1972.
From 1957-1960 U.S. Army Sergeant George Green drove #33 a total of 20 times for owner Jess Potter. Green was fired when he was caught stealing $600 in “owner’s winnings” from Potter, so he reenlisted in the Army and was shipped to Germany for further training.
Inglewood, CA driver Lou Figaro drove #33 in the NASCAR West Coast Late Model Series (K&N West), but also made 9 of his 16 career Cup starts in #33 including 1 win. He started from the pole and won the first race at Carrell Speedway in 1951. It was his only win. Figaro died in the Wilkes 160 at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, on October 24, 1954 in a one-car crash; his #187 Hudson Hornet flipped over onto its roof.
Other notable names in #33 Bobby Hamilton Jr., 3 starts David Pearson, 3 starts Scott Pruett, 1 start J.D. McDuffie, 1 start Phil Parsons, 1 start Wally Dallenbach Jr., 1 start Hermie Sadler, 1 start
In the NASCAR XFINITY Series the #33 has a total of 679 starts and 20 wins. The number has been in use by RCR and it’s affiliate Kevin Harvick Inc since 2004. Many drivers have piloted the car, as it is a primarily part time venture. Drivers include: Kevin Harvick, Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, Ron Hornaday, Paul Menard, Clint Bowyer, Ron Fellows, Cale Gale, Max Papis, Aaron Fike, Elliott Sadler, Brendan Gaughan, Matt Crafton, Daktota Armstrong, and Brandon Jones.
Prior to RCR fielding the number, BACE Motorsports fielded the #33 car with beginning with Tim Fedewa in 1997. Fedewa scored 2 wins in 1998 before leaving the team for 1999. Fedewa is currently the spotter for Kevin Harvick’s #4 car in the Sprint Cup Series.
In 1999 the #33 had a variety of drivers, but in 2000 Tony Raines moved over from the BACE #74 car to pilot the #33 until the 2003 season when the team sold it’s assetts to RCR/KHI. Raines continued to drive the #33 for RCR/KHI occasionally until 2007.
AdvertisementsSen. Luther Strange speaks to supporters after he conceded the Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate to Roy Moore in Homewood, Ala. (Butch Dill/AP)
As he headed to Huntsville, Ala., in a last-ditch effort to lift the floundering campaign of Sen. Luther Strange, President Trump was fuming — feeling dragged along by GOP senators who had pleaded with him to go and increasingly unenthusiastic about Strange, whom he described to aides as loyal but "low energy."
His agitation only worsened on the flight back last Friday. Trump bemoaned the headlines he expected to see once Strange was defeated — that he |
like taking holy orders or joining the Marines.
That's why we bristle at Hot Takes and stock our bomb shelter for Retweet Armageddon. Not because we chose The Process, but because our fealty is demanded by The Process. And an attack on The Process is an attack on us.
"My favorite basketball team's success or failure is not a reflection of my value as a human being."
I think about Taylor Swift's cats from time to time. Taylor Swift has two cats, and I often wonder what life must be like for them, compared to normal cats. These cats treat the biggest musical star in the world the way my cat treats me, just because they have no way of knowing that their owner is special. It must be an incredibly bizarre life for a cat to lead, and yet, if a cat has no frame of reference, there's no way for it to know that its existence is exceptional.
I thought about that from a seat in Section 419 of the Toyota Center tonight, between a manspreading Rockets fan with a comically large bowl of nachos and a hyperkinetic grade school-aged child with a temporary Rockets face tattoo, a "Let's Go Rockets" sign and less chill than any other human being I've ever met in my life.
I went to the Sixers-Rockets game not only because it's the only chance I'll have to see the Sixers in person this year, but because they had the chance to do, tonight, in Houston, something that's never been done in basketball history: lose 27 games in a row. In fact, it's worse than that. Before tonight, the NBA, NFL and MLB records for longest losing streak all stood at 26 games. The NHL record is 17, though the 1980-81 Winnipeg Jets managed to string together 30 games (including seven ties) without a win.
The Sixers' last win was on March 25, 2015. When the Sixers last won a game, I worked for Bill Simmons at Grantland. The Phillies were a week away from starting a regular season that's been over for eight weeks now. The Eagles were more than a month from not drafting Marcus Mariota. I haven't seen a Sixers win since I was 27 years old, and I turned 28 more than eight months ago.
No team has ever, in the history of major league professional sports, lost this many games in a row, and because I had the chance, I wanted to see it in person.
But it's normal for us. The Sixers lost, after playing hard and doing their best and still being outclassed by a team that just has more an better NBA-quality players. T.J. McConnell chickened out instead of shooting open layups. Jahlil Okafor would collect the ball and immediately forget that a timeline could unfold in which there'd be something better to do with the basketball than dance the tarantella and toss up an eight-foot leaner over Dwight Howard. Nik Stauskas exuded fear in the face of open corner threes, like a teenager working up the nerve to ask a girl to prom. I didn't learn anything from those things--humiliating as they were to behold in person--because I've seen it all before. It's normal.
But to everyone else in the arena, there was a novelty in seeing Jerami Grant airball a three-pointer or watching Phil Pressey toss a lob past his target, the backboard, the first five rows of seats and the dragon on the map that tells you you're going to sail off the edge of the world if you keep going. They gasped or laughed. This isn't normal for normal basketball fans.
"My favorite basketball team's success or failure is not a reflection of my value as a human being."
It took an astounding confluence of events to get to this point, as you'd expect considering nothing like this has happened in the past 130 years. An amoral Wall Street hedge fund baron had to buy a team that had been run purposefully at a contretemps with industry best practices, then hire a general manager with the desire to burn down the existing structure (such as it was), and empower him to do so. And not only was it a wholesale rebuild, but an unprecedented one. Most sports teams are run not only on rational grounds, but on a web of norms--one of which is that you make at least a token effort to compete every year--that keep the industry moving.
But that's why the Sixers are such a prefect team for modern capitalism--they reject the norms in favor of squeezing every last ounce of utility out of the rules, according to rational self-interest.
The problem with bounded rationality, however, is that it assumes that the actors in a system have incomplete information, and cannot predict the future. That's how Sam Hinkie could have made, by this point, as many as seven lottery picks in three drafts, but his team currently enjoys the fruits of only two. Michael Carter-Williams turned into a protected pick that didn't convey, nor did the pick the Heat owe the Sixers. Dario Saric is still in Europe, Joel Embiid is still on the mend, and the lottery balls shook out in such a way that while the Sixers could've had, say, Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns and Emmanuel Mudiay, they have Embiid, Okafor and another year of waiting.
And after two years of prioritizing athleticism, speed and length and playing up-tempo offense and press-and-switch defense, the Sixers, by drafting the best player available, have had to adjust on the fly to work around a traditional center who, gifted and skilled though he may be, could not have been a worse fit for the team's previous direction.
Twenty-seven losses in a row doesn't happen unless you get all of that, add in some bad performances, some bad officiating luck, injuries to their starting point guard (Kendall Marshall) and their only backcourt player capable of creating his own shot (Tony Wroten) and you still need a full-energy steel-toed boot in the karmic balls to get to 27 in a row. Which is not to say that they didn't earn every bit of this ignominious distinction, but it took an extraordinary set of circumstances, all of which just seem normal now.
"My favorite basketball team's success or failure is not a reflection of my value as a human being."
It's easy to say, but after lining up all of those dominoes, it's hard not to feel persecuted, as if God is punishing me for some previous transgression by visiting these Sixers, like a plague, upon me. They fell behind early in this game--as they often do--only to stage a comeback after I'd checked out emotionally. Comebacks are no longer in service of victory. They're in service of making defeat that much more painful. Toyota Center was a tomb tonight until the Sixers went to their 2006 Villanova lineup and the Rockets stopped giving a shit on defense. It was hard work to come back from 15 down in the third quarter to up seven in the fourth, but once they did, it only served to make James Harden angry and whip the partisan Rockets crowd into a frenzy. It's like experiencing an agony so acute it makes you pass out, and then being revived for the express purpose of experiencing more pain.
I wonder how many of the people in the Toyota Center tonight were aware that they'd witnessed something unique and historic. The losing streak was never mentioned on the arena PA, and though I'd planned to take a selfie in front of the scoreboard as evidence of having witnessed a historic event in person, they changed the graphic on the Jumbotron seconds after the final whistle, so I never had the chance.
It's a reminder that while we feel personally afflicted by this team and the alluvium of bullshit it disturbs wherever it goes, we in particular and the Sixers more generally are trivial. What is of earthshaking importance to us, such things as cause us to use the words "cultish" and "armageddon," are so unimportant they're imperceptible to other NBA fans. We are, in the public consciousness, contemptible marks whose pain is not only deserved but not worth discussing.
Maybe that's another reason we're so cultish. Trusting The Process is by this point an act of profound faith, a rite of self-abnegation, of deferring gratification spectacularly for the promise of a better world that might not ever come. We cling to that promise because considering that it might not would render everything that's come before a waste. And not only that, we'll have spent our last full measure of devotion defending the indefensible.
The wins will come. Our faith and perseverance will be vindicated someday. All other possibilities are too bleak to contemplate, even as we drift farther away from historical precedent, and the road from rebuilding to contention veers farther and farther from its expected path.FILE - In this Friday, March 2, 2012, file photo, counterfeit Viagra pills, top and bottom left, are displayed alongside real ones, top and bottom right, in a lab at Pfizer in Groton, Conn. In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press on May 6, 2013, that it will sell erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Men who are bashful about needing help in the bedroom no longer have to go to the drugstore to buy that little blue pill.
In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press that the drugmaker will begin selling its popular erectile dysfunction pill Viagra to patients on its website.
Men still will need a prescription to buy the blue, diamond-shaped pill on viagra.com, but they no longer have to face a pharmacist to get it filled. And for those who are bothered by Viagra's steep $25-a-pill price, Pfizer is offering three free pills with the first order and 30 percent off the second one.
Pfizer's bold move upends the drug industry's distribution model. Drugmakers don't sell medicines directly to patients. Instead, they sell in bulk to wholesalers, who then distribute the drugs to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices.
But the world's second-largest drugmaker is trying a new strategy to tackle a problem that plagues the industry. Illegal online pharmacies increasingly offer patients counterfeit versions of Viagra and other brand-name drugs for up to 95 percent off with no prescription needed. Patients don't realize the drugs are fake or that legitimate pharmacies require a prescription.
Other major drugmakers likely will watch Pfizer's move closely. If it works, drugmakers could begin selling other medicines that are rampantly counterfeited and sold online, particularly treatments for non-urgent conditions seen as embarrassing. Think diet drugs, medicines for baldness and birth control pills.
"If it works, everybody will hop on the train," says Les Funtleyder, a health care strategist at private equity firm Poliwogg who believes Pfizer's site will attract "fence-sitters" who are nervous about buying online.
But it won't be the end of drugstores, as pharmaceutical companies aren't allowed to sell prescriptions to individual patients. So Pfizer is having national drugstore chain CVS Caremark Corp. fill the orders placed on viagra.com.
The online Viagra sales are Pfizer's latest effort to combat a problem that has grown with the popularity of the Internet.
In recent years, Americans have become more comfortable with online shopping, with many even buying prescription drugs online. That's particularly true for those who don't have insurance, are bargain hunters or want to keep their medicine purchases private.
Few realize that the vast majority of online pharmacies don't follow the rules, industry experts say.
The Internet is filled with illegitimate, professional-looking sites that run 24-hour call centers and lure customers with spam emails. A January study by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which accredits online pharmacies, found that only 257 of 10,275 online pharmacy sites it examined appeared legitimate.
That means the sites require a doctor's prescription, are based in the U.S., only sell FDA-approved drugs and have a secure server site so customers don't have their credit card and identity information stolen.
Experts say the fake drugs such websites sell can be dangerous. That's because they don't include the right amount of the active ingredient in the medicine, if any, or they contain toxic substances such as heavy metals, lead paint and printer ink. They're generally made in filthy warehouses and garages in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Online buyers are "playing Russian roulette," says Matthew Bassiur, vice president of global security at New York-based Pfizer.
"The factories are deplorable. I've seen photographs of these places," he says. "You wouldn't even want to walk in them, let alone ingest anything made in them."
Pfizer is among many drugmakers that have long been aggressive in fighting counterfeiters. Pfizer conducts undercover investigations and works with authorities around the globe to combat the problem.
Counterfeit versions of Viagra and dozens of other Pfizer medicines rob the company of billions in annual sales.
Viagra is one of Pfizer's top drugs, with $2 billion in worldwide revenue last year. And it's the most counterfeited drug in the U.S., according to the company.
A 2011 study, in which Pfizer bought "Viagra" from 22 popular Internet pharmacies and tested the pills, found 77 percent were counterfeit. Most had half or less of the promised level of the active ingredient.
Story continuesEven before Donald Trump’s Republican rivals bowed out, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton posted a video warning about a potential Trump presidency.
The video opens with a clip of Trump at an event saying, "Everything I say I’m going to do folks, I do."
It then lists eight steps Trump has said he will take. As the text of each one appears on the screen, audio of Trump plays in the background. We’ll go through in order and assess whether Trump really has made each promise.
We asked the Trump campaign if any of these promises were misstated, or if they weren’t actually promises. We did not hear back.
‘Get rid of gun-free zones on schools on his first day’
At a campaign event in Burlington, Vt., on Jan. 7, 2016, Trump said that the number of victims in San Bernardino, Calif., and in Paris would have been much lower if the people in those places had been armed. He lamented the deaths of five soldiers in a shooting rampage in Chattanooga, Tenn.
"I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools, and — you have to — and on military bases," Trump said. "My first day, it gets signed, okay? My first day. There's no more gun-free zones."
The Clinton campaign also cited an interview with Trump on the Outdoor Channel Jan. 21, 2016, in which he said, "I'm going to get rid of gun-free zones on military bases. I'm also going to do it in schools."
Trump has said little recently about gun-free zones, but the issue resurfaced when a petition emerged that would allow delegates to the Republican National Convention to carry guns. On March 28, 2016, ABC reporter Jonathan Karl asked Trump if he would support that. Trump said he would consider the petition, but the Secret Service ruled out allowing guns at the conventions as a security risk.
‘Defund Planned Parenthood’
Trump’s stance on funding Planned Parenthood has shifted somewhat over time. In August 2015, he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that it would be worth shutting down the government to cut off tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood. But he has also praised the organization for providing regular care to women of limited means.
In March, Trump said, "Millions of women have been helped by Planned Parenthood," and then continued "but we're not going to allow, and we're not going to fund, as long as you have the abortion going on at Planned Parenthood."
Trump’s overarching position on taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood is that he supports defunding Planned Parenthood so long as the organization continues to perform abortions.
‘Repeal Obamacare’
There doesn’t seem to be any ambiguity on this one. On his campaign website, Trump says "On day one of the Trump Administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare."
‘Build a great great wall’
Trump has made building a wall along the border with Mexico his signature initiative, and he hasn’t wavered. He has said it many times. In the course of interviews with the New York Times published May 4, 2016, he said within his first 100 days the wall would be designed, and there would be bilateral talks with Mexico, presumably on how they would pay for it -- another promise Trump has made.
Establish ‘a deportation force’
There is no question that Trump called for teams to remove an estimated 11 million people who are in the country without authorization. The term itself goes back to an interview Trump gave on MSNBC in November 2015 when he said "You’re going to have a deportation force. And you’re going to do it humanely."
We couldn’t find Trump promoting this again, although in the Feb. 25, 2016, Republican debate, he didn’t back away from the phrase. CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer teed up a question saying, "Mr. Trump, you've called for a deportation force to remove the 11 million undocumented immigrants from the United States."
Trump prefaced his answer with a cut at his rivals for supporting amnesty and then said, "We either have a country, or we don't have a country. We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out."
Trump has definitely committed to expanding the number of immigration and border control agents and to removing 11 million people. He hasn’t said if he would create a new deportation unit. While he might not be touting the same phrase, the result remains the same.
‘Ban Muslims from entering the country’
Immediately after the shootings by Muslim fundamentalists in San Bernardino in December 2015, the Trump campaign issued a statement saying, "Donald Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on."
Within a few days, Trump said certain people would be exempted, including American citizens who are Muslim, foreign leaders, and athletes headed to competitions. However, according to the New York Times, within his first 100 days "the immigration ban on Muslims would be in place."
That puts the ban firmly in the promise zone.
‘Kill the spouses and children of our enemies’
Trump said this during an interview on Fox and Friends, Dec. 2, 2015.
"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families," Trump said.
In an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, Trump seemed to dial down this threat. O’Reilly asked him if he would have killed members of the bin Laden family. Trump said "I don't want to be so bold. I want to tell you they would suffer."
Trump was pressed on this at the Republican debate in Las Vegas on Dec. 15, 2015. Asked how this policy would set the United States apart from ISIS, Trump said, "We have to be much tougher."
Trump finished his answer with, "I would be very, very firm with families. Frankly, that will make people think because they may not care much about their lives, but they do care, believe it or not, about their families’ lives."
While this could be a death threat, it isn’t quite as clear as his original statement. Clearly, he wants to make family members suffer, but he doesn’t say how much.
Restore waterboarding and ‘go further’
In the Republican debate right before the New Hampshire primary, Trump said, "I would bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."
Trump stood by his waterboarding policy on March 22, 2016, telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer he would "go further."
Trump has also said that " torture works."
The only caveat that Trump offered during his CNN interview is that he would listen to military officials’ advice on the use of interrogation methods.
Whether a Trump administration would ever use waterboarding, he has promised to keep it on the table.
Our ruling
A Clinton campaign video listed eight steps Trump has promised to take as president. Five of those are firmly on the Trump agenda. That includes repealing Obamacare, building a wall along the Mexican border, deporting illegal immigrants, banning Muslims at the border, and restoring waterboarding and other torture techniques.
On eliminating gun-free zones on school grounds, he hasn’t repeated it recently, but we saw no evidence he had changed his stance.
There might be some debate over his plan to defund Planned Parenthood, because he links that to continued abortions. However, there is no indication that the group plans to stop providing that service, so a President Trump would need to cut funding if he wanted to keep his promise.
The one exaggeration in the video is his threat to kill the families of terrorists. Trump seems to have backed off that promise. He has said he would make them suffer, not necessarily kill them.
The video might miss a couple of nuances, but it is generally accurate. We rate the collective package Mostly True.
https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/a27d6e08-b5ec-40bb-aeb2-e15557be8d62Former GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash has confirmed that he has rekindled his friendship with the band's lead singer Axl Rose — six years after the frontman called him "a cancer."
Speaking to Aftonbladet TV in Sweden, where Slash was making a special appearance on Friday (August 21) for a launch event for the Marshall London phone, the guitarist said of his restored relationship with Axl (see video below): "It was probably way overdue, you know. But it's…. you know, it's very cool at this point. You know, let some of that, sort of, negative… dispel some of that negative stuff that was going on for so long."
Asked if his warmer relationship with Axl will lead to a reunion of GUNS N' ROSES' classic lineup, Slash said: "Oh, I couldn't answer that one, though…" Pressed on why that is, Slash replied: "All right, let's get off the subject, 'cause, you know, that's an old one."
Slash was asked about the possibility of a reunion of the classic GUNS N' ROSES lineup on the May 7 edition of "CBS This Morning" and gave a somewhat surprising answer. He replied: "I've got to be careful what I say there. I mean, if everybody wanted to do it and do it for the right reasons, I think the fans would love it. I think it might be fun at some point to try and do that."
Asked what the "right reasons" might be, Slash said: "I mean, that's a hard one. That just starts to get into a whole complex thing... It's really between the guys in the band." But pressed on whether he thought it was likely, Slash said, "Never say never."
Slash told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that the band's induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame three years ago — at which he performed along with GUNS bassist Duff McKagan, drummers Steven Adler and Matt Sorum, and others — gave him a sense of closure about the band. He said: "I never, in however many years it's been, ever planned or thought that there was gonna be any reunion. But now we've played the one gig as close to a reunion as it will ever get and done with it, and it did have… There was a definite feeling of closure and, you know, something that, when I got on the plane the next morning, it was like I never have to deal with that again."
Addressing the long-running feud between him and Axl Rose that many saw as the main stumbling block to a reunion, Slash said, "We haven't really talked in a long time, but a lot of the tension that you were talking about has dissipated. We don't have all those issues anymore. It's not a lot of controversy. It's something that is more perpetuated by the media, more than anything."
Axl famously called Slash a "cancer" in a 2009 interview, saying that the chances of him and Slash getting onstage together at any point in the future were next to impossible.
Axl and guitarist Izzy Stradlin did not attend the Hall Of Fame induction.
Guitarist Darren Jay "DJ" Ashba quit GUNS N' ROSES last month, while another GN'R six-stringer, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, also reportedly left the band in 2014. The group has not yet announced a replacement for either musician.Migration of Kallithea from Pylons to TurboGears2 completed
All, I am pleased to announce that the migration of Kallithea's backend framework has finally been completed. On the default branch, Kallithea is no longer using the deprecated Pylons framework, but TurboGears2 [1]. At the same time, the use of 'paster' has been replaced by 'gearbox'. If you are tracking the default branch and update to the latest version, do not forget to recreate your.ini file as there have been a few small changes. Also check the instructions in the manual, more specifically for using gearbox. There have been no database changes. At the next release, the release notes will obviously give more details. I would like to give a big thank you to Alessandro Molina (the maintainer of TurboGears2) for performing the bulk of the actual migration and helping us out with some of the problems we encountered during the cleanup and finalization. This migration wouldn't have been possible without him! I would also like to thank Mads Kiilerich for all the critical comments and suggestions he gave on the various iterations. While I admit it was tough at times ;-) this only helped in better understanding the actual changes, which in turn allowed splitting them up in bite-size changes that were easier to grasp and review, and organizing them in such a way that many preparatory commits could already be applied on top of Pylons-based Kallithea. Mads also performed the migration from 'paster' to 'gearbox' and helped with several other preparatory commits. Thanks! Thomas [1] http://turbogears.org/Neil Findlay has announced that if he becomes leader of Scottish Labour, the party will run on a platform of wiping out NHS debts to PFI and NPD schemes at their current level, rather than letting interest on those debts accrue.
Findlay claims that the move would save £12 billion over the the lifetime of these contracts, and that the money could be put back into protecting frontline services. He points to two health services in England, Darlington and Hexham, where they opted for this approach, saving £18 million and £66.5 million respectively.
His leadership campaign says that if elected leader, Findlay would immediately bring forward a bill to the Scottish Parliament to introduce a Debt Disposal Department, which would be tasked solely with the responsibility of raising “the funds required to wipe out the PFI and NPD debts as well as leading on the tough negotiations with many of the hedge funds that presently hold these public contracts.”
Announcing the policy, Findlay said:
“It would be financial madness to buy a house on a credit card yet that is exactly what we are doing with PFI and NPD. In some cases we are paying double digit interest rates on some existing PFI projects while at the same time interest rates on the money markets are at a record low. It would be politically negligent and financially irresponsible if we didn’t use these extremely fixed low interest rates and pay off the current debt. We will be saving millions every year in interest repayments, money that will go into services, not offshore bank accounts of hedge funds that now own most of the PFI contracts”.
“The evidence is there and we are already seeing this happening South of the border – a determined effort here could probably half Scotland’s remaining PFI and NPD debt that’s billions of pounds we could use to make Scotland a better place.”"Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too"
Fleetwood Mac
FROM SALLY ACORN'S JOURNAL Aug. 16, 4013
When I was a child, I believed everything I was told. I fell for every tall-tale Sonic flung my way. I trusted the mustached warlord who insisted he had the crown's best interests at heart. I believed mother as she lay on her deathbed and whispered that I could handle anything. This made for more than a few scraped knees and torn dresses, and that frustrated father to no end. But the confidence I earned served me better as a Freedom Fighter than a sheltered princesses' upbringing would have. Yet even at that age, I knew that most people would have traded anything for exactly that. Although I never felt that way, others saw me as special just because I was royalty. They humbled themselves, and that made me uncomfortable. I never dreamt that within a few short years we'd be hiding together in a remote village. Then I'd be the one who had to prove myself to them.
Father's attitude was different. He didn't like it when I went out adventuring. It wasn't just because Sonic and I frequently got into trouble. It was because I didn't see the crown as anything spectacular. I was certain my blood didn't place me above others, especially my friends. "She'll grow to be a monarch that won't rule her people," father lamented. "Instead, she'll be ruled by them."
Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. On the calmer nights in Knothole, I insisted to my friends that a princess serves her people. Not the other way around. I never really knew what it meant to be a princess anyway. It was just something for Sonic to tease me with. On bruised feet, we'd tread through the darkest corners of Robotropolis. As I'd search for a safe clearing, Sonic would stand upon a pile of newly decimated robots. He'd coolly observe the fresh cuts etched in my face and smile. With that gleeful gleam in his eyes he'd mock me with the line, "You never looked more beautiful Princess." The best part was that he really meant it.
During the war, the only concern I had related to the crown was pining for father. I didn't care how many people insisted he was dead. Holding out hope for his return gave my life meaning. Truthfully, it didn't matter if he was alive or dead. Believing the former helped me center myself. He was alive to me, and that was what mattered. I believed father still breathed the same way I believed there was nothing I couldn't overcome. It wasn't until we defeated Robotnik that I questioned myself. When Snively released father and Naugus from the Void, I realized how harsh the line between belief and reality was. Yes, we had known for some time that father still lived. Though somehow, I still believed his existence depended almost entirely on my idealized memories of him. That illusion was shattered after his rescue. The moment he arrived in Knothole, he began counting my mistakes in loving detail. From age six to fifteen, I never would have thought he'd do that. I wouldn't have believed it even last summer. But father's return carried with it a revelation. I can handle war, but I can't handle anything else.
These thoughts preyed upon my mind constantly, but overflowed one particular evening. I was in a small hut, taking care of monitor duty. Through a window I saw the moon shining from Knothole's eastern horizon. It lit a fertile field of crops, behind which lay a waterwheel. It was connected to the hut Bunnie and I shared. I decided I could use a break, and wandered over. Upon entering, I overheard Bunnie in Tails' room. She was reading him a bedtime story. Silently, I took a seat in the kitchen and waited for her to finish. "And then Cinderella says, 'Oh mah stars, thank you ever so much fo' all dem purdy Knick Knacks 'n thangs!" read Bunnie. "And the nice ol' Fairy Godmother replies, 'Wait till th' Prince sees you!"
"Was she pretty Bunnie?" asked Tails bashfully.
"You bet sugar!" replied Bunnie. "But thass enough fo' t'night." She kissed his forehead and stepped into the hall. "Hey Bunnie," I said from the kitchen, smiling weakly. "Howdy Sally-girl!" Bunnie began cheerily, before noticing my sullen expression. Concerned folds marked her brow; she was about to speak before Tails interrupted her. "Aunt Sally's here?" I heard him ask excitedly. "Uh-uh," said Bunnie, waving a metallic finger. "It's bedtime hon. Be a good l'il ol' soldier."
"Aw," I heard Tails reply softly. "Alright then."
"Thassa good boy." Bunnie grinned, and turned her head toward me. "You look like you've been sassed sumpin' awful," she whispered after she shut the door behind Tails.
"It's nothing Bunnie," I pined. "It's just that Daddy-," I faltered for a moment. "The king has been giving me a hard time."
"Want to talk about it?" queried Bunnie. I let out a long sigh, and collapsed over the kitchen table like a dirty cloth. "He doesn't seem to realize he's been gone for the past ten years," I muttered. "I've been winging it up to this point."
"Whatcha mean sugh?" asked Bunnie. She placed her soft hand on my shoulder.
"I don't know where to begin."
"Start slow…what's he doing?"
"He tosses out demands and expects me to instantly 'get it.' But I was never taught how to be a princess."
"Let alone a queen," added Bunnie.
"Exactly. All I know about leadership, I learned from running the Freedom Fighters."
"An' under th' circumstances, you did a dang good job too."
"I wish I could tell him that," I whispered. "But I'd feel rude."
"Tell him you need time to adjust," said Bunnie. "It's just been us youngsters up tah this point."
"He doesn't get that. He acts as though I'm willfully rebelling." I stared directly into Bunnie's eyes. "He doesn't understand there's nothing I'd hate more." As the statement passed my lips, I noticed a tone of exasperation in my voice. I realized that I sounded helpless, and I winced a little.
"D'you think that has anything to do with Sugah-hog?" continued Bunnie. I turned my attention back to her. "Sonic is quite the troublemaker," I replied quietly.
"King Acorn don't take too kindly t'that," said Bunnie. "Maybe he thinks you've been swayed by him?"
"You could be right," I realized. "He's almost treating me as if I am Sonic. But I'm not; I'd give anything to be the daughter he wants." Exhausted, I rested my face in my hands. "I could tell you so many stories about how hard I've tried to please him."
"I kin listen," Bunnie said sincerely. She rubbed my neck with her good hand, and I smiled. It was so sweet of her; I could tell she genuinely cared. "Y'want me to make you a cuppa tea while you tell me?"
"That'd be dreamy," I smiled, when a pang of guilt nipped at my heart. "But don't get up. You put yourself out enough tonight with Tails. I'll handle the kettle." The moment I arose, the front door swung open. A flash of blue dashed in. Behind me, a familiarly nasal voice screamed "FIRE!" and I nearly leapt out of my fur. "Sonic!" I hissed grumpily, while he only laughed. "What's the matter Sal?" Sonic grinned. "I'm just having a little fun with you."
"I told you I've been on edge," I replied. "That wasn't funny."
"Aw, learn to take a joke," declared Sonic. "You don't have to run everywhere with your shoulders hunched up!"
Meanwhile, the door to Tails' room opened. Half asleep, he fumbled into the hallway. "Is it morning already?" he asked groggily, and rubbed his eyes.
"Look what you done!" exclaimed Bunnie crossly. She approached Tails and scooped him up. Within moments, she gently rocked him back and forth as she returned him into his room. "Outta be ashamed o' yo'self," Bunnie muttered to Sonic. With her hind leg, she shut Tails' bedroom door behind her.
Sonic grinned, and looked defiantly toward me. "You better not write me up for this," he smiled. "C'mon! Be a pal, Sal!"
"When was the last time I wrote you up Sonic?"
"Nearly the second Max returned," replied Sonic. "With Naugus I might add. Who I was not banking on finding a way outta playing scrabble with your dad for eternity."
"I was," I scowled. "At least to save Dadd…to save the king," I corrected myself as Sonic rolled his eyes. "Also, you were really troubled that the war wasn't over. You were running around breaking things! I was scared you'd hurt yourself. I couldn't help you, and that was just the one time. Why won't you quit bringing it up?"
"Because once is more than enough."
"You write us up more than anyone!" I protested.
"That's different; you guys have been treating me like dirt lately."
"What do you expect Sonic?" I said. "You flip out at the drop of a hat."
"Thanks Sally. There's nothing royalty enjoys more than uncovering the inadequacies of the little people, eh?"
"You're one to talk," I exhaled.
"At least one of us is," said Sonic sarcastically. "You're on monitor duty all the time now. Why'r you avoiding me?"
"Well, you've been giving me negative energy."
"I have, or Daddy has?"
I was about to reply, when icy night air filled the room. I pulled my waistcoat tighter, and turned toward the cold. Sonic had left the door ajar, and a gust of wind blew it wide open. I watched spitefully as an insect crawled |
Whipple demonstrated by these women’s self-reports as well as their significant increase in heart rate, blood pressure, pupil diameter and pain thresholds that they had experienced touchless orgasm.
“There was no difference in their orgasm from genital self-stimulation compared to orgasm from imagery alone,” she says.
Whipple also has proved, working alongside Barry Komisaruk, that women with complete spinal injury can experience orgasm. “The books said no, it can’t be,” she recalls. “Colleagues said, ‘No, it can’t be.’ ”
She and Komisaruk invited the paraplegic women into their lab. One in particular, who had not touched herself in the two years since her injury, had 16 orgasms in 12 minutes. “She was told that she couldn’t,” Whipple says, “She was crying and I was crying.”
Most recently, Whipple has been working with women who suffer from persistent genital arousal disorder. It is a disorder that leaves its victims in a constant state of arousal that no amount of orgasms can relieve.
Whipple and Komisaruk plan to help these women by having them undergo biofeedback in fMRI machines.
“They can look at their brain and see the parts that are activated and then turn them down,” she says.
Among her other major projects is investigating interesting leads. Recently she interviewed a man who said he could talk women to orgasm.
“It wasn’t good,” she says, disappointed. "The subjects he talked to were women who could already orgasm through imagery. So we still don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Besides the research, the plight of a famous sexuality researcher also means listening to strangers’ personal stories. “One woman told me that her husband was on Viagra but it didn’t work. So I said, ‘What kind of stimulation do you use?’ and she said, ‘Oh, you mean I have to touch it?’ ”
Whipple has been married for 48 years to a retired rocket scientist, whom she met when she was 16 years old. She and Jim had been watching “Peter Pan” at a Jersey Shore drive-in in adjacent cars.
When asked how all the research has affected her own sex life, she deftly dodges the question. “Our bedroom is not my laboratory.”
Though she’s shy to speak of her own experiences, Whipple makes it no mystery that intimacy is a top concern. She says sexual expression with a partner has been correlated with a lot of health benefits: more-youthful looks, longer lives, an increase in the immune system and decrease in the chances of breast cancer and heart attack.
“Pleasure is very important,” she says. “Think of the opposite: pain and war.”
Whipple gives workshops around the world, helping couples communicate and discover their own unique pleasure zones. “People often think, ‘My partner should know what I like. I shouldn’t have to tell them,’ ” she says. “But some people like chocolate ice cream and some like vanilla ice cream. We can’t be expected to be the same.”
To help people talk about pleasure, Whipple, along with Ogden, developed a grid called the extragenital matrix. It matches 15 types of touch with 35 parts of the body to help couples discover what gives them pleasure.
“I can’t stand (it) if anyone blows in my ear, even if Jim comes to whisper, but if he sucks on my big toe, that’s like a plus 12,” she says, “I wouldn’t know if we didn’t map our bodies.”
In her latest book, “The Orgasm Answer Guide,” a collaboration among four researchers, Whipple purposefully alludes to orgasm as something to “experience,” not to “reach” or “achieve.”
“When you focus on a goal, you are going to miss a lot of pleasure along the way,” she says.
In other words, the woman who brought us the G-spot — still with pleasure on her mind — is pushing us to appreciate the more obvious pleasures in life.
“Sometimes holding hands can be the most wonderful satisfying feeling in the world.”DOT Opens Greenpoint Ave Bridge Bike Lanes — Now With Flex-Posts
DOT staff led a celebratory ride on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge over Newtown Creek this morning to mark the completion of new bike lanes between Brooklyn and Queens.
The lanes provide safer passage on what had been a nerve-wracking crossing next to fast-moving traffic and lots of trucks. The project was first proposed in 2010 and revived earlier this year in a modified plan that called for curbside buffered bike lanes. Cyclists this morning discovered the final project has an extra bit of protection from traffic on the bridge: DOT has added plastic bollards to keep drivers out of the bikeway.
On the Brooklyn side, the bridge connects to reconfigured bike lanes on Greenpoint Avenue. On the Queens side, sharrows are being added as part of a separate project.
Now, attention shifts to the other bike project linking Brooklyn and Queens: the long-awaited Pulaski Bridge bikeway. The early stages of construction have begun on that project, which involves more heavy-duty roadwork than the Greenpoint Avenue bike lanes. It’s set to open by the end of this year.November 19, 2012 Winter 2011-2012: Big Swings for California, Northwest
By By Heather Buchman, Meteorologist November 19, 2012, 4:41:40 AM EST
NOTE: This forecast was published in October 2011; see our full-length 2012-2013 AccuWeather.com Winter Forecast for the latest information.
Apart from the Southwest, people across the western United States can expect large swings in weather conditions throughout the winter, according to the AccuWeather.com Long-Range Forecasting Team.
December is likely to feature above-normal warmth across much of the entire West. However, from late December into January, the team expects a transition where cold fronts will drop farther south along the West Coast, reaching northern and central California. This transition should bring temperatures back near normal, away from the interior Southwest.
The famed "Pineapple Express," a phenomenon that occurs when a strong, persistent flow of tropical moisture sets up from the Hawaiian Islands to the West Coast of the U.S., could develop for a time this winter. This phenomenon often leads to excessive rain and incredible snow events.
"Last year, California was hit hard when the Pineapple Express set up from Dec. 17-22, producing massive flooding and 13 feet of snow in the Sierra," Pastelok explained. "The Pineapple Express could develop for a period this winter and take aim at northern and central California. That could lead to monster snowfall and heavy valley rain with the risk of flooding and mudslides."
Snowfall is forecast to average out near or slightly above normal in the northern and central Sierra this year, depending on where the Pineapple Express sets up.
Above-normal rain and snowfall are also possible in the northern Rockies in January and in areas farther south and west during February.
Seattle and Portland are forecast to have a fairly typical winter with precipitation averaging out near normal. However, it will be a wet start to the season and frigid end. Near- to slightly above-average snowfall is expected in the Cascades.
Cold air focused over the northern Plains, Midwest and Great Lakes throughout the winter will likely spread farther west into the northern Rockies in January and February, though the worst of the cold for this region will last from February into March.
Winter Forecast for Southern California
Full AccuWeather.com Winter 2011-2012 Forecast
Report a TypoSix months ago, it looked like Armenia had made a final, definitive choice to align itself with Russia rather than the European Union.
But now the government in Yerevan seems to be reaching out to Brussels again and seeking something like the kind of Association Agreement that it abandoned nearly two years ago – and officials insist that Moscow is comfortable with this.
Armenia’s renewed interest in closer relations with the European Union was reflected by President Serzh Sargsyan’s presence at the May 20-21 European Partnership summit in Riga, also attended by the leaders of other former Soviet states like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
This followed a meeting Sargsyan held in March with the European neighbourhood policy and enlargement commissioner, Johannes Hahn. After that meeting in Yerevan, Hahn said the EU and Armenia had completed a joint “scoping exercise” to identify potential areas for cooperation. He said the EU was working towards a deal that would include “special terms for cooperation”.
When Sargsyan announced that Armenia wanted to join the Moscow-led Customs Union in September 2013, EU officials made it clear the trade terms and tariffs of the two blocs were incompatible. After years of work, the draft Association Agreement with the EU was thus shelved. In January 2015, Armenia joined the Eurasian Economic Union, a bloc with a broader remit established last year, incorporating the old Customs Union. Apart from Armenia, the Eurasian union’s members are Russia, Belarus, Kazakstan, and since May, Kyrgyzstan. (See Armenia Seeks New Deal With EU.)
In an increasingly polarised region where Russia has been seeking support from its neighbours on Ukraine and Western sanctions, Armenia – historically a close ally of Moscow and now part of its Eurasian project – would be the last country one would expect to waver.
But Armenian foreign policy officials say there is no discrepancy, and that Moscow is fully aware of what and is quite content with the policy. Many quote Deputy Foreign Minister Karen Nazaryan, who told parliament recently that “we have held discussions with the Russians about Armenia cooperating with European institutions. The Russians have no negative views on this.”
“Our relations with the EU are not directed against other countries,” Nazaryan added.
For its part, the EU seems to have accepted that some European Partnership countries are keener than others to build strong relationships. Now the talk is of tailoring what was once a standardised approach to fit the needs and wishes of each state. The final declaration from the Riga summit said that each participating state had a right to “choose the level of ambition and goals to which it aspires in its relations with the European Union”.
“The idea of a differentiated approach was there in negotiations even before the Riga summit,” Poland’s ambassador to Armenia, Jerzy Marek Nowakowski, told IWPR. “If a given partner cannot fully engage in the process for some reason or another, then it can cooperate in just some areas of EU engagement.”
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan says the areas of cooperation now under discussion include education, science, research, people-to-people contacts, and preferential trade terms. Speaking at an “informal dialogue” of European Partnership ministers in Minsk on June 29, he said Armenia wanted to be part of the EU’s COSME programme, aimed at boosting small and medium-sized businesses, and Horizon 2020, an 80 billion euro research and innovation fund.
Deputy Economy Minister Garegin Melkonyan said recently that the final agreement would consist of sections of the Partnership Agreement finalised in 2013, with other parts such as customs and free-trade arrangements removed to reflect the country’s Eurasian union commitments.
“Of course, not all areas can be included given that Armenia has undertaken certain obligations within the Eurasian Economic Union framework,” he said.
Current negotiations are still informal as the European Commission has not yet authorised EU officials to begin formal talks.
Melkonyan said Armenia’s Eurasian bloc partners were being kept up to date on where things stood with the EU. “That’s the normal way to proceed,” he said. “It’s the same in the EU, whose members can’t sign free-trade agreements with other countries on their own.”
He said Armenia was already in a unique position as the only Eurasian bloc member that is part of the GSP+ scheme, under which the EU gives “vulnerable developing countries” preferential access to its markets.
Some experts say that since Armenia is not in a position to increase its exports under GSP+ at the moment, there is little reason to expect that it will.
“Signing an agreement with the EU, or even having preferential trade terms with it, isn’t enough to mean that Armenian goods will storm the European market,” Mikael Melkumyan, an economist and member of parliament for the opposition Prosperous Armenian party, told IWPR. “Moreover, the EU is currently trying to open up new markets for its own goods, and is reducing the euro’s exchange rate to do this.
Alexander Petrosyan, a parliamentarian with the ruling Republic Party who also owns a wine and brandy factory, points to broader problems facing exporters.
“The EU market is effectively open to us, but we have problems with meeting their standards, exporting the large volumes required, and most important, establishing ourselves in the market,” Petrosyan told IWPR. “It’s a fairly capricious and brand-heavy market, and one that our manufacturers don’t know well. It takes colossal sums of money and a long period of time spent doing the right marketing just to get established in the market.”
Arshaluis Mgdesyan is a freelance journalist in Armenia.Project Gutenberg's The Curiosities of Heraldry, by Mark Antony Lower This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Curiosities of Heraldry Author: Mark Antony Lower Release Date: February 22, 2012 [EBook #38951] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CURIOSITIES OF HERALDRY *** Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
THE
CURIOSITIES OF HERALDRY.
WITH
Illustrations from Old English Writers.
BY
MARK ANTONY LOWER,
AUTHOR OF “ENGLISH SURNAMES,” ETC.
WITH NUMEROUS WOOD ENGRAVINGS,
From Designs by the Author.
LONDON:
JOHN RUSSELL SMITH,
4, OLD COMPTON STREET, SOHO.
MDCCCXLV.
C. AND J. ADLARD, PRINTERS, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.
[Pg iii]
PREFACE.
Little need be said to the lover of antiquity in commendation of the subject of this volume; and I take it for granted that every one who reads the history of the Middle Ages in a right spirit will readily acknowledge that Heraldry, as a system, is by no means so contemptible a thing as the mere utilitarian considers it to be. Yet, notwithstanding, how few are there who have even a partial acquaintance with its principles. To how many, even of those who find pleasure in archæological pursuits, does the charge apply:
“—neque enim clypei cælamina norit.”
Two hundred years ago, when the study of armory was much more cultivated than at present, this general ignorance of our ‘noble science’ called forth the [Pg iv]censure of its admirers. Master Ri. Brathwait, lamenting it, says of some of his contemporaries:
“They weare theire grandsire’s signet on their thumb,
Yet aske them whence their crest is, they are mum;”
and adds:
“Who weare gay coats, but can no coat deblaze,
Display’d for gulls, may bear gules in their face!” [1]
This invective is perhaps a little too severe, yet it is mildness itself when compared with that of Ranulphus Holme, son of the author of the ‘Academy of Armory,’ who declares that unless the reader assents to what is contained in his father’s book he is
“neither Art’s nor Learning’s friend,
But an ignorant, empty, brainless sot,
Whose chiefest study is the can and pot!”
Now, though I would by no means place the objector to Heraldry upon the same bench with the devotee of Bacchus, nor even upon the stool of the dunce, yet I hope to make it appear that the study is worthy of more attention than is generally conceded to it. [2] At the same time I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not over-rate its importance. “The benefit arising from different pursuits will differ, of course, in[Pg v] degree, but nothing that exercises the intellect can be useless, and in this spirit it may be possible to study even conchology without degradation.”
Many persons regard arms as nothing more than a set of uncouth and unintelligible emblems by which families are distinguished from one another; the language by which they are described as an antiquated “jargon;” and both as little worthy of an hour’s examination as astrology, alchemy or palmistry. This is a mistake; and such individuals are guilty, however unintentionally, of a great injustice to a lordly, poetical, and useful science.
That Heraldry is a lordly science none will deny; that it is also a poetical science I shall shortly attempt to prove; but there are some sour spirits who know not how to dissever the idea of lordliness from that of tyranny, and who “thank the gods for not having made them poetical.” These, therefore, will be no recommendations of our subject to such readers; but should I be able to show that it is a useful science, what objections can those cavillers then raise?
I purpose to give a short dissertation on the utility of Heraldry, but first let me say a few words on the poetry of the subject. Do not the ‘Lion of England,’ the ‘Red-Cross Banner,’ the ‘White and Red Roses,’ the ‘Shamrock of Ireland,’ and ‘Scotia’s barbed Thistle’ occupy a place in the breast of every patriot? and what are they but highly poetical expressions? Do not the poetry of Chaucer and Spenser and Shakspeare, not to mention our old heroic ballads and the pleasant legends[Pg vi] of a Scott, abound with heraldrical allusions? Tasso is minute, though inaccurate, in the description of the banners of his Christian heroes; he was far from despising blazon as a poetical accessory. And, lastly, see how nobly the stately Drayton makes the ‘jargon’ of Heraldry chime in with his glorious numbers:
“Upon his surcoat valiant Neville bore
A SILVER SALTIRE upon martial red;
A LADIE’S SLEEVE high-spirited Hastings wore;
Ferrers his tabard with rich VAIRY spred,
Well known in many a warlike match before;
A RAVEN sate on Corbet’s armed head;
And Culpeper in SILVER ARMS enrailed
Bore thereupon a BLOODIE BEND ENGRAILED;
The noble Percie in that dreadful day
With a BRIGHT CRESCENT in his guidhomme came;
In his WHITE CORNET Verdon doth display
A FRET OF GULES,” &c.
Barons’ War, B. 1, 22, 23.
I now proceed to show that Heraldry is a useful science. It has already been said that nothing which calls into exercise the intellectual powers can be useless. But it may be said that there is an abundance of studies calculated more profitably to exercise them. Granted: but it should be remembered that, as there is a great diversity of tastes, so there is a great disparity in the mental capacities of mankind. Heraldry may therefore be recommended as a study to those who are not qualified to grasp more profound subjects, and as a source of amusement to those who wish to relieve their[Pg vii] minds in the intervals of graver and more important pursuits. To either class a very brief study will give an insight into the theory of heraldry, and a competent knowledge of the terms it employs.
The nomenclature of Heraldry is somewhat repulsive to those who casually look into a treatise on the subject, and often deters even the unprejudiced from entering upon the study; but what science is there that is not in a greater or less degree liable to the same objection?
A recent writer observes: “The language of Heraldry is occasionally barbarous in sound and appearance, but it is always peculiarly expressive; and a practice which involves habitual conciseness and precision in their utmost attainable degree, and in which tautology is viewed as fatally detrimental, may insensibly benefit the student on other more important occasions.” [3]
But Heraldry is useful on higher grounds than these, and particularly as an aid to the right understanding of that important period of the history of Christendom, the reign of feudalism. An eminent French writer, Victor Hugo, declares that “for him who can decipher it, Heraldry is an algebra, a language. The whole history of the second half of the middle ages is written in blazon, as that of the preceding period is in the[Pg viii] symbolism of the Roman church.” To the student of history, then, Heraldry is far from useless.
The sculptured stone or the emblazoned shield often speaks when the written records of history are silent. A grotesque carving of coat or badge in the spandrel of some old church-door, or over the portal of a decayed mansion, often points out the stock of the otherwise forgotten patron or lord. “A dim-looking pane in an oriel window, or a discoloured coat in the dexter corner of an old Holbein may give not only the name of the benefactor or the portrait, but also identify him personally by showing his relation to the head of the house, his connexions and alliances.” [4] The antiquary and the local historian, then, possess in Heraldry a valuable key to many a secret of other times.
To the genealogist a knowledge of Heraldry is indispensable. Coats of arms in church windows, on the walls, upon tombs, and especially on seals, are documents of great value. Many persons of the same name can now only be classed with their proper families by an inspection of the arms they bore. In Wales, where the number of surnames is very limited, families are much better recognized by their arms than by their names. [5]
The painter, in representing the gaudy scenes of the courts and camps of other days, can by no means dispense with a knowledge of our science; and the architect[Pg ix] who should attempt to raise some stately Gothic fane, omitting the well-carved shield, the heraldric corbel, and the blazoned grandeur of
“rich windows that exclude the light,”
would inevitably fail to impart to his work one of the greatest charms possessed by that noblest of all styles of building, and produce a meagre, soulless, abortion! Heraldry is, then, in the eyes of every man of any pretensions to taste, a useful, because an indispensable, science.
Now for an argument far stronger than all: Heraldry has been known to further the ends of justice. “I know three families,” says Garter Bigland, “who have acquired estates by virtue of preserving the arms and escutcheons of their ancestors.” I repeat, therefore, without the fear of contradiction, that Heraldry is a useful science. Q. E. D.
With respect to the sheets now submitted to the reader a few observations may be necessary. In the first place, I wish it to be understood that I have avoided, as much as possible, the technicalities of blazon: it was not my wish to supersede (even had I been competent to do so) the various excellent treatises on the subject already extant. The sole motive I entertained in writing this volume was a desire to render the science of Heraldry more intelligible to the general reader, and to present it in aspects more interesting and attractive than those writers can possibly[Pg x] do who treat of blazon merely as an art, and to make him acquainted with its origin and progress by means of brief historical and biographical sketches, and by inquiries into the derivation and meaning of armorial figures. In such an antient and well-explored field there has been but little scope for original discovery; but if I have succeeded in concentrating, and placing in a somewhat new light, old and well-known truths, my labour has not been lost, and my wish to render popular a too-much neglected study has been in some measure realized.
The references at the foot of nearly every page render acknowledgments to the authors whose works I have consulted almost unnecessary. It is, however, but justice to confess my obligations to Dallaway and Montagu for the general subject, to Noble for the notices of the heralds, and to Moule for the bibliography. For the illustrations and extracts I am principally indebted to the Boke of St. Albans, Leigh, Bossewell, Ferne, Guillim, Morgan, Randle Holme, and nearly all the writers of the antient school; whose works are rarely met with in an ordinary course of reading. From all these, both antient and modern, it has been my aim to select such points as appeared likely to interest both those who have some acquaintance with the subject and those who are confessedly ignorant of it.
Besides the authors of acknowledged reputation named above, I have consulted many others of comparatively little importance and value, convinced with[Pg xi] Pliny, “nullum esse librum tam malum ut non aliquâ parte posset prodesse.” Should a small proportion only of the reading public peruse my ‘Curiosities of Heraldry’ on the same principle, I shall not want readers!
My thanks are due to William Courthope, Esq. Rouge-Croix pursuivant of arms, for several obliging communications from the records of the Heralds’ Office, as well as for the great courtesy and promptitude with which he has invariably attended to every request I have had occasion to make during the progress of the work.
For the notice of the interesting relic discovered at Lewes (Appendix E), I am indebted to the kindness of W. H. Blaauw, Esq., M.A., author of the ‘Barons’ War,’ some remarks from whom on the subject were read at the late meeting of the Archæological Association at Canterbury, where the relic itself was exhibited.
The reader is requested to view the simple designs which illustrate these pages with all the candour with which an amateur draughtsman is usually indulged. Every fault they exhibit belongs only to myself, not to Mr. Vasey, the engraver, who, unlike Sir John Ferne’s artist, [6] must be acknowledged to have “done his duety” in a very creditable manner.
[Pg xii]It is not unlikely that I may be called upon to justify the orthography of several words of frequent occurrence in this work. I will therefore anticipate criticism by a remark or two, premising that I am too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of antiquarianism to make innovations without good and sufficient reason. The words to which I allude are antient, lyon, escocheon, and, particularly, heraldric. The first three cannot be regarded as innovations, as they were in use centuries ago. For ‘antient,’ apology is scarcely necessary, as many standard writers have used it; and it must be admitted to be quite as much like the low Latin antianus as ancient is. ‘Lyon’ looks picturesque, and seems to be in better keeping with the form in which the monarch of the forest is pourtrayed in heraldry than the modern spelling: an antiquarian predilection is all that I can urge in its defence. I would never employ it except in heraldry. ‘Escocheon’ is used by many modern writers on heraldry in preference to escutcheon, not only as a more elegant orthography, but as a closer approximation to the French écusson, from which it is derived.
For ‘HERALDRIC’ more lengthened arguments may be deemed necessary, as I am not aware that it occurs in any English dictionary. This adjective is almost invariably spelt without the R—heraldic; and that orthography, though sometimes correct, is still oftener false. I contend that two spellings are necessary,[Pg xiii] because two totally different words are required in different senses,—to wit,
I. Heraldic, belonging to a herald; and II. Heraldric, belonging to heraldry.
I will illustrate the distinction by an example or two.
(I) “The office of Garter is the ‘ne plus ultra’ of heraldic ambition,” i. e., it is the height of the herald’s ambition ultimately to arrive at that honour. The word here has no relation whatever to proficiency in the science of coat-armour or heraldry, since it is possible that a herald or pursuivant may entertain the desire of gaining the post, causâ honoris, without any particular predilection for the study. Again,
“Queen Elizabeth was a staunch defender of heraldic prerogatives;” in other words, she defended the rights and privileges of her officers of arms; not the prerogatives of coats of arms, for to what prerogatives can painted ensigns lay claim?
(II) “A. B. is engaged in heraldric pursuits;” that is, in the study of armorial bearings; not in the pursuits of a herald, which consist in the proclamation of peace or war, the attendance on state ceremonials, the granting of arms, &c. To say that A. B., who has no official connexion with the College of Arms, is a herald, would be an obvious misnomer, although he may be quite equal in heraldrical skill to any gentleman of the tabard.
“The so-called arms of the town of Guildford have[Pg xiv] nothing heraldric about them,” that is, they are not framed in accordance with the laws of blazon. To say that they are not heraldic, would be to say that they do not declare war, attend coronations, wear a tabard, or perform any of the functions of a herald—a gross absurdity.
A literary friend, who objects to my reasoning, thinks that the one word, heraldic, answers every purpose for both applications. That it has done so, heretofore, is not certainly a reason why it should after the distinction has been pointed out. Besides, my doctrine is not unsupported by analogy. We have a case precisely parallel in the words monarchal and monarchical; and he who would charge me with innovation must, to be consistent with himself, expunge monarchical from his dictionary as a useless word.
Lewes; Dec. 1844.
[Pg xv]
Contents.
CHAP. PAGE I. THE FABULOUS HISTORY OF HERALDRY 1 II THE AUTHENTIC HISTORY OF HERALDRY 15 III RATIONALE OF THE FIGURES EMPLOYED IN HERALDRY 49 IV THE CHIMERICAL FIGURES OF HERALDRY 89 V THE LANGUAGE OF ARMS 105 VI ALLUSIVE ARMS—ARMES PARLANTES 119 VII CRESTS, SUPPORTERS, BADGES, etc. 133 VIII HERALDRIC MOTTOES 151 IX HISTORICAL ARMS—AUGMENTATIONS 161 X DISTINCTIONS OF RANK AND HONOUR 197 XI HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE COLLEGE OF ARMS 219 XII BRIEF NOTICES OF DISTINGUISHED HERALDS AND
HERALDRIC WRITERS, WITH QUOTATIONS FROM
THEIR WORKS 245 XIII GENEALOGY 281 [Pg xvi] Appendix. A ON DIFFERENCES IN ARMS, NOW FIRST PRINTED
FROM A MS. BY SIR EDWARD DERING, BART. 297 B THE ANTIENT PRACTICE OF BORROWING ARMORIAL
ENSIGNS ILLUSTRATED FROM THE ARMS OF CORNISH
FAMILIES 309 C ABATEMENTS 313 D GRANT OF ARMS TEMP. EDW. III. 315 E NOTICE OF AN ANTIENT STEELYARD WEIGHT
DISCOVERED AT LEWES 317
Errata.
Page 15, line 6, for pays? read pays! 20, — 15, for preterea read præterea.
The distinction between the supports and tenans of French heraldry made at page 144 is erroneous. The true distinction is that human figures and angels, when employed to support the shield, are called tenans, while quadrupeds, fishes, or birds engaged in the same duty are styled supports.
[Pg 1]
THE
CURIOSITIES OF HERALDRY.
CHAPTER I.
Fabulous History of Heraldry.
“You had a maister that hath fetched the beginning of Gentry from Adam, and of Knighthood from Olybion.” Ferne’s Blazon of Gentrie. “Gardons nous de mêler le douteux an certain, et le chimérique avec le vrai.” Voltaire, Essai sur les Mœurs.
ntiquity has, in a greater or less degree, charms for all; and it is supposed to stamp such a value on things as nothing else can confer. This feeling, unexceptionable in itself, is liable to great abuse; especially in relation to historical matters. In States and in Families, Antiquity implies greatness,[Pg 2] strength, and those other attributes which command veneration and respect. Hence the first historians of nations have uniformly endeavoured to carry up their annals to periods far beyond the limits of probability, thus rendering the earlier portions of their works a tissue of absurdity deduced from the misty regions of tradition, conjecture, and song. [7]
This reverence for antiquity has extended itself to genealogists, and to those who have recorded the history of sciences and inventions. Thus has it been with the earliest writers on Heraldry, a system totally unknown till within the last thousand years; but which in the fancies of its zealous admirers has been presumed to have existed, not merely in the first ages of the world, but at a period
“Ere Nature was, or Adam’s dust
Was fashioned to a man!”
We are gravely assured by a writer of the fifteenth century that heraldric ensigns were primarily borne by the ‘hierarchy of the skies,’ “At hevyn,” says the author of the Boke of St. Albans, “I will begin; where were V orderis of aungelis, and now stand but IV, in cote armoris of knawlege, encrowned ful hye with precious stones, where Lucifer with mylionys of aungelis, owt of hevyn fell into hell and odyr[Pg 3] places, and ben holdyn ther in bondage; and all [the remaining angels] were erected in hevyn of gentill nature!”
Thus, in one short sentence, the origin both of nobility and of its external symbols is summarily disposed of. When proofs are not to be adduced, how can we regret that it is no longer?
But to descend a little lower, let us quote again the poetical language of this indisputable authority: “Adam, the begynnyng of mankind, was as a stocke unsprayed and unfloreshed,”—having neither boughs nor leaves—“and in the braunches is knowledge wich is rotun and wich is grene;” that is, if I rightly understand it, (for poetry is not always quite intelligible,) both the gentle and the ungentle, the earl and the churl, are descended from one progenitor; omnes communem parentem habent; a truth which, it is presumed, will not be called in question.
The gentility of the great ancestor of our race is stoutly contended for, and, that his claim to that distinction might not want support, Morgan, an enthusiastic armorist of the seventeenth century, has assigned him two coats of arms; one as borne in Eden—when he neither used nor needed either coat for covering or arms for defence—and another suited to his condition after the fall. The first was a plain red shield, described in the language of modern heraldry as ‘gules,’ while the arms of Eve, a shield of white, or ‘argent,’ were borne upon it as an ‘escocheon of pretence,’ she being an heiress! The arms of Abel were, as a matter of course, those of his father and mother borne ‘quarterly,’ and ensigned with a crosier, like that of a bishop, to show that he was a ‘shepheard’ [8]
Sir John Ferne, a man of real erudition, was so far carried away by extravagant notions of the great antiquity of heraldric[Pg 4] insignia, as seriously to deduce the use of furs in heraldry from the ‘coats of skins’ which the Creator made for Adam and Eve after their transgression. This, independently of its absurdity, is an unfortunate idea; for coats of arms are as certainly marks of honour as these were badges of disgrace; and as Morgan says, ‘innocens was Adam’s best gentility.’ [9] The second coat of Adam, says this writer, was ‘paly tranche, divided every way and tinctured of every colour.’ Cain, also, after his fall, changed his armorials “by ingrailing and indented lines—to show, as the preacher saith, There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw-teeth as knives to devour the poor from the earth.” He was the first, it is added, who desired to have his arms changed—‘So God set a mark upon him!’ [10]
This ante-diluvian heraldry is expatiated upon by our author in a manner far too prolix for us to follow him through all his grave statements and learned proofs. I shall therefore only observe, en passant, that arms are assigned to the following personages, viz.: Jabal, the inventor of tents, Vert, a tent argent, (a white tent in a green field!) Jubal, the primeval musician, Azure, a harp, or, on a chief argent three rests gules; [11] Tubal-Cain, Sable, a hammer argent, crowned or,[Pg 5] and Naamah, his sister, the inventress of weaving, In a lozenge gules, a carding-comb argent.
Noah, according to the Boke of St. Albans, “came a gentilman by kynde... and had iij sonnys begetyn by kinde... yet in theys iij sonnys gentilness and ungentilnes was fow |
University community. I cannot begin to imagine what it is like to lose a young loved one like Dakota. “While this is not the outcome we had hoped for, I want to thank the tireless work of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, and other law enforcement agencies, to follow every lead and every piece of evidence in their attempts to find him.”
© 2019 Cox Media Group.Recently I was able to interview the creative team behind the Oni Press title ‘Invader Zim.’ It was like some kind of weird childhood wish fulfillment as I vividly recall growing up to the outlandish adventures of Zim and Gir. Since its cancellation, it’s no understatement that Invader Zim has really held its fanbase over the years. I recall that when I first heard this title was being launched, I immediately put it on my pull list. There was no way that I was going to pass up another chance to embrace one of my favorite childhood television shows. Thankfully, the team behind this comic and the folks at Oni Press have done a superb job at channeling that 90’s weirdness into this comic. They’ve perfectly captured the essence that is Zim in this comic along with the remainder of the cast as well. And this coming week features yet another installment, of hopefully many, with the release of issue #13 this Wednesday!
Eric Trueheart, Fred Stresing, Warren Wucinich:
GWW: What character did you enjoy the most bringing to life in the comics?
Eric: I really can’t say I have a favorite. In my mind this group of weird cartoon individuals only exist in relation to each other, so I don’t think I can really pick out just one. They’re all about the interactions with each other. I think I’ve mostly enjoyed fleshing out Dib’s ridiculous personal universe of paranormal investigators and the dopey infighting that goes on. Or maybe the Tallest, and their uniquely horrible way of running things. See? You can’t pick just one.
Actually, it’s the Star Donkey. It’s all about the Star Donkey.
Fred: Typical answer, but it’s Zim and Dib for me. Zim is incredibly fun to color, he’s an alien with anger issues. He’s also an idiot. You get a lot of opportunities to color him doing something dumb and expressive. Also he has backpack lasers, which are always fun to render firing.
Dib may be more fun though, because he tends to end up in the worst situations in the issues I’ve worked on, such as being imprisoned next to the skeletal corpse of himself from the future. In the next issue, he gets [REDACTED] before being [REDACTED] into [REDACTED].
Warren: Dib. Mostly because I like to torture him. But I get excited every time the script calls for me to draw a character I haven’t drawn before. It’s especially exciting when it’s a character that hasn’t shown up in the comics yet.
GWW: Did you run into any roadblocks regarding copyright that may have influenced your ability to make creative choices?
Eric: Well, no, since Nickelodeon granted Oni full license to the entire INVADER ZIM property, we can pull anything from any ZIM show ever without any trouble. It’s not like they were trying to sneak out a ZIM comic without anyone noticing. They asked all the right people, and the right people patted them on the head and said, “Yes. You do that.” Sadly, they didn’t talk to DC Comics. I keep trying to write Aqualad into every story, and Oni keeps pulling him out.
Fred: For some reason Nickelodeon has been forthcoming with the rights to all the characters in the show but Invader Skoodge. Rumor is they’re planning a Spongebob crossover with him sometime in 2022 and don’t want to get the rights all tied up. But this is just a wild, unsubstantiated rumor that I heard someone make up once.
GWW: Similarly, I would imagine that you consulted, or worked closely, with Jhonen Vasquez. Depending on how much you worked with him, did it guide the creation of the comic and how did you feel it influenced its creation?
Eric: Jhonen has been “control brain” on all of the comics. I run all of my story pitches by him before I start writing, and he looks over every script when it’s done to see if it’s ZIMmish enough for his eyes. When people say the comic feels just like the show, it’s because Jhonen has sunk his mind-teeth into it. He wants the comic to be as good as the show was. Except with fewer pigs, and more Mini-Moose.
Fred: I mostly work with the editors, who work with Jhonen, so his comments are sort of passed down like a game of telephone. This probably explains why most of my edits end with the words “Purple Monkey Dishwasher.”
Warren: If by “worked closely” you mean “Jhonen would occasionally feed us gruel while we were chained to the drafting and writing tables in the basement” then yes. He’s a very benevolent overlord, actually.
Eric Trueheart:
GWW: Having read the series, and grown up with the show, you did an amazing job capturing the voice of the characters. While you did write the original series, did it prove at all challenging to bring back so many figures from the past?
Eric: Thanks! It was actually shockingly easy to get back in the rhythm of these characters. As I think about it, that’s kind of a scary thought. Maybe the ZIM characters live as viruses inside all of our brains, just waiting to be activated. But by what? And to what nefarious end??
ZIM’s dialogue took a little getting back into the groove. It’s easy to do ZIM badly. He’s subtler than people might think, and we promised ourselves we’d use the word “doom” as little as possible.
GWW: Since the original television series was cancelled, have you ever felt compelled to deliver something to the large fan base of the series that may not have received a proper ending from the show?
Eric: It sounds like you’re asking if we’re going to end the show in the comics. Are you asking that?? The answer is no! There will not be a final confrontation between Dib and ZIM resulting in the destruction of the entire galaxy. If we did that, we’d have to print blank issues for the rest of the run. Sure, that would be easier on all of us, but I don’t think they’d sell very well.
GWW: Similar to the prior question, has the fan base ever impacted how you’ve gone about your work?
Eric: Ummm… Not really?
I mean, sure, we’re respectful of the fan base, but we’re not planning to tie in every last piece of the universe together into an epic saga that only the fans will understand. So far we really just want to tell more weird and funny ZIM stories, with some experimental issues thrown in. We may start doing more mythology building as it goes along, or push the comics format a bit, but right now there aren’t plans for, say, a sequel to HOBO 13. (Or Tak stories No plans for Tak. Yet.)
But do fans want more “world building?” I don’t know. I’m asking you. But you can’t respond, because I’m typing this on my laptop and you’re hundreds of miles away. Oh well. At least I tried.
I think Jhonen would rather push the boundaries of what we can do in a comic than just cater to expectations, which is why Oni has published some of the artist-driven issues. They don’t look like the show, but that’s supposed to be part of the fun. The other part is complaining on internet fan boards about how they don’t look like the show. It’s a gift that keeps giving!
GWW: As the spiritual successor to the show, how has the enduring reputation of Invader Zim influenced your work on the title?
Eric: I’m… not sure what that means. I’ve tried to write stories as faithful to the original show, while also seeing what I can get away with in the comic medium. We have included Mini-Moose as a recurring character, so I guess that is officially picking up the mantle of the show and running with it, far down a long hallway, only the sound of muffled screams behind closed doors to remind us of our fate. I’m sorry, what was I talking about?
GWW: Having been a part of the original television show, what do you feel it is that has contributed to the lasting fandom surrounding Invader Zim across approximately thirteen years of no new content?
Eric: Well, for a start, it was a genuinely good show, if I do say so myself. We were lucky to have a convergence of artists and writers who really wanted to run amok in ways they couldn’t on other cartoons. On a lot of animated shows, the writers and artists are separated. They’re in different buildings, even. (That’s because people are worried they’ll interbreed and create a race of mutant animation babies that will destroy America… and then the world!)
On ZIM, we were all crunched into the same space, and we talked all the time. I would write things knowing full well they’d inspire a storyboard artist to go crazy with it. “Oh, Chris Graham is boarding this one? He’s gonna love this pig chase.” We also had actors who we knew we would take even a simple line and turn it into something hilarious. Jhonen had Richard Horvitz shout “My Tallest!” for a full minute and a half in the recording booth for BACKSEAT DRIVERS FROM BEYOND THE STARS, knowing it would be ridiculous. So yeah, it was a good show to begin with, which never hurts for getting fans.
But I think part of it is that we were cancelled before people got tired of us, or we got tired of ourselves. If ZIM had been limping into its seventh season, people would have just shrugged and said, “Oh yeah, is that still on?” The fact that we got cancelled early means people felt like they never got closure. We were a case of television interruptus. c.f. Firefly syndrome.
GWW: Finally, does having this comic provide you with an outlet for stories you may have wanted to tell but didn’t have the chance to on the show?
Eric: Yes! “Pants” (issue 8) was a “lost episode” that had been kicking around in the back of my head since we were cancelled, and I have no idea why. I pitched it a couple of times on the show, and ultimately it got shot down because there was a Jimmy Neutron special that also featured pants. “Sorry, we can’t have two pants stories on one network. Television will explode. Society will set itself on fire. People will run screaming in the streets, their eyes bleeding and their souls ripped open from the inside.”
Why did this stupid and ridiculous idea of an alien pants invasion stick with me for so long? I DON’T KNOW!! It makes no sense, but there you go.
Maybe it’s just more television interrupts.
Warren Wucinich and Fred Stresing:
GWW: Having read the series you two have done a great job capturing the style of the original television show. Considering you have about two seasons of material to draw upon, how did having something created prior help your creation of the comic?
Fred: Thanks for the kind words! The color palettes are all pretty well established in the show, so finding the right tones to fit story and mood is fairly easy. The only thing that sometimes trips me up is new characters, and finding the right colors that fit in this world can be a little challenging.
But for environments and mood lighting, etc, the show is a wealth of inspiration and reference. Sometimes I watch it while I color, and look at the previous issues for palette. It helps me get into the right mindset for the look and feel of the issue I’m doing.
Warren: Thanks! Having the show to look back on is wonderful. Even though the comic is, in many ways different, the show is still the backbone. Everything still starts there and having a strong knowledge of the show is essential.
GWW: Similarly, did having prior content maybe hinder your work on the title or limit any creative visions you may have had?
Fred: As a colorist, not really much is hindered. But I do get worried about whether a color I choose is spot-on enough, or if I am going too far with mood-lighting effecting a character’s color. Which is why I’m thankful for edits and notes!
GWW: How have you found the particular style of Invader Zim to mesh with your own artistic tastes? Has it taken you outside of your wheelhouse or do you feel that your own artistic abilities aligned well with what was already established?
Fred: The Invader Zim style lines up pretty well with my sensibilities. I’m always fond of weird sci-fi comedy, and this fits right in with that. I don’t have many projects where I get to color crazy spaceships zipping around the stars, which is always fun.
Warren: I think my style and tastes are already fairly similar to Zim, and I’d be lying if I said Jhonen’s early work on JTHM and SQUEE didn’t influence me way back when. But that being said, finding the right balance of style is pretty challenging. You don’t wan’t to copy what’s come before you, but you also don’t want to take your own style too far. It’s a bit of a balancing act but its great fun. It certainly pushes me, as an artist, to look at it all a little differently.
GWW: What have you enjoyed most about creating this title, and what has your experience been with the, quote-unquote, craziness of the Invader Zim universe?
Fred: The part I’ve enjoyed most about working on Invader Zim comics has been being able to help bring folks new stories for Invader Zim. It’s a real privilege to be able to work on a project like this, a cartoon revived in comics form that so many people who worked on the show are a part of.
As the newest member of the Invader Zim team, everyone has been super cool and welcoming. My experience has been a great one so far, and I can’t wait for everyone to read the next issues we have coming out soon!
Warren: Oh jeez, I dunno. At this point I’ve worked on the Zim comic as letterer, colorist, and now artist. And it’s all been fantastic (even the gruel!). But I think the warm, squishy, cheesy feelings I get working on something that is so beloved by so many is my favorite part.
GWW: In your experience, how has the fan based received your work? I, personally, think you both have done an amazing job capturing the essence of the original show, but what have fans thought more broadly?
Fred: Outside of one person dressed as Jareth from Labyrinth at a convention, people have been really enjoying the comics! Feedback has been super positive and I’m glad that so many folks are enjoying the books.
Warren: Wow! Thanks! I don’t usually like to read reviews while I’m working on a thing, but I certainly hope the fans like what we’re doing. If we can make the audience giggle then that’s good enough for me. But, you know, if they want to buy us nice things in appreciation, then well, who am I to say no?
Don’t forget to check out ‘Invader Zim’ #13 when it hits the shelves September 21st!A man has been arrested with two handguns at the Disneyland Paris amusement park complex, police have said.
A police source told the Reuters news agency the 28-year-old man of European origin was carrying the firearms in a suitcase and was stopped by security staff after the bag passed through an X-ray machine at the Hotel New York.
He was carrying ammunition and a copy of the Koran, the source added.
The man, who was reportedly unknown to police and the intelligence services, did not resist and was arrested by police at around noon local time, France Inter radio said.
A police source told the AFP news agency the man had a reservation at the hotel, and papers found on him indicated that he lived in Paris.
They added that there is no indication the incident was terrorism related so far, and that the man said he was carrying the guns because he feared for his safety.
Le Parisien newspaper said the man had booked a room for two people and his vehicle has been sealed off.
The suspect's partner fled after he was arrested and is reportedly still on the run.
A police source told AFP a woman who was believed to be the man's girlfriend was arrested, but was later released after police realised they had the wrong person.
Disneyland Paris spokesman Francois Banon said: "During a routine security screening checkpoint at one of our hotels, weapons were discovered in a guest's luggage through our X-ray machine.
"The police were immediately notified and the individual was arrested.
"We continue to work closely with the authorities, and the safety and security of our guests and cast members is our utmost priority."
The park, which carries out security checks at the entrance, remains open.
Employees at a number of hotels around the resort said they continued functioning as usual after the incident.
The resort is around 18 miles (30km) east of Paris and is the most visited theme park in Europe, with some 10 million visitors in 2014, according to the Global Attractions Attendance Report.
France remains in a state of emergency in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks in November that left 130 people dead.
Disneyland Paris was closed for a number of days after the attacks.Jacob Hall, the 6-year-old boy who was critically injured in a shooting at Townville Elementary School in South Carolina last week, has died in hospital.
The first-grader had sustained a brain injury in the shooting on Wednesday and was flown to Greenville Memorial Hospital’s Children’s Hospital, where his condition was critical throughout the rest of the week. Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore confirmed that he had died at 12:46 p.m. on Saturday.
His brother Gerald Gambrell called his sibling a “soldier” in a Facebook tribute.
He was one of three people shot on campus Wednesday. Teacher Meghan Hollingsworth and another 6-year-old boy were released from the hospital, but the bullet wound to Jacob’s thigh led to brain trauma due to massive blood loss, the New York Daily News reports.
His parents released a statement on Saturday that thanked first responders, WISTV reports.
“We appreciate the community’s support, especially the Townville Rescue Squad who treated Jacob onsite and brought him to the hospital,” said his parents, Rodger and Renae Hall. “We appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers and ask for privacy during this difficult time.”
The couple later issued a separate statement paying tribute to their son and his forgiving nature.
“We know that Jacob has already forgiven this child for what he did to him and his family because that’s the kind of child he was,” they said. “Jacob was sent to this Earth for this short a period of time to show us that there is such a thing as pure love. Jacob is in heaven with God now and everyone who loves him. Words cannot express how much we will miss him.”
Police charged a teen as a juvenile Friday on suspicion of opening fire on the campus Wednesday and killing his father, 47-year-old Jeffrey Osborne, in a home two miles away. He is charged with one count of murder and three of attempted murder. It wasn’t immediately clear whether police would lay fresh charges on Saturday.ALBANY -- PTSD is a qualifying condition for medical marijuana under a legislative package signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo Saturday.
The governor signed five pieces of legislation aimed at supporting veterans by improving health care and services. The package includes:
Adding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a qualifying condition in New York's medical marijuana program;
Providing combat veterans employed by the State with additional days of paid leave to obtain health services, counseling and access to other benefits;
Waiving the civil service examination fee for veterans who were honorably discharged;
Requiring the Department of State and Division of Military and Naval Affairs to maintain a public list of all not-for-profit corporations that solicit funds for the armed forces of the United States; and
Directing the Office of General Services to set aside a publicly accessible location within the State Capitol building for a POW/MIA chair and plaque to honor those veterans who have not yet returned home.
"Our veterans risked their lives in order to defend the ideals and principles that this nation was founded upon and it is our duty to do everything we can to support them when they return home," Governor Cuomo said. "From improving access to healthcare treatments and services, to removing barriers to employment, all five of these bills take important steps to ensure that veterans have every opportunity to continue succeeding when they return home."Police in central Pennsylvania say they found a suspected groper of a fast-food worker by following a trail of curly fries.
It started when a female employee at an Arby's in East Lampeter Township, Lancaster County, called police Wednesday night saying she was groped by a man as she handed over his order at the drive-thru window.
The employee gave police a description of the car, which was found outside a motel less than a mile away.
Authorities said they spotted a trail of Arby's curly fries and sauce from the vehicle to the room of 36-year-old James Cowan of Fitzgerald, Ga.
He was charged with a single count of indecent assault and released on bail pending a Nov. 1 hearing.
It couldn't be determined if he had an attorney.
More news from NBC10.com:
Copyright Associated Press / NBC 7 San DiegoSheffield is to get £18.3m from the government for its bus services over the next five years.
The city is the first to use the government's new funding system for buses, which means subsidies currently paid to operators will instead go to the local authority.
The subsidies will be topped up with an extra £1.6m a year from government.
The money will be spent on improvements to infrastructure, traffic control and bus information.
Transport minister Norman Baker said: "I am pleased Sheffield will become the first area to receive devolved funding under our new Better Bus Area initiative, which changes the traditional method of funding bus travel in a way designed to drive up performance and passenger numbers."
The South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive said they had worked with the city council and bus operators to put the bid together.Jahlil Okafor of the Philadelphia 76ers looks to pass against Jimmy Butler #21 of the Chicago Bulls. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
BOSTON (CBS) — The Boston Celtics suddenly have to turn to “Plan B” or even “Plan C” this offseason, now that their full-court press for free agent Kevin Durant came up short. But two popular trade targets for the team prior to the NBA Draft are reportedly still in play.
According to a column by Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald, sources have told him that, while Philadelphia big man Jahlil Okafor and Chicago Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler are “said to still be available,” the Celtics are still “holding the line” on the offers they made to teams before the draft and would make a trade if teams would agree to “their price.”
It’s unclear if that price ever included the No. 3 pick in the draft, which Philly and Chicago “coveted” to take point guard Kris Dunn but the Celtics ultimately used to select Jaylen Brown. Thus, acquiring either Butler or Okafor’s services “won’t be as easy” now that the pick has been used – perhaps impossible, now that the draft has passed.
Bulpett added that the Celtics “will have to get creative,” along with potential trade partners, but that they “may still be able to do business” for the likes of Butler or Okafor.NEW DELHI: BJP negotiators reached out to NCP chief Sharad Pawar and TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu over the presidential poll in a bid to enlarge a consensus over an NDA nominee.The outreach came even as speculation continued about the NDA’s likely choice with a news website suggesting that former Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan could be in consideration even though the possibility of a non-political selection is remote.BJP has not suggested any name so far, with party chief Amit Shah having said this will not be revealed prematurely.Urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu spoke to Pawar and will meet the veteran Maharashtra neta soon. It is understood that the TDP chief does not have a specific criteria and will be willing to consider any choice put forward by PM Narendra Modi BJP sources said Naidu and home minister Rajnath Singh are likely to seek suggestions from Congress chief Sonia Gandhi who they are scheduled to meet on Friday. “We would like to hear what the opposition is considering and keep that in the discussions on the presidential candidate,” a BJP member said.The talks have revealed room for consensus though Left parties remain opposed to any NDA nominee. Congress has reservations too, though its spokesperson said there is need for consensus.This may suggest that BJP needs to pick a choice acceptable to the opposition. Congress on Thursday said the party would prefer a consensus candidate and it would be good if the government understood the need for unanimity on the issue.AICC spokesperson Anand Sharma said, “Congress has tried to bring about a consensus on every important issue. But the picture is not yet clear on the issue of the presidential election.”Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
Coca-Cola plans to build its first factory in Gaza within the next year and already has secured Israeli permits for necessary materials and supplies to enter the Strip.
The man behind the sodapop venture in Gaza, Palestinian entrepreneur Zahi Khouri, a founder and the chairman of the Ramallah-based National Beverage Company solely licensed for Coca-Cola in the West Bank, spoke exclusively to The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
His company already operates Coca-Cola factories in Ramallah, Jericho and Tulkarm.“We’ve been shipping to Gaza on a regular basis with the approval of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli authorities,” Khouri said. “It made commercial sense to have a plant [in Gaza] so we could sell the product at a much a lower cost.”It’s more financially efficient and environmentally sound, he said, because bottles can be recycled and reused.Currently, there is only one soda factory in Gaza, according to the spokeswoman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories who said it produces 7-Up.Bringing Coca-Cola to Gaza will occur in two-phases, Khouri said.The first phase, which will become operational in the third quarter of 2015, will focus on carbonated beverages, while the second, pegged for late 2016 or early 2017, will expand to juices, water and other non-carbonated products.Each phase will comprise a $10 million investment, and the factory is expected to create 120 direct and 10 times as many indirect jobs, though Khouri believes direct jobs could number closer to 200.The factory will be located in an industrial area on the Gaza side of the former Karni crossing, which was closed in 2011 for security reasons. All the building material for the factory and Coca-Cola ingredients will enter Gaza through Kerem Shalom.The company, (whose shareholders include other Palestinian companies such as the Yosur Co., The Vegetable Oil Industries Co. and Coca-Cola Co. itself), made the decision to build in Gaza two years ago, Khouri said, but had to overcome numerous hurdles.“It had to get the approval of the Palestinian Authority, which through their official channels coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces,” he said.Despite the fact that it will operate a plant in Hamas-controlled Gaza, he continued, the Ramallah-based company will pay taxes only to the PA, thereby avoiding problems with terror- finance laws.In deciding to invest in Gaza, the company brushed aside the commercial risk of building in the small strip that has seen three devastating wars in the past six years.“Definitely the risk is there, but we are a bunch of optimistic investors, and I think Israel and the Palestinians have both learned their lesson that weapons do not solve anything,” Khouri said.With frequent checkpoint closures, however, bringing in necessary equipment and experts for the plant and then getting regular shipments of components such as concentrate and bottles will be an ongoing challenge.For Khouri, however, the Gaza plant will be more than a commercial venture.“This is something that’s extremely important if we want to talk about peace and coexistence. It’s about where business can contribute to peace – don’t talk to me about the word process, I mean actual peace – by creating jobs and facilitating the life of the private sector,” he said, adding, “The only enemy of extremism is good jobs.”For its part, Coca-Cola Co.invested $25m. into its Palestinian business in the past five years, according to the National Beverage Company. It also has sponsored a clean water project in Gaza with Mercy Corp.and featured soccer fans from Palestine in a viral World Cup promotion over the summer.Representatives from Coca-Cola Co. in Israel did not return requests for comment from the Post.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Kiwis travelling to the US will be asked to pay a $US10 ($14) fee to help fund a program to boost tourism - as well as the ailing US economy.
The fee will apply to the US "visa waiver" program that is mostly used by tourists and short-stay business travellers from 34 countries, including Australia and New Zealand.
Details of the fee appeared in the Travel Promotion Act, which Barack Obama signed into law late last week. The new impost is expected to raise about half the funds for a $US200 million ($285m, NZ) global "Come to America" campaign.
This is the first time the US has resorted to a government-sponsored international sales pitch similar to those used by other countries to win a bigger share of global tourism.
The campaign is expected to increase visitor numbers by an estimated 1.6 million travellers, while restoring a more relaxed and welcoming image of America in a security-conscious era.
However, travellers requiring a visa waiver will still be expected to apply before their travel dates to avoid being stopped from entering the US.
A senior vice-president of the US Travel Association, Geoff Freeman, has welcomed the campaign. "The perception of 'fortress America' has taken hold, partly because we haven't gone out and told people we want their business," he said. "And so we've had fewer overseas travellers every year since 9/11."
There were 2.4 million fewer international tourists visiting the US last year than in 2000. Its inability to keep pace with expanding global long-haul tourism is estimated to have cost it $US500 billion in lost revenues over the past decade.
Studies have suggested the campaign could bring in an extra $US4 billion in tourism spending a year, creating more than 40,000 jobs and trimming the federal deficit of the US by $US425 million over 10 years.
The campaign will be administered by a private sector committee which will be overseen by the Department of Commerce in accord with the departments of State and Homeland Security.
The US consulate was still uncertain about a timeframe for the scheme's implementation, saying a bank had not been found to handle processing of the fee.
''It hasn't been decided yet,'' the country consular co-ordinator, Thurmond Borden, said. ''I would say it would take three or four months before it takes effect.''
Almost 650,000 Australians used the program in the 2009 fiscal year - the 10th most frequent users of the scheme in the world.
- with Erik JensenHollywood's hottest unsigned TV showrunner is weighing interest from Sony, Warner Bros. and others as eight figures or a movie deal could tip the scale.
This story first appeared in the Aug. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Vince Gilligan has become Hollywood’s hottest unsigned TV showrunner. The Breaking Bad creator, who was under contract with Sony Pictures TV until recently wrapping his long-running AMC drama, now is a free agent -- and studios are lining up to become his next home. “They’re foaming at the mouth,” says one source, noting that it’s like nothing this person has seen.
Breaking Bad never has been a huge ratings hit, averaging fewer than 3 million viewers for the most recent fifth season, its most watched. But the critical success for the Bryan Cranston meth drama -- which recently earned a series-best 13 Emmy nominations -- and a cultlike following in Hollywood has turned Gilligan into a coveted prize.
PHOTOS: 'Breaking Bad': Cooking Up Season 5 On Set With Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan
It’s highly unlikely that Gilligan’s next creation will be tailored for a broadcast network, meaning certain studios — including highly motivated Universal TV — won’t make much sense for him. Far more likely is that he will ink another deal at Sony or will shift to deep-pocketed Warner Bros. TV. Sources suggest Gilligan also is seeking a film component in his next deal. He hasn’t been shy about his desire to direct a movie, noting that he helmed two consecutive episodes of Breaking Bad’s fourth season as a way to prepare: “Directing two hours of the show back-to-back and cross-boarding and block-shooting them seemed to me a pretty good dry run for doing a movie when this is all said and done,” he told THR in 2012. Already, his reps at ICM Partners are fielding calls about top movie projects, but thus far he hasn’t responded to the material.
To be sure, Warner Bros. comes with the potential for an eight-figure payday and the combination of acumen and power that has lured J.J. Abrams, Chuck Lorre and Greg Berlanti. But it’s not at all clear that a “TV factory” like Warners would be the best fit for Gilligan, who doesn’t churn out projects in the same way. Proof: Over the past half-decade, he has been singularly focused on Bad, for which he is particularly hands-on, while the latter trio rarely go a year without adding a show.
An overall deal at Sony would come with several advantages, the most obvious of which is history. Gilligan has long-standing relationships with the executives at the studio, both in TV and film. What’s more, if the Breaking Bad spinoff centered on Bob Odenkirk’s character Saul Goodman gets picked up to series, being at its studio certainly would simplify things. (While Gilligan would be an exec producer on the spinoff, Breaking Bad writer Peter Gould would be its showrunner.) “I really hope it happens,” Gilligan said recently. “It’s for powers bigger than me to figure out if it can come to fruition.”Arachnophobes look away now! Incredible footage shows the moment a spider ate a snake for breakfast
Australia has cemented its reputation as the home of the world's most dangerous creepy crawlies with this video of a spider eating a half a metre long snake.
Cairns kite surfer Ant Hadleigh filmed the golden orb spider devouring the brown tree snake in the backyard of a friend's house in Freshwater, Queensland.
He told The Cairns Post : 'I thought it was pretty incredible. A few times the snake managed to get up and attack the spider, and the spider would run back up the web.
'I would have put my money on the snake for sure, especially seeing how big it was.'
Scroll down to see video...
Disgusting: Ant Hadleigh filmed this golden orb spider devouring a brown tree snake in his friend's backyard
He said the snake stayed alive for 'an hour or more' after getting trapped in the spider's web, when it finally succumbed to the arachnid's venom.
The spider, he said, was the same one he'd seen eat a wasp the previous day after a battle between the two critters.
He added: 'You could see the spider just chewing into it and the part which the spider was eating had gone all black and the insides were bubbling. It was pretty crazy.'
'The wasp kept trying to sting it, and it (the spider) used its feet to push the stinger away every time.'
YouTube:Image copyright YouTube Image caption A video which falsely claims to "prove" the existence of fake plastic rice in the food supply
Despite little evidence that it's a widespread problem, rumours of "plastic" rice being sold in Africa and elsewhere persist on social media - driven in particular by viral videos which show bouncing rice balls.
The rumours spread over the last few weeks in Senegal, The Gambia and Ghana - and reached such a pitch that the Ghana Food and Drugs Authority decided to carry out an investigation.
They invited consumers and traders to submit samples of any rice brands they suspected of being made of plastic - and eventually concluded that there was no plastic rice being sold on the Ghanaian market.
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Originating in China, rumours on social media have circulated since about 2010 of plastic rice being manufactured and mixed in with the real rice supply in order to trick consumers. The rumours were originally prompted by "fake rice" scandals, although they didn't involve food made entirely out of plastic.
In one case, companies were passing off ordinary but edible rice as premium "Wuchang" grains. Then in 2011, reports emerged that rice was being produced with potatoes and an industrial sticky resin. The rumours were further compounded when a Chinese restaurant association official warned that eating three bowls of "plastic rice" was the equivalent of eating one plastic bag.
Image copyright YouTube Image caption Social media users are making videos fuelling the 'plastic rice' rumours
At no point, however, were there confirmed cases of large amounts of plastic chips being passed off as rice. "Plastic rice" is manufactured for use in shipping boxes, but it's likely that in most cases the cost of the chips would actually be more expensive than real rice.
The story had reached social media in Africa by 2016 when Nigerian customs authorities confiscated 2.5 tonnes of rice. Customs officials initially claimed that the rice was plastic - and were later forced to backtrack when the country's health minister said there was no evidence for the claims. Tests showed that the rice did however contain a high level of bacteria, Nigeria's National Agency For Food and Drugs said.
Image copyright YouTube
Bouncy rice
But rumours have persisted that plastic is being sold as rice, fuelled by |
a mystery for more than 100 years.
“How cosmic rays are created and accelerated at very high energies is the big question astronomers are trying to understand,” said Associate Professor Gavin Rowell, an astrophysicist from the University of Adelaide, who was involved in the Nature study.
One theory was that cosmic rays are produced during supernova explosions. These create “remnants” that accelerate the sub-atomic particles to near the speed of light.
Additionally, because the particles are electrically charged, any magnetic field in space will change their direction. That means it’s difficult to determine their origin once they strike our atmosphere.
In this study, the researchers used the High Energy Spectroscopic System (HESS) telescopes in Namibia to look for the very fast flashes of light created when cosmic rays collide with the Earth’s atmosphere.
Using this data, the researchers were able to estimate the direction of the cosmic ray, and found it pointed back towards the centre of our galaxy.
This coincides with the location of what is believed to be a supermassive black hole, with a mass of 4 to 5 million solar masses. The HESS team suggest that the huge gravitational force exerted by the tremendous mass of the black hole was able to accelerate the particles to their incredibly high velocities.
“This result adds a new dimension in cosmic rays, and how the cosmic rays our galaxy is producing could also come from this massive central black hole,” Rowell said.
Dr Mark A Garlick/ HESS Collaboration, Author provided
Cosmic Cluedo
Professor Geraint Lewis, an astrophysicist at the University of Sydney, emphasised that the study also makes us aware that the universe can do things that far outstrip what we are capable of here on Earth. However, our understanding of cosmic rays is still far from complete.
He mentioned that the biggest question is explaining the precise cause of the particle acceleration.
“It is like a game of Cluedo: they’ve tied down what they think is the site of the murder, but now they are trying to locate the weapon,” he told The Conversation.
What it does tells us is that the cosmos can accelerate particles to velocities that far exceeds what we are capable doing on Earth.
“These particle accelerators in outer space put the Large Hadron Collider in the shade,” he said.SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A local comic book store owner won’t be saying “yabba-dabba doo” any time soon after thieves stole his “stone age” sedan over the weekend.
Dave Downey, owner of World’s Best Comics in Sacramento, was the proud owner of a replica of a car from the cartoon “The Flintstones”, that is, until thieves walked off with it. He says the car was parked in front of his Watt Avenue store on Friday, but when he drove past the store on Sunday, he noticed the car was missing.
Downey says the car, which is actually a raft, has wheels made of airtight metal drums.
“It doesn’t roll. It was meant to float on water,” said Downey.
And it’s bulky and weighs over 200 pounds, so more than one person most likely carried it over to the parking lot and loaded it on the back of a truck.
“It’s heavy…I can lift one end myself,” he said.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the car’s owners came to Downey asking if he wanted the vehicle, which had apparently been used in a water parade.
“They had it in their backyard and asked if I wanted it,” said Downey.
So Downey did what any other cartoon enthusiast did. Instead of letting the raft become a real-life fossil, Downey put it out in the open for all to climb on and enjoy – until some thieves came along.
Anyone with information about the whereabouts of the car is asked to call Downey at 916-973-8973 or email him at dave@wbcomics.com. He’s offering “a six-pack of Cactus Cooler for its safe return. No questions asked.”
You can see more photos of the car by going to matsune.com/flinstones.html.President Trump early Thursday said he made no deal with Democrats to protect young immigrants, pushing back on a statement by the party's leaders.
“No deal was made last night on DACA,” he said on Twitter, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote,” he added.
No deal was made last night on DACA. Massive border security would have to be agreed to in exchange for consent. Would be subject to vote. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2017
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“The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built,” he said in another tweet.
The WALL, which is already under construction in the form of new renovation of old and existing fences and walls, will continue to be built. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2017
After a dinner at the White House Wednesday evening, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerBrennan fires back at'selfish' Trump over Harry Reid criticism Trump rips Harry Reid for 'failed career' after ex-Dem leader slams him in interview Harry Reid: 'I don't see anything' Trump is doing right MORE (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Trump agreed to work toward a deal that would protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation in exchange for new border security measures.
“We had a very productive meeting at the White House with the president,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a statement. “We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides.”
The White House rejected that statement almost immediately, telling The Hill in an email that while border security and DACA were discussed, the president didn't agree to exclude funding for the border wall from the package.
“While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
An earlier statement from the White House called the dinner “constructive” and said the conversations centered on “tax reform, border security, DACA, infrastructure and trade.”
— John Bowden contributed to this report, which was updated at 7:14 a.m.: Trickster's Arsenal is now also discounted by 75% and the offer is extended until October 13th. Planetary Campaign DLC, a procedural campaign mode added to the tactical RTS about 5 brave marines facing a ridiculous number of aliens, is available now for Windows and Mac, DRM-free on GOG.com. To celebrate, Infested Planet and the Trickster's Arsenal DLC are now 75% off.Your team is flanked, fatigued, frustrated. The alien scum outnumber you 20.000 to one but that never stopped you before. And it won't stop you now, when each campaign gets the procedural generation treatment, with different maps and tech progression available every time. Three new Weapon Classes and three unknown enemy types also join the fun, but what remains unchanged is that you will again need to make tough tactical decisions in order to counter the aliens' constant mutations and conquer impossible odds. Are you ready to manage your squad and navigate the procedurally generated challenges? Or will you get crashed under the aliens' overwhelming numbers and relentless adaptability?Mow down the alien hordes in the procedurally generated maps of Planetary Campaign DLC, DRM-free on GOG.com.The 75% discount on Infested Planet and Trickster's Arsenal will last until October 13, 3:59 PM UTC.Every single refugee costs the German taxpayer £10,519 a year to look after, according to the government.
That is the average expenditure to feed and clothe each person, provide language lessons and schooling and the care of unaccompanied minors.
It does not include training courses or the costs to the taxpayer to deport failed would-be migrants.
Every single refugee costs the German taxpayer £10,519 a year to look after, according to the government as Incoming refugees wait for a short first medical check after their arrival in front of the main train station in Munich last year
The calculation was provided to The Left party in the German parliament after it made an official request for a breakdown.
German cities are needing ever more financial support from the 16 federal states which make up the country to meet the burden of caring for the new arrivals.
Bavaria is talking of a shortfall in cash this year of over 300 million pounds for refugee care.
In total the German Association of Cities estimates nationwide gaps in their refugee budgets totalling £2.1billion.
Bavaria is talking of a shortfall in cash this year of over 300 million pounds for refugee care
Around 700 representatives from the spheres of politics, administration and refugee organizations met Wednesday in Lübeck for the second refugee conference in the country to plot a new policy on migrants for the coming year.From a distance the bizarre structures sprouting from the high Alentejo plain in eastern Portugal resemble a field of mechanical sunflowers. Each of the 2,520 giant solar panels is the size of a house and they are as technically sophisticated as a car. Their reflective heads tilt to the sky at a permanent 45 degrees as they track the sun through 240 degrees every day.
The world's largest solar photovoltaic farm, generating electricity straight from sunlight, is taking shape near Moura, a small town in a thinly populated and impoverished region which boasts the most sunshine per square metre a year in Europe.
When fully commissioned later this year, the £250m farm set on abandoned state-owned land will be twice the size of any other similar project in the world, covering an area nearly twice the size of London's Hyde park. It is expected to supply 45MW of electricity each year, enough to power 30,000 homes.
Portugal, without its own oil, coal or gas and with no expertise in nuclear power, is pitching to lead Europe's clean-tech revolution with some of the most ambitious targets and timetables for renewables. Its intention, the economics minister, Manuel Pinho, said, is to wean itself off oil and within a decade set up a low carbon economy in response to high oil prices and climate change.
"We have to reduce our dependence on oil and gas," said Pinho. "What seemed extravagant in 2004 when we decided to go for renewables now seems to have been a very good decision."
He expects Portugal to generate 31% of all its energy from clean sources by 2020. This means lifting its renewable electricity share from 20% in 2005 to 60% in 2020, compared with Britain's target of 15% of all energy by 2020. Having passed its target for 2010 it could soon top the EU renewables league.
In less than three years, Portugal has trebled its hydropower capacity, quadrupled its wind power, and is investing in flagship wave and photovoltaic plants. Encouraged by long-term guarantees of prices by the state, and not delayed by planning laws or government indecision, it has proved a success. Firms are expected to invest £10bn in renewables by 2012 and up to £100bn by 2020.
However, Portugal says it wants to develop a renewables industry to rival Denmark or Japan. When the government invited companies for tenders to supply wind, solar and wave power, it demanded they work with manufacturing companies to establish clusters of industries.
This is a great success, say regional governments. In northern Portugal, where the world's biggest wind farm, with more than 130 turbines, is now being strung across the mountainous Spanish border, a German firm employs more than 1,200 people building 600 40-metre-long fibreglass wind turbine blades a year.
The turbines are earmarked for Portuguese farms first, but orders are being taken from Britain and other countries. Half the workforce are women who once worked in the declining textile industry.
It is Portuguese plans for wave power that are prompting the most interest in Europe. The world's first commercial wave farm is being assembled near Porto. Three "sea snakes", developed by the Edinburgh-based company Pelamis, will shortly be towed out to sea and will start pumping modest amounts of electricity into the grid later this year.
It is the start of a potentially giant global industry with Portuguese firm Enersis planning to invest more than £1bn in a series of farms that together would power 450,000 homes.
Pinho dismisses nuclear power. "When you have a programme like this there is no need for nuclear power. Wind and water are our nuclear power. The relative price of renewables is now much lower, so the incentives are there to invest. My advice to countries like the UK is to move as fast as they can to renewables. With climate change and the increase in oil prices, renewables will become more and more important.
"Countries that do not invest in renewables will pay a high price in future. The cost of inaction is very high indeed. The perception that renewable energy is very expensive is changing every day as the oil price goes up."
He added: "Energy and environment are the biggest challenge of our generation. We need to develop a low-carbon model for the world economy. The present situation is dangerous."
EU renewable league
Top
Sweden 2005 39.8%, target by 2020 49%
Latvia 34.9%, target 42%
Finland 28.5%, target 38%
Austria 23.3%, target 34%
Portugal 20.5%, target 31%
Bottom
Cyprus 2.9%, target by 2020 13%
Netherlands 2.4%, target 14%
Ireland 3.1%, target 16%
Netherlands 2.4%, target 14%
Belgium 2.2%, target 13%
UK 1.3%, target 15%advertisement advertisement
Anyone who grew up in the 1980s grew up watching many of the same, 30 minute toy commercials known as Saturday morning cartoons. Those same children, in all likelihood, grew up in households where video games had become more a part of daily life. Consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis together with the emergence of more games for the personal computer which was becoming more and more popular in homes made gamers of many of them. It seems only natural then that these two childhood memories, cartoons and video games, come together in this list of 80s cartoon IPs that, should a development studio CEO get nostalgic, would make for interesting MMORPGs.
#5 The Carebears
The Carebears, as a televison series, ran from 1985 until 1988. Different colored bears (and later other animals as well) with symbols on their stomachs go on missions of caring, fighting the forces of creatively named villains like No Heart and Professor Coldheart.
The list begins with an entry for the children's MMO category. The jokes that would come along with a Carebears MMO write themselves, but the actual concept behind the show might lend itself to a robust virtual world for young children. The conflict and ensuing combat within the original cartoon were both entertaining and sanitized enough to provide kids with hours of fun and designers a strong starting point for some core mechanics. Character creation would also be both simple and diverse; core creatures with an added color template and one of many distinctive tummy symbols and names that could be easily chosen from a list.
Argument for the Game's Creation:
Proposed Carebear character names: Ganker Bear, Pwnage Bear, Carebear Bear
#4 He-Man / She Ra
The original cartoons ran from 1983 - 1985 and 1985-1986 respectively. The twin brother and sister combo of heroes existed in a universe that was a bizarre mix of sword and shield fantasy with an edge of sci fi and lasers. He-Man came from a land called Eternia, defending the secrets of Castle Greyskull from Villains like Skeletor and Beastman with help from friends like Man At Arms and Man-E-Faces (because he had many faces). She-Ra, in similar fashion protects a world called Etheria from the (try to keep the WoW jokes to a minimum) evil Horde.
The sci fi / fantasy combination for the universe that these characters inhabited would make an interesting setting for an MMORPG. The stories of both series allows for adventures beyond those of the principle characters and would even give potential game designers options in terms of allowing cross realm play (good guys or bad guys). Sure, the main characters would have to play a part, but there was a lot to this fictional universe that went unexplored in the relatively short run of the series.
Argument for the Game's Creation:
Debate: Which would win in a fight? He-Man's Sword of Power or The Sword of a Thousand Truths?
#3 Robotech
When its three year run in North America began in 1985, Robotech was the most "grown up" of the potential games listed here, having been adapted to more closely resemble the depth and complexity of the original Japanese version. Robotech was set in a world where mankind had discovered a crashed alien starship and used its technology to develop giant robots that are capable of becoming a man-like robot, a jet, or a hybrid of the two.
Robotech is one of those names that gets constantly thrown around as a possible setting for an MMORPG. The show's mythology (which is actually three unrelated Japanese made shows mashed together with a new plot), would certainly allow for numerous Mech pilots to battle in three different "Robotech Wars," each against a distinct villain. A truly crafty development team could make good use of the three wars concept to give players an option as to which timeframe they would like to participate in. Still, it's giant transforming robot mechs. No matter which way you slice it, make a halfway decent game and you've got a built in audience.
Argument for the Game's Creation:
Giant mechs that turn into robots, jets, or jets with arms and legs!
#2 G.I. Joe
G.I. Joe originally ran from 1985-1987 and depicted the struggle between the good guys, in the form of the flag waving G.I. Joes and the bad guys in the form of the terrorist organization, COBRA. Each individual Joe (and their COBRA counterpart) had a unique and often fairly specific skillset that set them apart from their cohorts.
G.I. Joe is going to seem like an odd choice to players outside of North America, given the program's "Real American Hero" approach, but the theme of fighting a ruthless terrorist organization for the betterment of mankind is a more universal concept than the show's name implies, especially in today's political climate, should resonate beyond the confines of the Red, White and Blue.
G.I. Joe, the MMO, opens itself up to be an interesting skill-based game, focusing not just on intense combat (which would certainly have to play a role), but also on the diverse array of abilities that are showcased in the seemingly infinite number of G.I. Joe characters.
Argument for the Game's Creation:
We just don't have enough MMOs that let players dress up in silly costumes and try to shoot each other in the head.
#1 Transformers
The original Transformers ran from 1984-1992. Two warring factions of robots who can transform themselves from robots into familiar machines like planes and cars, battle over energy on 1980s Earth.
The battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons is one that MMO players have been asking game developers to let them get involved in for quite some time. The two clearly delineated sides of the conflict would provide an excellent springboard for an RvR style of game, and the appeal of playing a giant robot that could become a car, a jet or a giant gun at any moment holds real sway for many gamers. Yes, the argument can be made that the series characters are "too iconic" to allow for thousands of new Autobots (or Decepticons), but Earth (to say nothing of Cybertron) is a big place.
Argument for the Game's Creation:
Guilds could form up and create giant robots. The game practically sells itself.
So, that's the MMORPG.com list. What 80s cartoons, if any, would make great virtual worlds? We considered, but decided that Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, among others, were not the best fit. Now it's your turn. Let us know in the comment thread below.by Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
Police prosecute over 850,000 Americans annually for violating state marijuana laws. The penalties for those busted and convicted vary greatly, ranging from the imposition of small fines to license revocation to potential incarceration. But for the citizens arrested in these five states, the ramifications of even a minor pot bust are likely to be exceptionally severe.
Alternet.org’s editors recently asked me to compile a list of ‘the worst of the worst’ states to be busted for personal pot possession. Without further ado, here they are:
The 5 Worst States to Get Busted With Pot
via Alternet.org
[excerpt]
1. Oklahoma — Lawmakers in the Sooner State made headlines this spring when legislators voted 119 to 20 in favor of House Bill 1798, which enhances the state sentencing guidelines for hash manufacturing to a minimum of two years in jail and a maximum penalty of life in prison. (Mary Fallin, the state’s first-ever female governor, signed the measure into law in April; it takes effect on November 1, 2011.) But longtime Oklahoma observers were hardly surprised at lawmakers’ latest “life for pot” plan. After all, state law already allows judges to hand out life sentences for those convicted of cannabis cultivation or for the sale of a single dime-bag.
2. Texas — On an annual basis, no state arrests and criminally prosecutes more of its citizens for pot than does Texas. Marijuana arrests comprise over half of all annual arrests in the Lone Star State. It is easy to see why. In 2009, more than 97 percent of all Texas marijuana arrests — over 77,000 people — were for possession only. Those convicted face up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, even upon a first conviction.
3. Florida — According to a 2009 state-by-state analysis by researcher and former NORML Director Jon Gettman, no other state routinely punishes minor marijuana more severely than does the Sunshine State. Under Florida law, marijuana possession of 20 grams or less (about two-thirds of an ounce) is a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to one-year imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Marijuana possession over 20 grams, as well as the cultivation of even a single pot plant, are defined by law as felony offenses – punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. In recent years, state lawmakers have revisited the state’s marijuana penalties – in each case electing to enhance Florida’s already toughest-in-the-nation criminal punishments.
4. Louisiana — In Louisiana, multi-decade (or even life) sentences for repeat pot offenders are hardly a rare occurrence. Under Louisiana law, a second pot possession conviction is classified as a felony offense, punishable by up to five years in prison. Three-time offenders face up to 20 years in prison. According to a 2008 expose published in New Orleans City Business online, district attorneys are not hesitant to “target small-time marijuana users, sometimes caught with less than a gram of pot, and threaten them with lengthy prison sentences.”
5. Arizona — Forty years ago virtually every state in the nation defined marijuana possession as a felony offense. Today, only one state, Arizona, treats first-time pot possession in such an archaic and punitive manner. Under Arizona law, even minor marijuana possession offenses may be prosecuted as felony crimes, punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $150,000 fine. According to Jon Gettman’s 2009 analysis only Florida consistently treats minor marijuana possession cases more severely.Police booking videos and reports and witness testimony were all discussed Tuesday during the murder trial of Nicolas Dutan Guaman, but it was one piece of evidence not allowed by the judge that received the most attention.
Prosecutor David P. Feraco wanted to submit a MassHealth card with Mr. Guaman’s name on it, but defense lawyer Peter L. Ettenberg called the card extremely prejudicial to his client. He said news headlines would focus on his client, who is living in the United States illegally, somehow having a state benefits card.
The card was apparently going to be submitted to help establish Mr. Guaman’s residency and identification, but Judge David Ricciardone ruled against use of the card. The judge is presiding over the jury-waived trial in Worcester Superior Court.
Mr. Guaman is accused of dragging motorcycle rider Matthew Denice under his truck on Aug. 20, 2011, in Milford, causing fatal injuries. Mr. Denice, 23, of Milford, was allegedly dragged about a quarter of a mile in Milford as people tried to get the driver to stop.
Mr. Guaman, a 37-year-old native of Ecuador, is on trial on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter by motor vehicle in the death of the motorcyclist. Authorities allege Mr. Guaman was unlicensed and drunk at the time of the incident.
Officers testifying in the case said they followed Mr. Guaman’s truck from Congress Street in Milford for about a quarter-mile until the truck stopped on a nearby street. As officers took Mr. Guaman into custody, they learned his young son was in the truck as well.
Angel Arce, who was a Milford police officer at the time, said he saw beer cans in Mr. Guaman’s truck. One officer testified that as they placed Mr. Guaman into custody, he felt the young boy hitting him and then asking the officers to let his father go.
Police testified that Mr. Guaman had slurred speech and bloodshot eyes at the time of the accident. Mr. Ettenberg asked Officer Arce if police learned later that another adult was in the truck at the time of the accident. Officer Arce said there was another adult.
The lawyer asked Officer Arce if he knew who had consumed the beers found inside the truck. “No,” responded the officer.
Continue reading…5/16/15 - Japanese boulderer Dai Koyamada has completed his "hardest climbing ever": a long roof seam at the Hiei Mountain area in Miyazaki Prefecture. Koyamada first started working on the line three years ago and sent it on May 8. He has suggested that Horizon is likely hard V15 or V16, but also that it’s difficult to grade because there are so few problems of this length and difficulty to compare it to.
Koyamada, 38, has climbed numerous V15 problems—both new routes and early repeats of existing problems. In 2004 he did the first ascent of the massive Wheel of Life link-up in the Grampians of Australia, a problem variously graded from V14 to V16, as well as a 9a+ (5.15a) route grade. In 2012 he added a low start to Dave Graham’s The Story of Two Worlds in Switzerland, creating a possible V16.
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Koyamada’s efforts on Horizon often were hampered by wet weather that caused the crack to seep. But in 2014 he managed to do the line in two sections, with a rest in the middle. He returned this month with his mind set on completing the route. “This might be the last chance for me, considering my age,” he wrote at his blog.
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On the day he sent, the crack was wet again, and he stuffed tissue paper into the slots to try to dry them. His early attempts that day were not promising: The day was sunny and warm, and he couldn’t do the crux moves. But he resolved to rehearse the sequences until evening came and the temperature dropped.
He made two good attempts and waited some more, then had two poor goes, struggling with fatigue. “After [the fourth] attempt, I felt I may have lost my concentration. And I was exhausted. It was disappointing that I probably missed the chance because it was going to rain the following couple of days.”
But the temperature continued to drop, and he figured he might as well try one more time. After resting and eating a bit, Koyamada said he felt refreshed. With lights shining under the long roof, he smoothly made it to the crux no-foot moves. After the crux swing, he said, “Similar to the second attempt, I missed catching the tiny right foot hold, but this time I was calm enough to recover and put my foot onto it.”
Koyamada rested for a moment above the lip and then climbed the remaining five meters to the top by headlamp.
“Before finishing this project, I was afraid that I would burn out and might lose motivation for climbing. But this never happened. I am already obsessed with other projects, a lot of projects.”
Read Koyamada’s full account and see more photos here.
Date of Ascent: May 8, 2015
Source: Koyamada.dai.hiho.jpJeff Schechtman: Welcome to Radio WhoWhatWhy. I’m Jeff Schechtman. Think about some of the things that occupy us lately. A discussion about Facebook and the impact that it has on our thinking, our attitudes and our decisions. The introduction to the new iPhone, which is always eagerly awaited as if the new phone will be life-changing. The healthcare debate with its focus on opioid addiction and a cost code driven in large measure by the food choices we make. Add to this our polarization, our division, our siloing, our lack of connection, our ability even to make contributions and assuage our conscience simply by clicking or swiping left or right. And our ability to get almost anything we want at any hour, just with a click. It’s fair to say that we’re addicted to all of this. Addicted to modernity. Did all of this just happen or have there been individual decisions and corporate choices that have led us here? And most importantly, what are the consequences?
We’re going to talk about this today with my guest, Dr. Robert Lustig. He’s a professor of pediatrics in the division of endocrinology and a member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California-San Francisco. He’s authored over 120 peer reviewed articles and it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Robert Lustig here to Radio WhoWhatWhy to talk about the hacking of the American mind, the science behind the corporate takeover of our bodies and brains. Robert Lustig, thanks so much for joining us.
Robert Lustig: Well thank you, Jeff, so much for having me. To be honest with you, after that introduction I think you should’ve written the book.
Jeff Schechtman: Thank you. I want to talk about how you made the leap from writing about our addiction to sugar, our addiction to processed foods to looking at the broader consequences of our addiction to so many things today.
Robert Lustig: Well, as I was researching Fat Chance, which was really about diet and physical health, it became very clear that there was a treasure trove of information about diet and behavioral health that had finally matured in part because we have the FMRI and the pet scanning, the neuro imaging data now to actually know what’s going on. And I’ve been aware of the serotonin dopamine issue for 30 years, since I was a post-doc in New York at Rockefeller University, but we didn’t really have causational data until very recently. So when I was doing the research for Fat Chance, I said, you know, there’s a book here. And then I went to give psychiatry grand rounds here in America at a medical school and the woman who ran the substance abuse recovery program gave me a tour of the facilities and she herself was a reformed heroin addict and I asked her, you know, what getting clean meant to her. And she said, well, when I was shooting up, I was happy. What my new life has given me is pleasure. And I thought to myself, wait a second, that’s exactly wrong. She’s got it exactly turned around.
I didn’t say anything to her, but I went and talked to a bunch of psychiatry colleagues and they said, oh yeah. Yeah, we hear that all the time. It’s probably why they’re addicted. And I thought to myself, you know, if this lady thinks it, I’ll bet you everybody thinks it. And of course, I’ve heard things like this similar in my obesity clinic.
Jeff Schechtman: And at the core of this, whether we’re talking about sugar or whether we’re talking about Facebook, is this idea of trying to understand what the core of happiness really is and how it differs from pleasure.
Robert Lustig: Exactly. So, if you go online right now and google pleasure and happiness, the definitions that you will see there will be almost identical because we have confused and conflated the two terms to mean virtually the same thing, but they’re not. They’re actually quite different. And I’ll give you the seven differences between pleasure and happiness right now.
Number one, pleasure is short-lived. Happiness is long-lived. Pleasure is visceral, you feel it in your body. Happiness is ethereal, you feel it above the neck. Number three, pleasure is taking. Happiness is giving. Number four, pleasure is achieved alone. Happiness is usually achieved in social groups. Number five, pleasure can be achieved with substances. Happiness can not be achieved with substances. Number six, the extremes of pleasure, whether it be substances or behaviors, so nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, sugar or behaviors, gambling, social media, Internet, video games, porn. All in the extreme lead to addiction, whereas there’s no such thing as being addicted to too much happiness. And finally number seven, pleasure is dopamine and happiness is serotonin.
So, two different neurotransmitters, two different areas of the brain, two different receptors, two different regulatory pathways. So you say to me, like who cares? Big deal. They both feel good. I want them both. Well, so pleasure is the feeling this feels good, I want more. And happiness is this feels good, I don’t want or need anymore. So they are not the same. And knowing the difference is super important.
Jeff Schechtman: What do you see as fundamentally different today with respect to the way this is being used to further addict us to things? You know, back in the late 1950s, there was a book by a guy named Vance Packard called The Hidden Persuaders that talked about the way that marketing was being used we would refer to it today, you would refer to it today, to sort of hack into our brains. What’s different in terms of the way it’s being done today beyond the fact that we understand the mechanism that’s at play?
Robert Lustig: Well, you’re putting up a very good question. What is the difference between marketing and propaganda? Marketing is using information to espouse your point of view. Propaganda is using disinformation to espouse your point of view. The difference is the truth. If you’re telling the truth, it’s marketing. If you’re telling a lie, it’s propaganda. Point is, propaganda does things to our brain because what it does is it gives us a dopamine boost. It makes you zealous. It increases your zealotry, whether it be for any specific political point of view, or any specific religious point of view or any specific material consumption point of view. Ultimately, those are all found in dopamine. And we know that because we’ve done the experiments.
Back in the 1970s we had a new drug at our disposal for patients with Parkinson’s Disease called L-dopa, which is a precursor to dopamine. And we would give L-dopa to patients with Parkinson’s. They have a dopamine deficiency in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra, which has to do with motor function. And we would give them this drug and they would get better and their motor function would improve. But what we also noted was that a sizable proportion of these patients became compulsive gamblers or religious zealots. And there’s a now wealth of literature on the role of dopamine precursors in driving these aberrant behaviors. So these are dopamine driven and propaganda is a great way to drive your dopamine.
Conversely, serotonin is the contentment neurotransmitter. Here’s the problem, dopamine is an excitatory neurotransmitter, so neurons want to be excited because after all that’s why they have receptors in the first place, but neurons are fragile. They like to be tickled, not bludgeoned. Dopamine over-stimulation causes neuron cell death. Now, you don’t want that. So neurons have a plan B. They have a self-defense mechanism. What they do is they down- regulate the number of receptors. So in human terms what this means is you get a hit, you get a rush, receptors go down, next time you need a bigger hit to get the same rush and then a bigger hit, and a bigger hit, and a bigger hit until finally you get a huge hit to get nothing. That’s called tolerance. And then when the neurons actually start to die, that’s called addiction.
But serotonin is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It doesn’t down-regulate its own receptor. It doesn’t need to. So you can’t overdose on too much happiness, but there’s one thing that down-regulates serotonin, dopamine. So the more pleasure you seek, the more unhappy you get. And when we are propagandized by industries for their purposes to activate our dopamine, we fall into the perpetualness of addiction and depression.
Jeff Schechtman: Except that in the world we live in today where there is the ability on the part of marketers to slice and dice us in a way that so much of the message is about confirmation bias to whatever people may believe, truthful or not, the difference between marketing and propaganda is almost non-existent.
Robert Lustig: Well, indeed, you are absolutely correct. There’s even a new form of marketing now called neuro marketing, where they read the facial expressions on your face in real time as you’re being exposed and alter the message accordingly based on whether or not your facial expressions demonstrate complicity or not. So it’s not about the message itself. It’s about your point of view. This was actually demonstrated by a neuroscientist by the name of Sam Harris, very well published author. He’s known as one of the four horsemen of atheism. He’s a neuroscientist. He did a great study at UCLA about six years ago. Took a bunch of people, 15 religious zealots |
The International Olympics Committee recently changed its ruled to allow biological men to compete as women without first undergoing a sex-change operation. (RELATED: Report: 2 British Men Competed As Women In Rio Olympics)
Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHassonAh, Labor Day. A time to kick back, put your white clothes away, eat burned meat products and, if you really love to have fun, reflect on why it is that labor issues get such short shrift in our mainstream media. (See what I did there?) But really, the point of Labor Day is in the title, so, just for a second, let's talk about how we talk about labor.
Or, rather, how we don't talk about labor. Our media is filled to the brim with stories of, by and for the wealthy. We have three separate television channels focused solely on business. Newspapers come stuffed with sections devoted to real estate, fine dining and high fashion. When the public editor of the New York Times asked the paper's executive editor, Dean Baquet, why he was launching a new "anthropological" beat focused on the "superrich," he replied, "The New York Times does enough about poverty and the middle class."
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Working people, meanwhile, find themselves lavished with much less attention. And forget about unions, which, even in their diminished state, still represent millions and millions of people. The number of outlets with reporters dedicated to covering labor issues has steadily shrunk in recent years, even as the technological revolution makes an examination of modern-day labor practices more important than ever. (To be fair to the Times, it is one of the few newspapers to maintain a labor beat, though that is dwarfed by the paper's coverage of high finance and technology.)
On TV, meanwhile, unions might as well not exist. A 2014 study by the stalwart media watchdog FAIR found that, over an eight-month period, exactly zero representatives of labor unions appeared on any of the five main Sunday talk shows. Billionaire CEOs, meanwhile, got lots of chances to put forward their vision of the American economy:
Guests that were identified as current or former corporate CEOs made 12 appearances, including former AOL head Steve Case (Meet the Press, 4/6/14), Apple CEO Tim Cook (This Week, 3/30/14) and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (Fox News Sunday, 6/22/14). Former Hewlett Packard CEO and Republican political candidate Carly Fiorina made four appearances.
There is one kind of union that gets discussed a lot, and that's teachers' unions, which are subject to some of the most unrelentingly negative coverage you will ever see. Take this slightly astonishing 2014 Time magazine cover story, which ran with the headline: "Rotten Apples: It's nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Some tech millionaires may have found a way to change that." Got that? Teachers' unions bad, tech millionaires awesome. That's our modern media consensus in a neat little package.
Really, none of this should surprise us too much. It is unfashionable these days to go all Noam Chomsky and talk about the structure of some of our top news organizations, but just for a moment, let's.
Every major news network in this country — not to mention a good fraction of our top newspapers — is owned by a multi-bajillion-dollar global conglomerate. And multi-bajillion-dollar global conglomerates have a certain interest in maintaining their status as multi-bajillion-dollar global conglomerates. They are not, as a rule, particularly enchanted with strengthening labor unions — and it's no accident that a hell of a lot of them happen to be heavily involved in supporting charter schools and battling teachers' unions. All other things being equal, they tend to subscribe to the notion that what very rich chief executives think is best for the economic structure of the United States is, by definition, the only point of view worth listening to.
Now, this is not to say that there is an overt conspiracy going on at CBS News or NBC News or wherever else to crowd out coverage of labor issues and stories of working people, or that there is never any good coverage of these issues to be found these days. The news just doesn't work that way. But media ownership matters because the owners hire the people who hire the people who hire the people, and what are all those people going to be taught? So much of journalism today consists of an elite class covering the world, and you'd be crazy to think that that has no impact on the way journalists think. Our news agenda reflects not a smoke-filled room but rather an unthinking understanding, passed down through the years, about who and what deserves to command our attention. Labor issues and unions inevitably lose.
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There are signs that things may be changing slightly, though. The digital media world is rapidly unionizing, with websites like Gawker and Salon leading the charge. (Note: While I am a regular contributor to Salon, I am not on staff, and thus not in the Salon union.) The new generation of journalists has come of age during a time when the inequalities in our society have never been so stark, and when journalists themselves have never been such vulnerable members of the workforce. It's to be hoped that this generation won't repeat so many of the mistakes of the past, and will give labor issues, and so many other issues, the space that they deserve.StumbleUpon has released new information about the level of activity that’s added to a link when shared through its content discovery service.
StumbleUpon’s service lets people discover and share new web content based on a broad spectrum of categories. Users click a “stumble” button to discover new content, and then have the option of voting and commenting on the selection.
On average, the company said a link shared through StumbleUpon gets 83 percent more “likes” on Facebook than if shared on Facebook alone — which only yields five percent higher likes. Also, a link’s half-life (the point in time where it accrues half of its total engagement) is 400 hours on StumbleUpon but only 3.2 hours on Facebook, according to the company’s research.
For referral traffic, StumbleUpon beats all other link sharing services like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Digg and LinkedIn, according to data from StatCounter.
“The thing about StumbleUpon that I’ve always noticed is how many really regular, everyday people from all walks of life use it,” said Amy Vernon, VP of strategy and alliances for Hasai. Her company helps advise other businesses and brands about how to boost their social profiles. “My mother-in-law once spent 2.5 hours hitting the stumble button and loved it.”
Vernon said the reach StumbleUpon has is more akin to Facebook than what you see on smaller, more specialized site such as Twitter, Reddit or Digg. However, unlike Facebook, StumbleUpon is “the gift that keeps on giving” in terms of referrals, she added.
“You stumble something, it gets a few hundred or a few thousand views. Great. Six months later, someone else randomly gives that post a thumb up and you find another stream of traffic coming in. That can happen multiple times,” Vernon said.
The below infographic from StumbleUpon shows some of the service’s other statistics.
StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay in 2007, only to be sold back two years later by original founders Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith and Ram Shriram, as well as Accel Partners and August Capital. StumbleUpon now operates as an independent company. The company closed a $17 million round of funding in May 2011 and has raised $18.5 million total funding to date.
[Disclosure: Hasai does contracted marketing work for VentureBeat.]Leicester (16) 37
Tries: Morris, Kitchener, Tuilagi, Goneva Cons: Flood Pens: Flood, Ford 4
Northampton (5) 17
Tries: Myler, Foden, Dickson Cons: Myler
Leicester won a tempestuous Premiership final to secure their 10th English title against a Northampton side who had captain Dylan Hartley sent off.
The England hooker saw red for abusive language just before half-time.
His side were 13-5 down by that point after Niall Morris crossed for Tigers and Stephen Myler scored for Saints.
Ben Foden and Lee Dickson touched down either side of Graham Kitchener's score but Tigers finished off with tries from Manu Tuilagi and Vereniki Goneva.
Saints may have contributed to their own downfall but Leicester's dominance of English rugby in the professional era continues, having now won a record number of titles and appeared in nine successive finals.
Analysis "Dylan Hartley will now have to face an RFU disciplinary hearing. I do not think he will be able to board the plane to Hong Kong with the Lions on Monday. It will be Tuesday at the earliest before his case is heard and you would think a ban will come too. This story is far from over - his Lions place is in real jeopardy."
Jim Mallinder, more familiar with watching his Northampton team dumped out at the semi-final stage, as has been the case in the past three years, was forced to witness a gutsy performance from the Franklin's Gardens club undone by his captain's temperament.
And Hartley may feel the repercussions of his sending off - the first in a Premiership final - for some time still, as he will now miss this summer's British and Irish Lions tour should he receive the entry level six-week ban for offensive language.
Northampton's implosion occurred on the cusp of half-time, triggered when Myler mistakenly believed he could kick to touch from a 22 drop-out and conceded a scrum, which resulted in a Leicester penalty.
Hartley, already on a warning for arguing with referee Wayne Barnes, was shown a red card for offensive language and, according to the official, calling him a "cheat".
Thirty-five minutes before that Tigers had started strongly when Toby Flood, having already kicked an early penalty, received the ball in the Saints half after a swift Tigers break, and looped it out for Morris to cross in the corner.
Saints could have crumbled under Leicester's early persistence, but pressed Tigers into their own 22 and saw Ken Pisi stopped just short of the try line.
Media playback is not supported on this device Final a rollercoaster - Cockerill
But they were on the scoreboard moments later - Myler taking in a pass after quick work from Dickson and Luther Burrell to squirm over and touch down, although the fly-half missed the conversion.
Leicester boss Richard Cockerill was left fuming when Flood was caught late by a Courtney Lawes tackle that left the England number 10 down for some time.
And Lawes, fortunate not to be sin-binned for that offence, once again flattened Flood, who had to stumble off with concussion and was replaced by George Ford.
Flood's bruising seemed to upset Leicester's rhythm and Saints pinned back their rattled opponents, but Cockerill's men broke through when Mathew Tait forced Saints into conceding a penalty, which was dispatched by the boot of Ford.
Saints came within inches of a second try, but Tigers were let off when the television match official decided the foot of Foden, under pressure from Kitchener, had gone out of play before the full-back managed to force the ball to the ground.
To get this far and not to win it is an opportunity missed so thankfully this year, third time lucky, it's done Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill
And Ford made them pay when, after the dust had settled on Hartley's dismissal, he further increased the Saints's despair by placing his penalty between the posts to hand his side an 11-point lead at the break.
Re-emerging with 14 men, Saints burst into life when good work from replacement Mike Haywood freed Foden to touch down.
With gaps appearing and the game opening, Kitchener barrelled through to press home the Tigers's advantage and, even though Ford missed the extras he landed a penalty moments later.
Mallinder's men, perhaps recalling the agony of a final defeat against Leinster in the Heineken Cup two years ago, refused to be overwhelmed and were back in it once again when Burrell found Dickson, who finished.
Myler put the conversion over to draw Northampton within seven points of Leicester, but Tuilagi burst through a tiring Saints defensive live for a simple try and Steve Mafi did well to keep the ball alive on the sideline before handing over to Goneva to cross.
And Ford slotted over his fourth penalty on the final whistle to confirm a first title since 2010 for Leicester.
VIEW FROM THE DRESSING ROOM
Leicester Tigers director of rugby Richard Cockerill told BBC Radio Leicester:
"It was a bit of a rollercoaster. We started the game really well, scored a good try and then obviously we were a bit sloppy, let them back in and then it was really tight.
"In the second half we just didn't control the ball well enough in the early parts. The scored a good try, even with a winger down, so credit to Saints - they played really well, they took us to the line but eventually we wore them out.
"To get this far and not to win it is an opportunity missed so thankfully this year, third time lucky, it's done."
On the sending-off of Northampton's Dylan Hartley:
"You don't want blokes getting sent off. People say things in the heat of the moment. Has it spoilt the game? Yes and no but, to be fair to Saints, it didn't affect them particularly."
SATURDAY'S TEAMS
Leicester Tigers: Tait; Morris, Tuilagi, Allen, Goneva; Flood (capt), Ben Youngs; Mulipola, Tom Youngs, Cole; Kitchener, Parling; Croft, Salvi, Crane.
Replacements: Hawkins, Balmain, Castrogiovanni, Slater, Mafi, Harrison, Ford, Smith.
Northampton Saints: Foden; Ken Pisi, Wilson, Burrell, Elliott; Myler, Dickson; Tonga'uiha, Hartley (capt), Mujati; Lawes, Day; Dowson, Wood, Manoa.
Replacements: Haywood, Waller, Mercey, Nutley, Van Velze, Roberts, Lamb, George Pisi.
Att: 81,703
Referee: Wayne Barnes (RFU)SAN FRANCISCO — Facing sharp questions from a federal appellate panel and concerns about a drug used in lethal injections, a federal judge in California has canceled what would have been California’s first execution in more than four years.
Albert G. Brown Jr., 56, was convicted in 1982 of raping and strangling a 15-year-old girl in Riverside, Calif., two years before and had been scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday night.
But late Tuesday, Judge Jeremy D. Fogel of Federal District Court in San Jose issued a stay after a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered him to again consider the case.
The stay came a day after California officials announced that the state’s supply of sodium thiopental, a barbiturate used in executions, was good only until Friday, a revelation that seemed to shock the appellate panel. “It is incredible to think that the deliberative process might be driven by the expiration date of the execution drug,” the panel wrote.
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In his stay, Judge Fogel seemed to agree, and indicated that he had been blindsided by the state’s admission about the drug’s expiration, calling it a “fact that the defendants did not disclose to this court.”
Mr. Brown’s execution would have been the first in California since 2006, when Judge Fogel effectively halted executions in the state after finding various deficiencies in the state’s methods. Since then, the state says it has addressed those problems by revamping regulations surrounding executions and building a new death chamber at San Quentin State Prison.In the summer of 1987 I was living in England and had three months free between jobs so I decided to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem–hitch-hiking and staying at monasteries across Europe.
One of the place I wanted to visit was the monastery of St Gildard in Nevers, France. This is where the incorrupt body of St Bernadette is still on display to be venerated by the faithful. So I arrived at Nevers and the place was full of mentally handicapped pilgrims from Ireland on their way to Lourdes. The nun at the front desk found me a place in the guest house and I came down to a bustling refectory for dinner. I was seated at a table by myself when a softly spoken American woman sat down next to me. She smiled and said in a Southern accent, “Ah hope you don’t mahnd if ah sit here with you because I speak English too.”
It turned out that Betty Sue was from Mobile, Alabama. She was a convert to the Catholic faith from being Southern Baptist and claimed that her conversion was a result of a vision of St Bernadette. She spent every summer in Nevers to “spend time with Bernadette”. Well, Betty Sue had the keys to the place. She took me to Bernadette’s cell, showed me the tomb where she had been exhumed, told me the story of the wonder of the saint’s incorrupt body and how it all happened. The next morning after breakfast before I set out for my next destination Betty Sue said I should “spend a few minutes with Bernadette.”
So I knelt in the side chapel of the chapel of the convent where the saint’s relics are preserved in a glass coffin. While I was praying there was a wonderful fragrance of flowers. But there were no flowers. None anywhere. Nor was there anyone with a potent perfume and there were no cleaning ladies spraying air freshener around. I eventually got up from my prayers and went outside to see Betty Sue. She said, “How was it?”
“I was skeptical, but, well, it was pretty amazing. There was a strong smell of flowers.”
“Praise the Lord! You have been granted a grace from Bernadette. That is the odor of sanctity. You will be greatly blessed on your journey.”
To this day I don’t know if it was a miracle from heaven or not, but the incorrupt body of Bernadette is surely some kind of a miracle, and I’m happy to accept that the odor of sanctity was a little gift to my own as yet un-Catholic doubting heart.
There is a post script to the story. I was in San Francisco a few years ago, having now been a Catholic for some years. I told the story at a speaking engagement. Afterwards a man came up and said, “Father. I had exactly the same experience. At Nevers a woman with a Southern accent came up and introduced herself and showed me around. I also experienced the odor of sanctity. When I got home to the USA I wrote to the sisters at the convent at Nevers and asked for the name and address of the American woman who shows pilgrims around and they wrote back saying there is no one like that, and never has been. They didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Cue theme tune from Twilight Zone…
Check out The Anchoress’ thoughts on St Bernadette here.Conditions for ending the match & Overtime
A match ends when the two halves of the game have been finished.
The team that scored the most touchdowns wins.
If the two teams are tied at the end of the 2nd half in a Knockout competition, a 3rd half of 8 rounds begins. It is played as sudden death: the first team to score wins.
Victory and Defeat
If at the end of overtime neither of the two teams has scored, there is a series of penalty kicks: each team tries a kick one after the other. The first team to miss loses the match.
At the end of the match, each team earns money that they can use to recruit players or staff.
The winning team can re-roll the earnings die to add to their winnings, but at the risk of earning less money.
A dice roll determines if the winning team earns a Popularity Point and if the losing team loses one.
One randomly-selected player from each team is declared the Most Valuable Player (MVP).
An MVP immediately earns 5 SPP.
The MVP can be a dead player, a Star Player or a mercenary, in which case the reward is lost.
Tie
When there is a tie, the two players earn money but neither can re-roll.
A dice roll determines if either team gains or loses a Popularity Point.
And the two players are each named MVP. The MVP immediately earns 5 SPP.
Forfeit
You can forfeit the match at any time.
Forfeiting is treated as a defeat and the score is automatically set at a two-touchdown margin in favour of the winning team.
A team that forfeits a match does not earn money and loses a Popularity Point.
There is no MVP for a forfeiting team; instead, two players from the opposing team are named MVP.So after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, the Obama campaign put a "Health Reform: Still a BFD!" t-shirt up for sale, prompting this response from top Mitt Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom:
Fehrnstrom wasn't alone: A whole slew of conservatives voiced outrage at the reference to Joe Biden's "big f***ing deal" remark.
I guess I could mock Fehrnstrom for his feigned rectitude, but his comment pretty much mocks itself. It did, however, make me wonder what sorts of things that Eric Fehrnstrom must think are presidential. Here's the top five:
Circling your opponent's rally in a campaign bus while honking its horn. Disrupting one of your opponent's press conferences by blowing bubbles and shouting speakers down. Believing that you should treat a presidential campaign like a metaphorical Etch A Sketch in which you can erase anything you say if it becomes politically inconvenient. Staking your entire presidential campaign on repealing the very same health care reform policy that you signed into law when governor. Believing that you can justify any lie, dodge or flip-flop because you're "running for office, for Pete's sake."
With a list like that, is there any doubt about who's the real adult?3/10/16 (Photo: Yemen civil war: Yemeni gunmen loyal to the Shiite Houthi Group riding a car.) Persian Gulf States At War in Yemen; Syria Update. Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs. Yemen “Yemeni Shi’a officials — led by Mohammed Abdel-Salam, the Houthis’ main spokesman and a senior adviser to Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi — were in Saudi Arabia on March 8, 2016, to begin exploratory talks with the Kingdom aimed at bringing the war in Yemen to a close. The fact that the talks were underway was significant and pointed to the perception in Riyadh that the war needed to be brought to an end before irreparable damage was done to the Saudi economy and to the political viability of the leadership group around Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense & Aviation, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But both Saudi Arabia and its key strategic opponent, Iran, made it clear that they were still able to raise the stakes in the conflict. Brig.-Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, Iran’s Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, said that Iran could support the Houthis as it has similarly backed Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad, noting that “The Islamic Republic... feels its duty to help the people of Yemen in any way it can and to any level necessary.”…” Turkey. “Turkey’s Pres. Reçep Tayyip Erdoğan was, by the first week of March 2016, redoubling efforts to survive politically by continuing to oppose Syria, Israel, Russia, Iran, and Turkey’s own Kurdish population and domestic opposition. The war against the Kurds had escalated dramatically, despite the partial ceasefire brokered in Syria by the Russian and US governments.
And Ankara had alienated all its remaining allies except Saudi Arabia and Qatar by a range of its actions.
These actions included the draconian step of closing, by force on March 5, 2016, the main opposition newspaper, Zaman, the largest-circulation daily in Turkey, thereby compounding the now near-total suppression of independent journalism in the country, along with the imprisonment of key critics in the judiciary, military, and other sectors. Turkey was in as near a lockdown as Germany had become shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power.
Erdoðan’s actions, culminating with the press latest crackdown, have a sound basis in his fear that he and his Government are now at a tipping point of either collapse or success, depending on how he plays his hand. Criticism of his latest actions by the European Union (EU), noting that his suppression of the media jeopardized Turkey’s accession to the EU, were, by early March 2016, of such low concern because his first priority was the survival of his Government and the survival of the territorial integrity of the State….”There’s a famous saying attributed to President John F. Kennedy that goes "victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan."
The meaning behind the quote is to say that in winning, everyone celebrates and it’s a joyous occasion while losing is a lonely, solitary feeling that leaves a person feeling empty and dejected.
If you’ve ever witnessed a UFC post-fight press conference, this quote literally comes alive as the winning fighters fill the dais, covered by wide-eyed smiles and pockets sometimes overflowing with bonus money, and their happiness exudes the thrill of victory. Inevitably, however, there are always at least one or two fighters brought up to the stage that weren’t as fortunate in their endeavors to come away with a win.
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You know the look — brow furrowed, a brooding disposition on their faces and menacing voices that are only echoed by the loneliness felt during the agony of defeat. While he didn’t make the main stage of the press conference after his most recent loss to Brendan Schaub, former Ultimate Fighter competitor Matt Mitrione displayed every, single one of those traits described for weeks following the bout.
Mitrione and Schaub had bantered back and forth in interviews and via social networking as the two former friends quickly became rivals, but that’s not what fueled the depression that followed the loss. Devoid of any real levity after the fight was over, Mitrione sunk deeper and deeper into a wallowing pit of anger and frustration because he knew when it was over he didn’t do everything necessary to come away the victor.
"After losing to Brendan, I was literally devastated," Mitrione told FOX Sports recently. "It has nothing to with the eye socket, it has nothing to do with the break. It has to do with the fact that I made a stupid mistake. I dropped my underhook to around his butt and I didnât keep my elbow tight. I just made a couple of stupid mistakes, and get caught in something and whether I get caught in it or not, I need to make sure I know the defenses to it.
"There’s just something in my camp, a lot of us down in Florida with the Blackzilians a lot of us are very, very similar type of fighters. Like Anthony Johnson, myself, a guy named Guto Inocente, a hand full of guys are very similar where we all have really big balls and we come at you aggressively versus most of us don’t look for takedowns, most of us like to stand up. Because of that I just didn’t get enough grappling in. From now I’m going to make sure that I get my time in on grappling."
Losing is something every athlete deals with and it’s not a new concept to Mitrione, who has been a competitor for most of his life. From the muddy fields during his college days playing football at Purdue to his stint as a player in the NFL, Mitrione understands the concept of defeat and he’s never considered himself a "sore loser".
Mitrione’s MMA career was literally birthed in the UFC so in many ways he’s been learning as he goes, and there were always going to be road bumps along the path in his attempt to become one of the top fighters in the world. There was just something about this particular fight that stuck with Mitrione, like a stain that just wouldn’t get washed away and he woke up every morning with the regret of all the things he could have done different.
"This fight really, really broke my heart. Broke it. Like I was completely dejected," Mitrione said. "I understand that Brendan beat me, but I feel like I’m better than Brendan. Most of the time people that lose say that, and I don’t want to be that cliché guy and it’s ugly to be that guy, but I feel like I’m a better fighter than Brendan and I don’t think that Brendan should have beaten me.
"It really upset me, especially losing in that way. Good for him. Brendan caught me in a submission that I legitimately did not know the escape to, and I can’t get pissed getting caught in that. I can get pissed for the fact that it never should have gotten to the point where he got the choke in. I should have been more disciplined doing what I was supposed to do."
No matter what he did, Mitrione just couldn’t shake the unsettling feelings of dread following the loss to Schaub. He tried to find comfort by talking to other friends from the UFC that had also suffered tough losses, but the pit in his stomach just wasn’t going away no matter what he did.
"As soon as it was over I was so embarrassed and I was reaching out to some names in the UFC that I’m friends with that had some losses that they shouldn’t have lost and I was like I’m really devastated, how did you guys handle it? What did you do? How do you mentally get over this? I was really upset," Mitrione said.
"I was so embarrassed after that I really didn’t even want to work out again, I was really embarrassed. It took me a little while to get used to it."
Mitrione ended up having surgery to repair a fracture in his left eye that he suffered in the fight, and a few weeks later he picked up his bags, dusted off his ego and walked back into the gym, to try and find himself again. There was no pep talk or motivational speech awaiting Mitrione when he got there either. He was actually greeted with another reminder of the fight he just lost, but this time he faced his fear head on and tackled it with the kind of intensity and ferocity that got him in the game in the first place.
"So the first day I go back and I grapple, I’m at Purdue and I go to the grappling gym at Purdue and the instructor’s son pulls me aside and he’s like ‘I’m sure you don’t want to hear this yet, but I want to show you the defense to that D’Arce, it’s really simple’," Mitrione revealed. "He showed it to me and it’s literally one of the most simple defenses to any choke there is and I’ve actually been letting myself get caught D’Arce’s getting up from the bottom and I’ve used it three or four times and it works like a charm. It’s like why the hell didn’t I know that? It made me kind of change my preparation, change my focus a little bit more."
While he’s still waiting for medical clearance on his eye to allow him to go back into full sparring and training so he can book his next fight, Mitrione has already started to develop plans for how he will tailor his training camps going forward. He loves working with the Blackzilians team in Florida, but he also knows just like a chef needs the right ingredients to make a great dinner, he has to find the pieces that will fill the void of the puzzle he couldn’t complete the last time out.
Mitrione hasn’t sealed the deal on what he’ll add to his camp next time, but he’s already reached out to his old friend Neal Melanson, a grappling guru that trained Randy Couture for several fights, as well as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu superstar Pablo Popovich to ensure the mistakes he made the last time won’t ever happen again. He even called the UFC to ask for a fight against Stipe Miocic when he heard the Ohio native was in need of an opponent, although he was quickly rebuffed by the UFC because he was coming off a loss and needed time to heal.
The constant work and tireless training has put Mitrione’s mind back to where it needs to be for him to return to the UFC feeling like a fighter ready to conquer the world. He’s no longer consumed by the devastation he felt following the loss to Schaub, but that’s not to say there’s not a flickering ember of revenge that could easily be stoked to full flames if he’s ever given the chance at redemption. The regret of the mistakes he made will always haunt him, but Mitrione is giving up the ghost and moving forward in his career.
It doesn’t mean, however, that he will ever forget that fateful night in September.
"If there’s anybody in the world I’d want to fight again, it would be Brendan," Mitrione said. "I like Brendan, he’s a friend of mine, but the taste in my mouth from that I’m embarrassed. Remember how Rory MacDonald was talking about his loss to (Carlos) Condit, how it really embarrassed him and he wants it back? When he was saying it I was like cut it out. But right now, I really understand his perspective on that.
"I’m not going to let it consume me, but it really bothers me."It is a curious Eden.
Seas of drinkable water lap against shores of blood-orange soil as streams snake through the land, carrying with them all the vital ingredients for life. No, this isn't Earth. This is Mars, about 3.9 billion years ago.
As the Curiosity rover beams back more and more information from the Red Planet, a peculiar picture of ancient Mars is taking shape, one that looks nothing like the blistered and barren world we see today. Researchers are discovering that the secret of what caused this drastic turn in Martian natural history might be locked within the planet's air.
Two research teams have just published a pair of studies in the journal Science detailing the newest measurements Curiosity has taken of the Martian atmosphere. "We've made these measurements with high accuracy for the first time," says Chris Webster, the head of Curiosity's air-testing instruments and lead author of one of the studies. "It's going to make a big difference," he says, because these measurements are the backbone for models investigating when and how Mars's climate changed.
Among its seemingly endless suite of tools, the rover has two instruments with which to suck in and analyze the atmosphere. The scientists showed that, like Mars's landscape, the atmosphere has changed drastically over the past few million years–the gasses hovering above the Red Planet today are the wispy scraps of a once much-denser covering.
While the basic composition Mars's atmosphere has been known since the Viking missions in the 1970s—heavily CO 2, with a splash of nitrogen, oxygen, and other gasses–Curiosity's tests are the first to show the exact proportion of different gas isotopes. Scientists expect a certain basic makeup based on tests of the soil, but the Martian atmosphere has a surprising wealth of some rarer and heavier isotopes of elements like carbon and argon. Paul Mahaffy, a NASA atmospheric expert and author of the second paper, explains that this means the atmosphere was once much thicker but has thinned out in a way that left behind a fingerprint of its past. "Basically, the lighter elements can leave the planet easier than the heavier elements," Mahaffy says.
Mahaffy says the exhausted atmosphere is tied to the loss of Mars's protective magnetic field. "Very early on, Mars lost its magnetic field," he says, and because of the missing shield, "the energy from the sun can impact the atmosphere more directly than here on Earth." The solar impact causes the sky to leak atoms, starting with the lighter elements floating on the border to space.
What caused Mars to lose its magnetic field in the first place is still unknown, but the precision of the atmospheric data in this study will help put a time stamp on that disappearance. Researchers can compare it against a historic record of Arctic Martian meteorites to infer when, and how quickly, the atmospheric loss happened–a huge step closer to understanding the radical climate change that left Mars the barren world we see today. "When the atmospheric escape kicked in, it took away a lot of the water from the planet," Webster says.
Rebecca Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute who has studied the record of water on Mars and was not involved with this research, says that the data from this mission will also help toward answering another big question about Mars: Was there ever life? "We think Mars was basically on the same trajectory that Earth was," Williams says. "We're trying to get a better handle of when and where environments that were specifically conducive to life may have developed."When I program in Java I usually leave the comfort of Emacs and use IntelliJ IDEA instead (for various reasons that are irrelevant to this post). IDEA has one particularly nice feature - “auto-save on focus lost”. Basically you never have to hit C-s there explicitly, because any time your current editor window loses focus its contents get flushed to the disk automatically. Implementing something exactly the same in Emacs is impossible (at least in Emacs Lisp), but we can create a solution that is similar in spirit at least - we can auto-save buffers when we switch the Emacs window or the current buffer (which are more or less the most popular ways to change editing focus in Emacs). This is easy to achieve in Emacs Lisp:
;; use shift + arrow keys to switch between visible buffers ( require 'windmove ) ( windmove-default-keybindings'super ) ;; automatically save buffers associated with files on buffer switch ;; and on windows switch ( defadvice switch-to-buffer ( before save-buffer-now activate ) ( when buffer-file-name ( save-buffer ))) ( defadvice other-window ( before other-window-now activate ) ( when buffer-file-name ( save-buffer ))) ( defadvice windmove-up ( before other-window-now activate ) ( when buffer-file-name ( save-buffer ))) ( defadvice windmove-down ( before other-window-now activate ) ( when buffer-file-name ( save-buffer ))) ( defadvice windmove-left ( before other-window-now activate ) ( when buffer-file-name ( save-buffer ))) ( defadvice windmove-right ( before other-window-now activate ) ( when buffer-file-name ( save-buffer )))
Obviously this code could have been written in a more compact manner with the use of a macro, but I’ve decided to use this more verbose variant for the sake of |
clerics, by a female suicide bomber. Up to one hundred thousand people (in a population of two million in Dagestan) were reported to have turned out to attend the funeral of Said Efendi, who was trying to mediate between different Islamic factions in his republic.
The Georgian episode is dangerous for another reason, because of its obvious potential to be politicized and turned into a new pretext for Georgian-Russian confrontation.
So far that has been avoided. The main reaction in Moscow was a lack of reaction, basically a silent admission that the Georgian forces probably had indeed fought off a band of North Caucasian insurgents. That was something for which they should feel grateful, but the words “Thank you, Georgia,” could never pass their lips.
In Georgia, much of the media has been abuzz with conspiracy theories. Some commentators have speculated that this was a deliberate attempt by the Russian authorities to provoke a crisis in Georgia. That seems highly fanciful. The problem the Russian authorities have in Dagestan is that they have too little control of the region, not too much. It is unlikely that they would have been able to manipulate the movement of a group of militants high in the mountains.
It has since come to light that several of the fighters who died spoke Georgian and came from the Pankisi Gorge region, which has close historical links to Chechnya. So it is also possible that the Islamist group was trying to get into Dagestan, not out of there.
Most likely, this was a very local episode with local causes, a group of fighters crossing a mountainous border for reasons very specific to themselves. Dagestan is one of the world’s most complex multiethnic regions, home to at least fourteen main national groups. Over the last decade and a half, it has turned into a smaller version of Lebanon in the 1980s, the location of several overlapping conflicts: jihadi, interethnic, sectarian, and over power and money.
The Russian website Caucasian Knot, which closely monitors the North Caucasus, reported that 185 people had been killed and 168 wounded in political and religious violence in the first half of this year.
Objectively speaking, Russia and Georgia, the latter of which borders six out of the seven North Caucasian republics, have a strong interest in working together to contain trouble in this turbulent region.
In former times, they were collaborators. Historically, Christian Georgians were willing partners in the Russian imperial project to subdue the Muslim tribes of the North Caucasus. One of the most infamous episodes of the Caucasian wars came in 1854, when the Dagestani Islamic leader Imam Shamil sent a small army to gallop into the Georgian province of Kakheti (where this week’s incident took place) and abducted the family of the prince and imperial military commander David Chavchavadze.
More recently, of course, Russians and Georgians have signally failed to work together. Russia has accused the Georgians of at best failing to deal with the North Caucasian insurgency or at worst of aiding it—this was the source of two years of mutual recriminations about who was residing in the Pankisi Gorge region in 2000–2001. In 2004, anti-Georgian sentiment apparently trumped common sense, when the Russians vetoed the continuation of the OSCE monitoring mission that had been keeping watch over Georgia’s border with Chechnya.
Georgian policy toward the North Caucasus could be described as schizophrenic. On the one hand, there is a recognition that the region to the north is a source of instability and needs to be handled responsibly. On the other hand, there is a temptation to use it to poke the Russians in the eye and remind them how vulnerable they are (surely never a good tactic with Russia).
So the government in Tbilisi unveiled a perfectly sensible policy to grant visa-free travel for North Caucasians to Georgia, thus giving them an outlet from their claustrophobic region. But the Georgians spoiled it by springing the policy as a surprise—provoking predictable anger in Moscow. And last year, the Georgian parliament recognized the mass deportations of Circassians from the Russian empire in the mid-nineteenth century. Despite the genuine historical claims of the Circassians, it was a highly politicized and not very clever jab at Russia over a very sensitive issue.
The North Caucasus remains trapped within its seemingly endless cycle of violence and repression. It would be nice to think that the tragic events in Georgia last week could be a pretext for Tbilisi and Moscow to consider working together on its problems—especially as it remains likely that bloody episodes like the one this week in eastern Georgia will recur. But that is almost certainly too much to hope for.
Thomas de Waal is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Image: Magomed Aliev/RIA Novosti archiveHongkong Post has restated its stance following local and international news reports of a plan to cover royal cyphers on 59 street post boxes from the British era.
“The Government considers it inappropriate to display the crown and the British royal cypher on old posting boxes that are still in service, and is looking into ways to update the markings on these boxes,” a statement from the Hongkong Post read. “In parallel, [the] Government is considering the best way to conserve old posting boxes. We will listen to and study the views of stakeholders and will make an announcement after making a decision.”
The 59 old cast-iron post boxes still in use in Hong Kong are of different ages, including seven with the royal cypher “GRV” for King George V, two with “GRVI” for King George VI, 49 with “ERII” for Queen Elizabeth II, and just one with a Crown of Scotland in Central, according to the website of HK Post-Box Search Team.
Hongkong Post will display its hummingbird corporate logo on all serving street post boxes in a uniform manner.
In an emailed reply to HKFP, Sonia So, Senior Manager (Public Relations) for the Hongkong Post, said: “In doing so, we will take care not to cause any damage to the royal insignia, which will be preserved.”
“All the serving old posting boxes will remain in their present locations and none will be removed. The detailed preparatory work for this project is still in progress… Hongkong Post has consulted the conservation experts in the Leisure and Cultural Services Department on the technical arrangement to take account of preservation theories and restoration principles as well as practical experience in conservation work,” So said.
Public appreciation
She also said that Hongkong Post would only place retired post boxes at historical buildings or historic sites for public appreciation, instead of ones still in use on streets.
“In addition, we have a few retired old posting boxes in our store… we plan to select seven old posting boxes belonging to several different box types from our store for conservation in addition to the four types already on public display.”
皇冠嘜郵筒1997郵政署: 「一個實用的物件並不代表向誰效忠」===懷舊產品: http://hkermall.com/index.php/–2492.html Posted by 昔日香港 on Wednesday, 7 October 2015
Hongkong Post says it will make appropriate arrangements for the serving old post boxes when they retire. It will consider factors such as the actual condition of the boxes, the feasibility and cost of restoration, the availability of appropriate locations for displaying the boxes and available resources.
“As the preparatory work is still in progress, we do not have the estimated costs of the project yet.” she added.
Actions to save the post boxes
An online campaign was initiated to encourage the public to send letters to the Postmaster General on World Post Day on Friday to save the royal cyphers on historic post boxes.
Sonia So said that the Hongkong Post will “respond to all incoming correspondence from the public.”
The Hong Kong History Study Circle has organised an event on Saturday morning gathering the public to appreciate the old post boxes in the Statue Square and the General Post Office in Central.
Lee Chak-yan, the organiser of the event, wrote on the event page that “the King George V and King George VI post boxes were unique in the world, as they were made in a now-defunct Hong Kong ship factory. They should be preserved in their original forms.”
He also urged Hongkong Post to repair and maintain all old post boxes, and set up a Post Museum to display old models.New Study Measures Crop Bactericide, Nitrapyrin, in Iowa Streams
View of Old Mans Creek near Iowa City, Iowa upstream from a bridge used for collecting water-quality samples ( USGS Site ID: USGS. View of Old Mans Creek near Iowa City, Iowa upstream from a bridge used for collecting water-quality samples (Site ID: 05455100 ). This site was part of the sampling network for the first reconnaissance study to assess potential off-field transport of nitrapyrin (a bactericide) to streams. Photo Credit: Dana W. Kolpin,
First-ever reconnaissance study documents the off-field transport of nitrapyrin — a nitrification inhibitor applied with fertilizers as a bactericide to kill natural soil bacteria for the purpose of increasing crop yields — to adjacent streams. This study is the first step in understanding the transport, occurrence, and potential effects of nitrapyrin or similar compounds on nitrogen processing in aquatic systems.
Nitrification inhibitors are co-applied with inorganic nitrogen fertilizers (for example, anhydrous ammonia) to increase crop yields. Nitrapyrin, a widely used inhibitor, is a bactericide specifically designed to reduce activity of the natural soil-nitrifying bacteria Nitrosomonas, which limits nitrification and leaves more ammonium in the soil root zone for crop uptake (that is, to increase crop yields). Although nitrification inhibitors have been commonly used in the United States since the 1970's, there is very little information on their transport to aquatic systems or information on how they could affect non-target microbial community composition and function in streams.
This study was designed to study changes in nitrapyrin occurrence associated with land use changes from March to June 2016. The above photographs document the following conditions: recent anhydrous ammonia application (upper left), corn planting (upper right), early emergence (lower left), and early corn growth (lower right). The corn field was upstream from the sampling site at West Branch Wapsinonoc Creek, Iowa (USGS Site ID: USGS. This study was designed to study changes in nitrapyrin occurrence associated with land use changes from March to June 2016. The above photographs document the following conditions: recent anhydrous ammonia application (upper left), corn planting (upper right), early emergence (lower left), and early corn growth (lower right). The corn field was upstream from the sampling site at West Branch Wapsinonoc Creek, Iowa (USGS Site ID: 0546494170 ). Photo Credit: Dana W. Kolpin,
U.S. Geological (USGS) scientists led the first reconnaissance study to assess potential off-field transport of nitrapyrin and its degradate, 6-chloropicolinic acid (6-CPA), to streams. To provide a comparison for nitrapyrin, this study also measured the off-field transport of three widely used and often detected corn herbicides: acetochlor, atrazine, and metolachlor. Water samples were collected from March to June 2016 at 11 sites ranging in basin size (12 to 220,000 square kilometers) across the State of Iowa to encompass the spring fertilizer application period and corresponding crop growth.
This study was the first to document off-field transport of nitrapyrin. Nitrapyrin was detected in seven streams (39 percent of water samples) at concentrations ranging from 12 to 240 nanograms per liter even though its chemical properties indicate that it should adsorb to soils thus limiting its off-field transport. The degradate, 6-CPA, was never detected. The herbicides were detected in 100 percent of the samples at concentrations ranging from 28 to 16,000 nanograms per liter. Nitrapyrin detections were associated with rainfall events following the application of spring fertilizer, and nitrapyrin persisted in streams for up to 5 weeks. Nitrapyrin seems to follow the same spring flush pattern that has been well documented for herbicides.
Results from this study document nitrapyrin occurrence and transport from agricultural fields to adjacent streams. The concentrations observed in water samples were orders of magnitude below the median lethal concentration (LC 50 — a statistically derived concentration of a substance that can be expected to cause death in 50 percent of test animals) values reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for freshwater vertebrates and invertebrates. Concentrations were also below the minimal toxicity level that can affect non-target soil organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes in soils, and were below the toxicity level for target soil-nitrifying bacteria. However, there are no studies about the effects of nitrapyrin on microbial function related to nitrogen processing in aquatic systems. The concentrations measured in this study provide a baseline for future studies to understand the effects of this nitrification inhibitor on instream processing of nitrogen.
This study was supported by the USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program.
Reference
Woodward, E.E., Hladik, M.L., and Kolpin, D.W., 2016, Nitrapyrin in streams—The first study documenting off-field transport of a nitrogen stabilizer compound: Environmental Science and Technology Letters, v. 3, no. 11, p. 387-392, doi:10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00348.
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More Science FeaturesTrump, Then And Now: What His Shifting Positions Say About What He Believes
Enlarge this image toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP Alex Brandon/AP
Reporters ask lots of pesky questions during campaigns for a reason: to find out how someone would govern.
Most candidates right and left comply with the public interest in what they would do by putting out policy papers and laying out facts and figures, numbers and details.
Not Donald Trump. He likes to keep everyone guessing. And the country is now seeing just how much.
In the first couple of months of his presidency, he was governing like he campaigned — bombastic and trying to follow through on bold promises. Build the wall. Ban certain people. Bring back manufacturing jobs. He ordered that the wall be built (though the U.S. will pay for it and part of it might be a fence); he ordered a travel ban for people from six majority-Muslim countries (though it was seven at first, and it's still hung up in the courts); and, as for jobs, well, presidents always get too much credit and blame for that, but there's always the Carrier deal.
In just the past few days, however, Trump has reversed himself on a whole host of subjects — from NATO, China, Russia and Syria to health care, the Export-Import Bank, even Goldman Sachs and Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen.
As the 100-day marker of Trump's presidency approaches, the shifting raises questions about what Trump really intends to do as president with the rest of his time in office. Does he even know? Or is he — and now the country — simply at the mercy of his instinctual whims and latest conversations?
Some of what Trump is doing is being billed as a movement toward the mainstream. For example:
But do Trump's reversals really signal that? Don't bet on it. Just because something is true today with Trump doesn't mean it will be so tomorrow.
Here's a look at how Trump has changed on some of the issues in the news and how he's shifted. (Jump to: NATO, China, Russia, Syria, health care, Export-Import Bank, Goldman Sachs and Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen.)
1. NATO
Then:
"I think NATO's obsolete. NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger, much larger than Russia is today. I'm not saying Russia's not a threat. But we have other threats." — March 27, 2016, on ABC's This Week
Now:
"The Secretary General and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago, and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete; it's no longer obsolete. It's my hope that NATO will take on an increased role in supporting our Iraqi partners in their battle against ISIS." — Thursday in a press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
PolitiFact fact-checked Trump's view that NATO didn't give him credit in 2016 when it unveiled that it had created a new intelligence chief. But it noted this wasn't a major change — and it wasn't because of Trump. Member nations had been complaining about how to improve intelligence sharing. This was a step to get better about that. The fact-checking site added:
"More to the point, Trump's comment gives the impression that NATO hadn't been responsive to terrorism until the new division was created. That's not true at all. NATO involvement in counter-terrorism issued its first formal declaration on terrorism in 1980, and it became a significant issue for the alliance on Sept. 11, 2001."
NATO has a section of its website explaining how the organization tries to counter terrorism. Its efforts were written about by Philip Gordon in 2002. Gordon wound up on President Barack Obama's National Security Council.
In fairness to Trump, Stoltenberg was on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday saying that NATO has "stepped up" its efforts when it comes to combating terrorism and is hoping that more countries devote more money to their own defenses as well, something Trump has called for.
2. China
Then:
"On day one of a Trump administration, the U.S. Treasury Department will designate China a currency manipulator." — Nov. 9, 2015, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
"I will direct the Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator." — Trump in his "Contract with the American Voter" as point No. 3 of his "seven actions to protect American workers." He called that plan "my pledge to you."
Now:
"They're not currency manipulators." — Trump in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Trump's reason? Per the Journal: "China hasn't been manipulating its currency for months and because taking the step now could jeopardize his talks with Beijing on confronting the threat of North Korea."
3. Russia
Then:
"The relationship is great, and it would be great if I had the position I should have." — March 18, 2015, to the Daily Mail.
"I was over in Moscow two years ago and I will tell you — you can get along with those people and get along with them well. You can make deals with those people. Obama can't." — June 16, 2015, to Fox's Bill O'Reilly.
He went on to echo that sentiment on multiple occasions throughout the campaign. (See CNN's comprehensive timeline here.)
"If he [Putin] says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him. I've already said he is really very much of a leader. I mean, you can say, 'Oh, isn't that a terrible thing' — the man has very strong control over a country." — Sept. 7, 2016, in an NBC town hall.
"[Hillary Clinton] doesn't like Putin, because Putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way.... Putin has outsmarted her in Syria, he's outsmarted her every step of the way." — Oct. 19, 2016, third presidential debate.
In December, Trump quoted Putin in a tweet, saying of Clinton: " 'One must be able to lose with dignity.' So true!"
As president-elect, he said this on Jan. 11: "If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia."
Then as president, on Feb. 6, just two months ago, when asked by O'Reilly about Putin being a "killer," Trump said: "There are a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent?"
Now:
"It would be wonderful, as we were discussing just a little while ago, if NATO and our country could get along with Russia. Right now, we're not getting along with Russia at all. We may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia." — Trump in a press conference with NATO's secretary general on Wednesday.
"Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!" — Trump in a tweet on Thursday.
4. Syria
Then:
"The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria-big mistake if he does not!" — Aug. 30, 2013, in a tweet after Assad used chemical weapons and President Obama was deciding if he would strike unilaterally. Obama wound up going to Congress, did not get approval and did not strike despite, saying use of chemical weapons would be a "red line."
"AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!" — Sept. 5, 2013, in a tweet.
"President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your 'powder' for another (and more important) day!" — Sept. 7, 2013, in a tweet.
Now:
"Assad choked out the lives of innocent men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror. Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched. It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons." — April 6, in a speech announcing U.S. military action against Syria.
5. Health care
Then:
"I think what will happen is Obamacare, unfortunately, will explode. It's going to have a very bad year.... So what would be really good, with no Democrat support, is if the Democrats, when it explodes — which it will soon — if they got together with us and got a real healthcare bill. I would be totally up to do it. And I think that's going to happen. I think the losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because now they own Obamacare. They own it — 100 percent own it.... And they have Obamacare for a little while longer, until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.... We'll be going right now for tax reform, which we could have done earlier." — March 24 from the Oval Office after the GOP health care bill's failure.
Now:
"We have to do health care first to pick up additional money so that we get great tax reform. So we're going to have a phenomenal tax reform. But I have to do health care first. I want to do it first to really do it right." — Wednesday in an interview with Fox Business.
6. Export-Import Bank
Then:
"I don't like it because I don't think it's necessary. It's a one-way street also. It's sort of a featherbedding for politicians and others, and a few companies. And these are companies that can do very well without it. So I don't like it. I think it's a lot of excess baggage. I think it's unnecessary. And when you think about free enterprise it's really not free enterprise. I'd be against it." — Aug. 4, 2015, to Bloomberg.
Now:
"It turns out that, first of all, lots of small companies are really helped, the vendor companies.... But also, maybe more important, other countries give [assistance]. When other countries give it we lose a tremendous amount of business.... Instinctively, you would say, 'Isn't that a ridiculous thing,' But actually, it's a very good thing. And it actually makes money, it could make a lot of money." — Wednesday in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
7. Goldman Sachs
Then:
"I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton." — Feb. 19, 2016, in a primary debate about rival Ted Cruz. Cruz's wife, Heidi, was a Goldman employee.
"We've seen this firsthand in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors." — Oct. 13, 2016, in reference to Clinton receiving $675,000 for three speeches made to Goldman.
Trump touted that he was self-funding his campaign and that he believed that the influence of special interests "resonates with voters."
Trump even ran this closing ad in the 2016 campaign. Over images of world leaders, Hillary Clinton and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, there's this line:
"It's a global power struggle that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets into a handful of large corporations and political entities."
Team Trump via YouTube
Now:
Trump hired a slew of people with Goldman Sachs on their resumes to key positions in his White House. In addition to chief strategist and former campaign "CEO" Steve Bannon, who had once worked for the heavy hitting New York investment bank, there's also Gary Cohn, director of his National Economic Council; deputy national security adviser Dina Powell; and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was Trump's national finance chairman.
Cohn, a registered Democrat, is so wealthy, he's worth more than Mitt Romney. His financial disclosure found he's one of the richest members of Trump's Cabinet, worth between $252 million and $611 million.
Another Goldman alumnus, Anthony Scaramucci, who was involved in the transition, was set to take on a senior role in the White House running the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. But he wound up not getting the role because of a potential conflict of interest — a hedge fund he founded was in the process of being sold to a Chinese company.
Bloomberg wrote this back in December of Trump's Goldman ties:
"After eight years as the face of Wall Street greed and the target of public scorn, the bankers at Goldman Sachs can be cheerful again. Not only has Trump's election stoked hopes for looser regulatory policies that will make it easier for banks to take bigger risks and book fatter profits, but Goldman also appears to have regained its place at the nexus between Wall Street and Washington. After being largely cut out of the federal government during the Obama years, with few of its alums tapped for big jobs, Goldman is starting to live up to its former nickname, Government Sachs."
8. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen
Then:
"She's keeping [rates] artificially low to get Obama retired. Watch what is going to happen afterwards. It is a very serious problem, and I think it is very political. I think she is very political and to a certain extent, I think she should be ashamed of herself because it is not supposed to be that way." -- Sept. 12, 2016, on CNBC.
"We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble, and we had better be awfully careful, and we have a Fed that's doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed. The Fed is doing political... by keeping the interest rates at this level." — Sept. 26, 2016, during the first general election presidential debate.
Now:
"I do like a low-interest rate policy, I must be honest with you.... No, not toast. I like her, I respect her." -- Wednesday to the Wall Street Journal.
That's a lot. Despite all of it, White House press secretary Sean Spicer contended it's not Trump changing, it's everything else changing in Trump's direction.
"If you look at what's happened, it's those entities or individuals in some cases or issues evolving towards the president's position," Spicer said, per NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley. "NATO, in particular, he talked about the need of countries to pay their fair share, to live up to their commitments of 2 percent of GDP. He talked about the need for NATO to focus more on terrorism. NATO has done just that."
(See our fact-check on this very point in point No. 1 above.)
Trump is undoubtedly — let's call it — ideologically flexible. There were plenty of Trump flip-flops from before entering politics to his campaign. He went from "very pro-choice," for example, to floating the idea of jailing women who get abortions.
There is potentially some advantage to being malleable. It could help him make deals. Mike McFaul, the former ambassador to Russia, said on MSNBC on Wednesday that Trump's unpredictability has the Russians worried — and it can be one of his biggest assets.
This unpredictability was employed by another U.S. president, Richard Nixon. His "Madman Theory" was employed to keep the Soviet Union and Vietnam, for example, off balance.
Barton Swaim, a former aide to Mark Sanford when he was governor of South Carolina, picked up on this in an op-ed in the Washington Post in December and made the case for Trump this way:
"[E]vents have a way of upending presidents' worldviews — George W. Bush, remember, rejected "nation building" as a presidential candidate — and it's just conceivable that Trump may use his cunning to accomplish worthier goals than his myriad critics think him inclined to pursue. Trump, in other words — the madman, not in theory, but in practice — may bring off some creditable diplomatic victories precisely because foreign leaders and their emissaries don't feel it's in their interest to test the White House."
But the downside can be huge. Dana Milbank wrote about it in December, too:
"[I]n Trump's application of the Madman Theory there seems to be less theory than madman. There may be advantages to keeping foes and opponents off guard, but Trump is baffling friends and allies, too. In foreign affairs, unpredictability spooks allies and spreads instability. And unpredictable policy at home has long been seen as toxic for business.... The widespread chaos suggests Trump isn't signaling new policies as much as he's winging it. His unpredictability is not a theory. It's the absence of one."
So, crazy? Or crazy like a fox?
Where you come down on that is probably another dividing line between Trump opponents and supporters.
Regardless, both sides should be able to agree that Americans deserve to know where politicians stand, what they intend to do, how they will lead and, if they change, why.
When it comes to the Trump presidency, one thing is clear — anything can happen.Scientists Create A Breakthrough Vaccine To Tackle Herpes
Trending News: Coming Soon: A Groundbreaking Vaccine For This Hated STI
Why Is This Important?
Long Story Short
Long Story
One of the most widespread sexual health issues in the world is closer to getting resolved.Herpes is a huge (and incurable) health problem for many men and women across the world, and efforts to discover a cure or vaccine have so far turned up empty. A wildly new approach to the problem taken by scientists in New York is looking "very promising" and could be the solution we've been waiting for.Scientists from the U.S. are claiming to have discovered a radical new vaccine to fight the two most common forms of the herpes virus, one of the biggest STD global health problems in the world today. The researchers describe their findings as "very promising," and there's also the possibility that the vaccine could be used to cure herpes retroactively.
HSV-1 and HSV-2, the two most common forms of the virus, cause cold sores and genital sores, respectively, and right now there's no known cure or vaccine. The viruses also increase the likelihood of contracting HIV. Scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York have taken a totally different approach to previous research to come up with their new treatment.
Rather than focusing on a particular glycoprotein called gD, as existing studies have, the researchers created a genetic mutant lacking gD. When injected into mice, the treatment was found to prevent herpes infections — what's more, there were no traces of the virus lurking latently inside the animals. The people behind the new drug say that both the novel way it's created and the robust way it stops infection offer hope for the future.
"We have a very promising new candidate for herpes," says William Jacobs, one of the HHMI investigators, "but this might also be a good candidate as a vaccine vector for other mucosal diseases, particularly HIV and tuberculosis. If our vaccine works in humans as it does in mice, administering it early in life could completely eliminate herpes latency."
The findings have been published in the journal eLife this month and the next step for the treatment is human testing and FDA approval. The research team is also looking for industry partners to produce large quantities of the vaccine.
Own The Conversation
Ask The Big Question: Could herpes be eradicated within a generation?
Disrupt Your Feed: A vaccine might just cause people to become more promiscuous and less safe overall.
Drop This Fact: 1 in 6 people aged 14-49 years in the U.S. have genital herpes.A Toronto pre-construction condo disaster has left buyers feeling absolutely helpless after being informed via email that the development of their future homes has ceased.
Last week, purchasers of the Kennedys Condos received news from a liquidator, KPMG LLP, that development company Tarn Financial Corporation (“Tarn”) is winding-up [email 1] [email 2]. The message to purchasers was clear: their Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) is to remain in full force, meaning that payments under the APS should continue to be made. The situation has left many in limbo as deposits are to be held in trust until further decisions are made. There is no telling on when or whether the funds will be returned to the number of people who bought into the proposed multi-tower complex.
The troubling fiasco began when Canadian developer Ali Akman approached two wealthy men from Turkey, named Volkan and Serdar. He pitched to them an investment opportunity which would also allow them to immigrate their family members to Canada, via sponsorship by Akman. Without a shareholders agreement, the Turkish investors each put in $6 million for 40% interest, and $3 million for an exchange of 20% interest, respectively. Akman invested $4.3 million in exchange for 40% of the company, gaining more shares for less investment. Court documents state that it was expected that Akman’s balance of his contribution would be provided by way of management of Tarn Financial, as well as personal guarantees between financial institutions.
Once incorporated in July 2014, Tarn Financial purchased the property set for the Kennedys Condos – the Delta Hotel and its surrounding Development Lands at 2035 Kennedy Road, Toronto. (Kennedy Road & Hwy 401 See Map below)
This is when Akman began working independently and behind the back of his fellow investors. Shortly after receiving the investment funds, Akman took immediate steps to alter the capital structure of Tarn for his benefit of absolute voting control, without notifying shareholders.
In mid-2016, it was discovered that Akman had created a new class of shares by amending the Articles, having issued 100 new class B shares of Tarn Financial to his company SAMM, without the consent of the shareholders. He then changed the capital structure of Tarn Financial to give himself absolute voting control by creating new class B shares. The amendment was also made by way of special resolution, as Akman managed to sway an uninformed individual with signing authority. This gave his company SAMM a 70% voting interest, instead of the 40% originally agreed upon for Akman.
Akman then treated Tarn Financial as his own company, with little regard for the interest of the shareholders:
Signing a management contract with his company Akman Hospitality Management Inc., where Tarn would pay a management fee of 4% of the hotel’s gross revenue accrued monthly – ultimately costing Tarn $12 million over the next 15 years
Using the hotel’s capital to finance his personal investments, and using Tarn to enter into a number of deals and loans with other companies controlled by him
Paying his company SAMM $1 million in development fees from Tarn without any communication with shareholders
Creating an offshore account in the name of a company controlled by him, and funneling surplus cash to it from Tarn
The remaining shareholders, once realizing the concerning moves Akman had made, immediately filed to the Superior Court of Justice for an Order to wind-up the company. Based on Akman’s breach in his duties owed, the judge found the shareholders’ scenario to fall within the oppression remedy. There was “no real dispute” about Akman’s oppressive conduct since he acted in a manner that was unfairly prejudicial and disregarded the interests of the shareholders.
Since the Kennedys Condos sales had been a success and had sold out 100%, the judge at first did not suggest a wind-up of assets, due to the high volume of purchasers likely to be affected. As the remaining two shareholders had no confidence to continue with the project, they looked to exit the company. Failing to resolve this outside of court, the judge was left with no option other than to wind-up Tarn.
This unfortunate situation has now left hundreds of buyers in outrage and disbelief. Akman has since filed an appeal requesting to purchase all assets from the other shareholders, however no court decision has been made yet.
Follow @HouseSigmaAI on Twitter for updates.Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders: Political Leverage
Eoin Higgins Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 30, 2016
It was interesting to see Ralph Nader write an op-ed for The Washington Post last weekend supporting Bernie Sanders’ decision to run as a Democrat. Nader felt compelled to defend the Independent Senator from Vermont from criticism over the political opportunism inherent in his calculated decision to run inside the party as a way to generate attention and as political leverage over the presumptive nominee (still), Hillary Clinton.
The problem is that Sanders gave up the chance for any viable political leverage by precluding the possibility of a third party run before he officially announced he was seeking the Democratic nod.
[O]ne of my proudest political acts was voting for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. It was the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in; I studied the candidates, I |
— which was conducted last week — showed Clinton making gains in Pennsylvania following a week of what can best be described as bad news for Trump. The poll showed Clinton leading by nine points in Pennsylvania, a state that pundits have described as one of the battleground states critical to either candidate’s path to the White House. Her lead among likely voters is 47 percent to Trump’s 38 percent.
The results out of Philadelphia are especially of note. Here in the city, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a nearly 8-to-1 margin. The last time a Republican presidential candidate garnered more than 20 percent of the vote in the city was 24 years ago in 1992, when George H.W. Bush took 21 percent of the vote in the general election. Here’s how Republican presidential candidates fared in Philadelphia in the general election since then:
A second poll out of Monmouth University released Tuesday showed Clinton with a 10-point lead in Pennsylvania and showed she leads the GOP nominee in the “seven congressional districts that encompass the city of Philadelphia” 62 percent to 30 percent. That poll reported Clinton’s favorability rating has increased since August while Trump’s has declined.
The F&M poll also showed Democratic candidate for Senate Katie McGinty leads incumbent Republican Pat Toomey by six points among likely voters. In Philadelphia, 56 percent of voters said they’d vote for McGinty, 13 percent said they’d vote for Toomey and a whopping 32 percent were still undecided.
Meanwhile, the Monmouth poll showed McGinty and Toomey in a tie at 46 percent each. The last time Monmouth polled likely voters in August, McGinty led 45 percent to 41 percent.
Oct. 11 is the voter registration deadline. You can register to vote here.EAST RUTHERFORD -- The Giants will be without the services of linebacker Jon Beason for another game.
As expected, Beason will be out for Sunday's home opener against the Falcons (1 p.m., FOX). He is one of the Giants' seven inactive players.
Beason was listed as doubtful with a knee sprain on Friday when the last pregame injury report was released, but he told reporters he was hopeful he could manage to play in a limited role.
Here are the full inactives for both teams. NFL rules only allow a team to dress 46 players for a game, so each team has to have seven inactive players for each contest:
GIANTS INACTIVES:
* LB Jon Beason
* WR Victor Cruz
* TE Daniel Fells
* OL Bobby Hart
* DT Markus Kuhn
* DE Owa Odighizuwa
* S Cooper Taylor
FALCONS INACTIVES:
* DE Malliciah Goodman
* C Gino Gradkowski
* WR Justin Hardy
* T Bryce Harris
* WR Devin Hester
* T Jake Long
* LB Brooks Reed
James Kratch can be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com or by leaving a note in the comments below. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find and like NJ.com Giants on Facebook.The transcript of an interview Thursday Reggie McKenzie on how things are progressing with the Raiders after his first offseason, training camp and regular-season game:
Q: You made no move toward available wide receivers such as Plaxico Burress, Chad Johnson or Terrell Owens, is that a philosophical thing, wanting to go with younger players?
McKenzie: No, it’s not just age per se. If the right player could add to the group … we just didn’t feel that those three were the right ones. Clear and simple. If I felt like they could have added something to what we were doing, I would have strongly considered it.
Q: You came from Green Bay, and Packers never made signings like that …
McKenzie: All that is well and good. It starts with a foundation and you have to have the guys around long enough to develop and see that development. And we do have a couple of guys … we were just hit with injuries at that position so early, especially with your No. 1 going down. Then, a guy like Jacoby who we had plans for. Going into it, you felt good but you miss one guy and that can trickle down quickly. If we add guys, I want to make sure and add a guy that’s going to help this team. I just didn’t think those three guys were the guys.
Q: Is that part of that decision weighing short term versus long term benefits?
McKenzie: Yeah, to get a veteran I like to get one that if he shows himself well, I would like to add another year. Because that group, we don’t have a lot of veteran play there. You got DHB as the most seasoned guy. Hagan will help. He’s never been the go-to guy, like TO or Chad with all the catches that they have. Derek doesn’t have that resume but he’s been in the league. That does help solidify the group.
Q: You though at camp that you were a little ahead of where you expected to be. Still true?
McKenzie: Well, when you start playing games, sometimes all it takes is one play to kind of …”Oh, here we go … let’s get this thing fixed.” And that happened with special teams. Not too many long snappers go out … that’s something you don’t wish on anyone, for Shane to go through what he had to go through. That was tough. But as far as being ahead, our defense, watching our defense this summer, I felt pretty good and I stated some of that earlier … that’s the same, I didn’t waver there. As far as the offense getting the timing with the quarterback and the receivers, you gotta a guy that’s been there for a week and a rookie getting a lot of play. Then you had DHB with the other rookie that was hurt — those were our four receivers. That will set you back a little bit. So, with that being said, we’re going to have to pick it up in that area. The passing game with everything jelling and clicking, we’ll get that going.
Q: Could you and should you have had another long snapper prepared? Or is that just an unforeseen circumstance …
McKenzie: Well, it’s unforeseen. You try a couple of guys that you have in practice and of course the best one was Travis. It was just unfortunate that it didn’t work out as good as you would have hoped. You knew he wasn’t going to be the type of snapper that does it for a living but that he could get it back there and do it OK. Games are different. I don’t think any team has ever kept two-snapper only guys. Hopefully that’s a once in a lifetime deal.
Q: Are you confident in the guys behind McFadden that they can take some of the load off his shoulders?
McKenzie: Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you throw as many passes as we did — that’s the thing that those two guys can do, they can catch the ball. Hopefully Denarius can help open it up a little bit. But when you talk about Darren getting a lot of touches, that’s the flow of the game. It wasn’t like he was getting worn down, eight plays in a row. It wasn’t by design to throw 15, 13 balls his way. But the quarterback is not going to hesitate to throw it to him. If he doesn’t see something he likes, he is going to try and find him. And I am not going to tell him not to put it in his hands. But yeah, Darren will be OK. We have enough confidence in the other two to let them touch the ball. Taiwan got those ribs a little bit, and he was trying to regroup from that.
Q: Rolando McClain looked pretty good. One independent service said he graded out his best game as a Raider. The way that you guys have handled his issues, do you feel vindicated at all?
McKenzie: I really haven’t felt any vindication. Honestly, I just look at Rolando since I have been here. And from the offseason workouts to training camp and all of that stuff, he has been solid. He understands what coach Tarver and Dennis and coach Holland are trying to get him to do, and he’s taken it and is trying to run with it. … He did have some production (Monday). I don’t know how he graded out, if he lined up right but you did see him flash around there. So, hopefully, all the players, you wan them to continue to get better. And I think they will.
Q: Most teams lose a starting cornerback Week 1 and panic, but Pat Lee is your guy, so you’re pretty comfortable?
McKenzie: Yes, I am comfortable with what he can do. As far as matching up with certain guys, he can do that well. I’m scared to put him on Calvin Johnson, you know, but he’s smart and he understands the defense and what they’re asking of him. If he just plays within his game, he will be fine. Corner is one of those deals where some guys want to take chances and try and make a play and do something outside of the defense, and that’s something we don’t want them to do. He should be fine. They will put him in a position to succeed.
Q: How much of a logistical issue is it to get six snappers on one place for a tryout?
McKenzie: Trust me, instead of six it could have been 56. I was getting information, by the end of the game I already had a list of guys. Lo and behold, when I get home that night and get to the office the next morning, everybody had a snapper for me. We had an emergency board with guys, and then we evaluated more on tape and we just picked out the six guys that we thought we could give a shot. We had a couple of others that didn’t work out because Washington had their workout before and they had signed a guy. That’s just the way it goes. Couldn’t get another guy in here because of travel. Six guys, that was the easy part. Could have been more. That was just something you gotta do. You put those guys in a competitive situation and they see who they’re going against, and just go with the guy we felt best about.
Q: Haven’t talked to you since cutdown day, how tough a cut was DeMarcus Van Dyke?
McKenzie: It came to the point where you gotta compare guys to others that are out there and the guys that we brought in. And there’s no question it was a tough decision. There’s no question that he has a boatload of talent, but at the end of the day, as far as developing his skill as far as making plays, and just getting better as a football player, we just felt like bringing in the other guys would be better for the Raiders.
Q: From the outside, you look at Miami, then Pittsburgh and Denver back to back so the feeling is, `they’d better win vs. Miami” … look at it that way, or are you of the mind that it’s the NFL and they’re all tough …
McKenzie: I really am. You look at the teams and who they have. Like everybody, you look at the quarterback. You look at what type of defense they have and stuff like that, kicking game, what you’re going to have be ready for. Every team will be gunning for you. You’re talking about a rookie quarterback vs. two Super Bowl quarterbacks, of course that’s a different deal, but you get a win anyway you can get it. But that doesn’t mean that we put added pressure on ourselves that we gotta win Miami. I’m sure players feel better about playing a certain guy he’s got lined up on him, a defensive player, a corner, thinking, I’m going to try and bait this quarterback if they can, versus another quarterback they feel like they probably can’t. You’re going to take a couple of chances how you play certain guys. But as far as wins, we’re not chalking up any wins until we get it, and No. 2, I’m not going to put any added pressure to win Miami versus winning Pittsburgh. I want to win all my home games, to be honest with you. It’s always tough to play away. We’ll deal with Pittsburgh when they come.
Q: How often do you communicate with Mark Davis? Is that a daily thing?
McKenzie: About every other day.
Q: Both coach Allen and coach Knapp are zone blocking guys. They love the scheme, think it’s the best offense to run the ball. Are you as well, or open to what they want to do?
McKenzie: I’m open. I’ve seen all kinds of schemes work. To me, it’s all about coaching it up and all of ’em getting on the same page. I like watching a zone run scheme. When it’s blocked right, I’ve always hated to play against. Usually as a defensive player you hate to play against it. It’s not advantageous for the defense to go against that. If they continue to work at execution it’ll be fine.
Q: Operating under the assumption it takes awhile to get it down?
McKenzie: Yeah, it does, especially when you talk about the players all being on the same accord. That helps, when you have the same guys in there, so hopefully they more they practice, they more they work, the more they play, and the more D-Mac sees it, our fullback, everybody’s involved with it now. Our receivers got to make their blocks. It’s not a simple scheme. It’s simple as far as football, you block that guy, but defenses don’t be still for you, so you’ve got to know how they attack it. But that’s a pretty good scheme. I’m good with the scheme.
Q: There’s a criticism that zone scheme is not necessarily good in short yardage. Your thoughts?
McKenzie: No. The thing is, short-yardage, it’s not like you’re running outside zone or inside. You’ve got other plays that you can run. You can run the lead. You can run the power. Just because you are a zone blocking team don’t mean that you’re not allowed to run a guard pull play and a lead play. No, I disagree with that.
Q: A case when you get near the goal line everything is more difficult …
McKenzie: Yeah. I know we did bad last year in Green Bay scoring on third and short. The players have got to say I’m going to knock you off the ball. It comes down to that, whether it’s a zone block, power blocking, lead blocking. Mano-a-mano. Somebody’s got to win a block.
Q: Before the Chargers game, did you have that sense of, OK, this is my team, I’m a general manager and this is my first game? Or do you not think like that?
McKenzie: I tried not to think like that. Then when you have some of your buddies around the league saying, `This is your first one,’ and I’m like, OK. Some of your friends and family and some of my road scouts, I get a text from Zack (Crockett) or my brother, or Mickey (Marvin). Just win, baby. It’s your first one, let’s get it. So you can’t help but think about it a little bit. You go out there, they got the Black Hole, they’re cheering you on. You kind of grasp it all, kind of savor the moment, and the hype of Monday night, too. So, yeah, I kind of got fired up, got excited. But once it kicks off, you focus on the game, seeing how the guys on play.
Q: Since you’re a general manager that has turned over all on-field stuff to the head coach, is there a feeling of helplessness that you’re not involved? Or are you evaluating?
McKenzie: I’m evaluating, mostly. Can we fix this, this, this and this? During the game it’s more evaluation. I’m not getting on the red phone and saying, `Call this play.’
Q: Are you looking at guys, so many of them on one-year contracts, to prove themselves?
McKenzie:There’s a constant evaluation. I’m evaluating the game and sometimes I isolate on certain one-on-one situations or stuff like that. Mostly it’s just evaluating the game. The next morning, evaluating the tape, seeing if players are coming to play. I wish I could just sit back and just watch the game, but I can’t do that. I’m kind of evaluating the game, how coaches are doing stuff, and the flow, and the clock and all that stuff.
For more on the Raiders, visit the Inside the Oakland Raiders blog at ibabuzz.com/oaklandraiders. Follow Jerry McDonald on Twitter at Twitter.com/Jerrymcd.Models of the Nokia Lumia 900 cellular telephone are pictured in San Francisco, California April 11, 2012. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Struggling phone maker Nokia has knocked 10-15 percent off the prices of two of its top of the range smartphones, hoping to boost sales before newer models arrive in markets in November.
Nokia has cut the price of the Lumia 800 by around 15 percent and the Lumia 900 by 10 percent in Europe, according to device pricing data compiled by British research firm CCS Insight. Nokia declined to comment.
Earlier this month, Nokia launched Lumia 820 and 920, which many see as crucial for the Finnish company’s survival. But the newest models will only go on sale in November, leaving the company’s sales team struggling with older smartphone models for over a month.
Nokia had already slashed the price of the Lumia 800 by around 15 percent earlier this month and made smaller cuts for its other Lumia models.
Once the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia fell behind rivals in smartphones and has racked up more than 3 billion euros ($3.86 billion) in operating losses in the last 18 months.
In early 2011, it bet its future on Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Windows accounts for only around 3 percent of global smartphones, while Google’s Android platform controls two-thirds of sales and Apple has around a quarter.
Competitive pricing is considered crucial for Nokia to lure back customers, even though pricing does not seem to be an issue for rival Apple. In Belgium, for example, more than 10,000 people have pre-registered for the latest iPhone even before a local price has been set.I’ve seen a diverse range of responses to my peak radfem blog post. Thankfully, many of them were reasonable. A lot of people just asked questions, asked me to clarify things, whatever. And a handful of women even thanked me for publicly addressing the issues they’ve had with radical feminist communities.
But the rest of the responses were… not so nice.
So here’s my not-so-nice response to those responses.
Let’s get this shit out of the way first:
I did not call radical feminism a cult.
Please, read my “peak radfem” post again,
and quote me the part where I said it was a cult.
See?
You can’t.
Because I didn’t.
/ahem/
Radical feminism can’t possibly be an ideological cult — because “radical feminism” is an umbrella term. It has no central belief, no clear set of rules, and no resources to exploit. While there are certainly radical feminist cults, the whole umbrella term can’t be called a cult. It’s just too diverse and disorganized.
That’s why, when choosing what words to use in that blog post, I said “ideology,” “movement” and “group.” I described certain splinters of radical feminism as “extreme” and “cultic/cultists.” And all of this was deliberate on my part. Still, though, I did not call radfeminism a cult.
My biggest pet peeve, as a writer, is when I take painstaking care in choosing exactly the right words to express my thoughts as clearly as possible — but people still hear me saying something else, and respond accordingly. So then I end up scrambling to defend things I never fucking said. (Strawman fallacy, anyone?) And it’s a mess. A mess that doesn’t have to exist.
So here comes the second thing-we-need-to-get-out-of-the-way:
I didn’t write my peak radfem blog to start a debate about political lesbianism, or separatism, or what have you. I wasn’t writing opinions. I was writing my feelings.
And. My. Feelings. Are. Not. Up. For. Debate.
(^ By the way, if you’re an abuse survivor of any kind, this phrase is something you need to chant like a mantra. Step #1 in squashing emotional manipulation is to recognize, acknowledge and defend your own feelings, vehemently. Once you have confidence in asserting your emotional needs, it’s much harder for manipulators to deny your emotional state and disempower you.)
I’m not surprised that the most cruel responses to my peak radfem blog were generally from political lesbians and separatists — the two kinds of radfems I explicitly called “extreme.” If anything, I’m amused by it. Why? Oh, because all I really said was that I felt uncomfortable getting close to political lesbians and separatists. I stated my boundary. And just like emotions, personal. boundaries. are. not. up. for. debate.
It’s just so, cute, how I have to remind political lesbians and separatists — feminists whose entire political philosophy rests on the concept of respecting women’s boundaries — that my boundaries don’t need their approval. Real cute, that double standard.
Last thing we need to clarify:
I didn’t write that blog for radfems.
(What? Huh?)
You heard that right: This whole blog? UnMinding? Yeah, I write it for other recovering cultists, like myself. Secondarily, I write this blog for people who want to understand the inner workings of a cult survivor. People who want to learn. They are my intended audience. I open my heart for their sake.
Inevitably, since this is a public blog, non-cultists read it and get confused as hell, taking everything personally and missing all of the points. Then, they go into attack mode.
And that’s what I’m upset about. I’m angry about non-cultists reading my blog, and not only not getting it, but not even trying to get it. I’m angry at the people who come to this blog and refuse to learn anything or see where I’m coming from. No, they just come here to explain what they think a cult is (to ME of all people! — someone who’s spent years researching cults more more intimately than they could ever imagine!), gripe at me for making them feel uncomfortable, and cast judgments of my character.
Moreover, there’s irony in the fact that they behave just like cultists do when confronted with information on cultism. I didn’t even have to say radical feminism was a cult, before radfems jumped out of the woodworks to argue that it’s not a cult.
It begs the questions: Why are they hellbent on defending something nobody attacked? Who are they trying to reassure — me, or themselves?
I wrote the peak radfem blog to show non-cultists that, as a cult survivor, navigating any and all groups is more difficult in the aftermath of cultic abuse. Even in a healthy, non-cultic group, where I’m in no immediate physical or psychological danger, my cult-related trauma gets in the way of feeling totally comfortable. Certain group dynamics are triggers for me, and those triggers make me want to disband completely. It’s nothing personal. That’s just the nature of cult trauma.
So when radfems (or vegans, for that matter) come along and take it personally that I feel triggered navigating political movements as a cult survivor, their anger at me is hurtful and unwarranted.
It’s like yelling at a recovering alcoholic, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T WANT TO COME TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY, WHERE THERE’S ALCOHOL EVERYWHERE? HOW DARE YOU MAKE THIS ALL ABOUT YOU? YOU’RE SO FUCKING SELFISH!”
Quite frankly: anyone with enough gall to take my recovery as a personal attack on them, is the one being selfish. Not me.
And here’s where I disengage.
I am very very very tempted, to address each criticism of my peak radfem blog, point-by-point. I’m tempted to take the bait, to defend my character, to prove that I deserve to be taken seriously. I’m tempted to take up the invitations for “discourse” that have been extended to me by some well-meaning radfems in the past two weeks. But nowadays, when someone in any social-justicey context says “discourse,” what I hear is “ouroboros” — a snake that nourishes itself by consuming itself, and stays in constant motion by going absolutely nowhere.
And above all else: I’m tired. (If you couldn’t already tell by the incoherence of this blog. There’s so much to say but… is there any point in saying it? [Or editing it, for that matter?])
If there’s anything I can take out of this experience, it’s that talking about cult recovery is Touchy-with-a-capital-T. Maybe cult discourse is inherently uncomfortable, and there’s no getting around that. Or maybe it doesn’t have to be. But if survivors like me are to have any safe spaces in which to discuss our experiences, we need cooperation from non-cultists. Or at the very least, their willingness to accept that our recovery decisions (such as: cutting ties with an otherwise harmless political ideology) may not make sense to them, but they make sense to us. And it’s nothing personal. Truly.
AdvertisementsUrban beekeeping is big, and many urban beekeepers are very successful at making honey. In fact, a French beekeepers’ association study found that city bees in Paris generate more honey and have lower mortality rates than rural bees.
However, many urban beekeepers struggle at some point with making enough honey to collect or even to keep the colony alive. During the first season, rookie beekeepers can expect to struggle with their colonies. Honey production may be minimal, and the colonies may need additional food to make it through the winter.
More experienced beekeepers may also face a variety of problems making honey. Beekeeping is a complex and intricate pursuit with many variables. Here are a few potential reasons for a drop in honey production. These are just some troubleshooting suggestions. We recommend joining and consulting a beekeeping organization for more specific and local help with your bees and their honey.
Watch the weather
Bees that live in a given climate are well-adapted for making honey in that climate. But weather patterns seem to be getting more extreme, erratic and unpredictable in many areas, creating problems for bees and the plants they pollinate.
Too much spring rain can keep the bees from venturing out of their winter hives. On the other hand, not enough rain will limit flower growth. Likewise, extreme heat and cold are also dangerous for bees.
Be aware of extreme temperatures and precipitation, and be prepared to provide supplemental food and support to help the bees adjust.
Keep out predators
Bears, skunks and other predators are attracted to the honey in a hive, and they may destroy hives or stress out the bees with threats and attacks, lowering productivity.
Some experts warn that once a predator finds a hive, there may be no effective way to keep them away, and it may be necessary to move the hive.
Other pests are less obvious. Mites and other invasive insects can infiltrate hives and kill off bees. Essential oils and other mild chemicals can target destructive mites.
Minimize pesticides
On the other hand, bees are sensitive to pesticides. There are pesticides for some mites and other pests, but obvious care must be taken with pesticides around bee colonies.
Try to avoid pesticides during blooming periods, as bees tend to visit blossoms. If necessary, apply pesticides when the air is calm and bee activity is minimal, such as in the evening or early night hours.
Grow the right plants
Some of the lack of productivity among rural French bees can be traced to monoculture crops and pesticide use in many farming areas. A successful bee colony needs a wide variety of the right plants for making honey. The best plants may vary by region. Consult a local beekeepers’ group for recommendations.
Keep in mind that some popular flowers have been cultivated for showy, bright color with little pollen or nectar. Also don’t worry so much about weeds, especially flowering varieties. Dandelions may mar your perfect lawn, but bees love them.
The right timing
It is also important to stimulate production and harvest honey in ways that ensure peak colony strength at the same time that your main flowers are starting to bloom and produce nectar.
Bees naturally tend to wait until the nectar is in full flow before increasing their population, but this only produces enough honey for the hive, not a surplus for human consumption.
Limit the competition
There may seem to be an abundant variety of the right plants blooming at the right time, but if every urban yard hosts a substantial bee colony, the bees will not all have enough plants to pollinate. The Guardian newspaper notes that London has seen an unprecedented rise in urban beekeeping in recent years, and some experts are beginning to worry if the bees are exceeding sustainable levels.
The article notes that researchers have yet to quantify the number of bees that an urban yard can support. Again, there are a number of complex variables that differ from place to place and month to month.
Turn off your cell phone
Finally, a lack of honey or a problem in the hive could be attributable to colony collapse disorder. The large-scale bee die-off was identified and defined in 2006, but has not been definitively diagnosed.
One theory links colony collapse disorder to pesticides and large-scale commercial beekeeping practices that move bees out of their natural habitats. However, other studies have connected the problem to electromagnetic waves, particularly from cell phones.
In one study released this year in India, researchers attached cell phones to bee hives and turned on the phones for two 15-minute periods each day. Three months later, the bees had stopped making honey and the hives had shrunk significantly.
There are many possible reasons for a drop in honey production from an urban bee hive. If the above tips don’t help, consult a local beekeeping society, where they would be happy to help.
This article was reprinted with permission. It originally appeared here on Networx.com
Urban beekeeping: When bees stop making honey
What do you do when your bees stop making honey? These seven things may be putting your honey on hold.According to legislation passed in 1972, to undergo a sex change operation a person must be over 18-years-old, a Swedish citizen, be sterilized and unmarried.
Social minister Göran Hägglund stated in an interview with Sveriges Radio on Saturday that the proposal to amend legislation to be presented by the government this spring will remove the age and citizenship requirements but retain the sterilization requirement.
This position has previously been reported by The Local and according to a report in January the Christian Democrats had managed to persuade the Alliance government to put the issue on ice.
But the minister later distanced himself from the comments, with his press secretary underlining that the issue had not yet been resolved and remained under discussion at the Government Offices.
"It was an unfortunate phrasing. He should perhaps have been clearer that this is his own opinion," Martin Kits, Göran Hägglund's press secretary, said on Saturday afternoon.
"Regardless of the position you adopt, there are additional issues to be addressed before a bill can be written," he added.
The other Alliance parties are at odds with the Christian Democrats on the issue, with the Moderate Party, Centre Party and Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) all in favour of abolishing the requirement.
The opposition parties are also critical of Hägglund's stance.
"The Social Affairs Committee has promised to address this before the summer. For Göran Hägglund to now say that the issue is not be included in the spring proposition is a broken promise," Agneta Luttropp, social policy spokesperson for the Green Party, said in a statement.LinkedIn sits on a lot of valuable data — where we work, what skills we have, where we went to school — and now it’s handing that information over to a few expert researchers in the hope they can do some good with it.
The professional network is opening up a “significant amount” of its data set to 11 different groups primarily made up of PhD students, professors and researchers. The groups were selected from a pool of hundreds as part of what LinkedIn is calling the Economic Graph Challenge; their teams will spend the next six months crunching the data — which will be anonymized — in hopes of drawing some conclusions about what it all means for the global economy and job market.
Each team has a different goal. One, from MIT, wants to measure the “economic health” of cities by looking at data associated with the people and companies that work there.
Another wants to look at the differences between how men and women promote themselves on their professional profiles. The goal is to “evaluate whether individuals with higher degrees of self-promotion receive greater job opportunities.”
LinkedIn is providing each team with a $25,000 grant, and each is supposed to publish the findings publicly in early 2016 (although LinkedIn ultimately gets final say over what’s published).
The challenge centers around what LinkedIn calls the economic graph, a buzz term CEO Jeff Weiner uses often to describe the connection of people to economic opportunities (like jobs and education). The Economic Graph is what LinkedIn is trying to build.
He described it to Re/code like this in November: “[Creating the Economic Graph] requires us having a profile for all three billion members of the global workforce, a profile for every company in the world, a digital representation for every job in the world, a digital representation for every skill required to obtain those jobs.”
The challenge is a nice mission, but LinkedIn has a lot to gain as well. The company owns intellectual property rights to whatever research the teams come up with. The findings may also lead to product ideas for the company.
“Some of the things that these teams develop will make it into some of our products,” explained Igor Perisic, an engineering VP at LinkedIn. “The hope is certainly to reproduce the Economic Graph Challenge on a regular basis.”
Another important element: LinkedIn says these groups will only have access to anonymized data. User names, emails, address book data and private messages are off the table, as well as anything else from your profile that you have marked as private, said Perisic.
Of course, most people share information publicly on LinkedIn. It’s hard to catch recruiters’ attention when they can’t see your profile, so the researchers should have lots to go on.
The teams were invited to LinkedIn’s Mountain View campus this week for orientation and to begin their research.After the gruesome murders of children and teachers by Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut, apparently mostly performed with a Bushmaster AR-15 (“the civilian version of the military’s M-16 and M-4,” says the New York Times, “a logical choice for anyone whose goal is to kill a lot of people in a short time because of their ability to rapidly fire multiple high-velocity rounds”), rightbloggers were clear and united in their response: There are a lot of things that may have been the root cause of this tragedy — a lack of God, mental illness, public schools, liberals — but one thing that definitely had nothing at all to do with it was guns.
Robert VerBruggen of National Review scoffed that the AR-15 can’t do much damage, really. “An ‘assault weapon’ fires at the same rate as an ordinary semiautomatic rifle,” he wrote, “and the.223-caliber ammo in Lanza’s rifle is banned for deer hunting in some states on the grounds that it’s too weak.” Maybe Lanza’s pathetic weapon only killed those people because they had poor immune systems, vitiated by the stress of being murdered.
More to the point was VerBruggen’s colleague, Charles C.W. Cooke, who wrote, “what is causing this is not yet known and probably underinvestigated, but it is certainly not guns… Something is awry, to be sure; to blame guns is a mistake.”
What then can we get rid of besides easy general access to lethal weapons, which is of course sacrosanct, to prevent other Newtowns? Oh, just about anything else.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit explained in a USA Today op-ed that guns don’t kill people, gun-free zones do. “One of the interesting characteristics of mass shootings is that they generally occur in places where firearms are banned: malls, schools, etc.,” said Reynolds. (He offered in support of his argument a quote from William Burroughs, who shot his wife to death while playing William Tell.)
Reynolds’ thinking was mirrored in what became a popular theme among the brethren (and at least one Republican Congressman): that schools should be not gun-free, but fully armed, and that a picture from Israel of an armed teacher among schoolchildren proved that American schoolchildren would be safer if we only did things the way they do them in a hotly-contested desert frontier where armed factions are constantly at each other’s throats — a theory perhaps aspirational in in nature, and bred by long exposure to Westerns.
“Here’s the meaningful action we should all be taking, were we truly serious about reducing the likelihood of such tragedies taking place going forward,” explained Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom. “On a personal level, get a concealed carry permit, and ignore signs telling you to leave your guns in the car. If it’s concealed, and they don’t have metal detectors, then you aren’t carrying. Until you need to defend yourself.”
Well, not guns, that's for sure! Now stop asking questions!
Goldstein then started screaming at President Obama: “Michele is not the dietitian to the collective and you are not its avuncular guardian. Give up your own security detail and we can maybe have a talk about restricting gun ownership… you and your regulatory henchmen had better not try to stand between me and my ability to protect my family.. [‘Progressives’] want a helpless and compliant pool to manage, the ‘masses,’ they like to call it, and it’s a wet dream of theirs to secure not only all political power in their own hands, but all the policing power as well.” Last summer Goldstein held a fundraiser “to raise the capital for at least one very good and reliable all-purpose rifle, one that I can use for defense, close quarter combat, hunting, and maybe even as a melee weapon.” Guns don’t kill people, but maybe to be on the safe side you should try |
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However, that doesn’t mean that private banks do not see opportunity in the rise of digital currencies. For instance, widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies could help banks cut their cost of operations, especially expenses related to moving hard cash around.
Blessing for the unbanked
Some analysts have pointed out that the rise of digital currencies and the involvement of global central banks could be a blessing for emerging economies. One of the potential benefits is increased access to financial services in regions of the world where billions of people still lack bank accounts. Digital currency transactions can be done on the phone without requiring a bank account. Given the deepening mobile phone and smartphone penetration in many regions around the world, it could be easier for populations to access digital financial services in places where banks do not have outlets.
While government endorsement of digital currency would be a huge vote of confidence in the prospects Bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin (PPC) Ripple (XRP) and their altcoins, it could be years before centrals begin to mint their own virtual currencies.The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to approve what will be one of the largest housing developments to grace the Portrero Hill neighborhood. The Business Times reports that the 9-to-1 vote in favor of the environmental review means the 395-unit housing project will go forward.
Tuesday's hearing was notable for reasons other than the vote itself, as according to the Chronicle Supervisor Malia Cohen was forced to recuse herself from voting following what, she assured everyone, was merely a bad joke.
At the public hearing, Cohen reportedly asked developer Josh Smith to pony up additional money for community benefits. Specifically, she said the pledged $1 million for the Friends of Jackson Park wasn't enough. “Look, I’m going to be a little up front — we need a little more,” the Chronicle reports her as telling Smith.
Smith quickly agreed to contribute an additional $800,000 to the park. Sensing, perhaps, that Smith was in a generous mood, Cohen then made another ask. “Whoa," she exclaimed. "I’m on a roll. Could I get a Mercedes, too?”
“I’m kidding," the paper reports her as hastily adding. "Bad joke. I know, Mister City Attorney.”
With the scandal of Kieth Jackson barely in our rear-view mirror, Deputy City Attorney Jon Givner appeared to agree that the joke, as it were, was most certainly in poor taste. Givner suggested Cohen recuse herself from the following vote as a result.
The development is to be located at 901 16th Street and 1200 17th Street, and, if it doesn't get held up in threatened litigation from neighborhood group Grow Potrero Responsibly and Save the Hill, will have 42 on-site affordable units. Developers will also pay around $9 million into the city's affordable housing fund.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin was the lone opposition vote.
Related: Completed Mission Bay Park Fenced Off For Months Due To Red TapeFor every year the dataset includes the # of males and females born with every given (first) name.
Only names with at least 5 people of a given gender are included to help preserve anonymity.
There are 1758730 entries, spanning back to 1880, with 91320 unique names
There are 28074 male-only names
There are 53305 female-only names
I love me some Johnny Cash (and Shel Silverstein) and thought it would be interesting to see how frequently people named "Sue" happen to be boys. The total answer is 0.4% of all Sue's are male. Here is the chart showing number of boys named sue over time:
"My name's Susan, how YOU doin?"
I came across a graph I made last summer while at Microsoft Research, and thought I would share it on the blog. The data comes from the very cool baby name database provided by the US Social Security administration. In the past year a lot of people have picked up on this dataset for various fun purposes. I have repeatedly used it as a simple source to assign probable genders based on given names (e.g. in my ongoing Gender in Astro Talks study).Some fun facts about the dataset:As a reddit user pointed out, there are many more boys named Susan than Sue. But if Shel had written the song usingname, it would have taken on a different meaning...Donald Trump supporters were in short supply at this week's Code Conference, an invitation-only gathering of tech and media elites held at a high-end resort just outside Los Angeles.
Such events are lonely places for conservative voices, said one attendee, who compared being a Trump supporter at Code to "being in the closet." He said people who know him well — friends and colleagues — know his views, but he keeps them quiet among this crowd.
The attendee, a venture capital investor based outside the San Francisco Bay Area, asked not to be named for fear that revealing his support for the presumptive GOP nominee would damage the very business relationships he came to cultivate.
We chatted briefly among a small group at a cocktail party — one of the many networking events to mix and mingle — then followed up for a more candid one-on-one discussion the next day.After Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by more than 2.6 million votes, it would be fair to assume that if the Electoral College were planning a coup, she would be the one to benefit. However, it seems that this is not the case. Instead, a group of at least eight faithless Democratic electors have taken it upon themselves to choose an entirely new candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Calling themselves the “Hamilton Electors,” this group, led by several Colorado electors, feel that they are qualified to overturn millions of votes to install a candidate more to their taste.
[Image by Juli Hansen/Shutterstock]
The faithless Hamilton Electors feel that Kasich is more acceptable than Donald Trump, who despite losing the popular vote, won 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232. In a statement to Politico, Colorado elector Micheal Baca explained why he felt that Kasich was a suitable alternative to Trump.
“Many Electors are saying that Gov. John Kasich would be best for our country. A consensus is beginning to form that Gov. Kasich would be best positioned to unite America.”
In an editorial for the New York Times on Monday, Christopher Supren, the first Republican faithless elector to join the Hamilton Electors, explains why he believes that he has the right to overturn millions of votes.
“The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country. Presidential electors have the legal right and a constitutional duty to vote their conscience. I believe electors should unify behind a Republican alternative, an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. I pray my fellow electors will do their job and join with me in discovering who that person should be.”
Over the next four years, reforming the Electoral College is clearly a conversation that needs to happen. In 2016, both candidates campaigned knowing that winning the popular vote didn’t necessary mean winning the election, and campaign strategies were based on that knowledge. Without the Electoral College, for example, campaigns would mostly ignore smaller, less populated states for larger, more populated states like California, New York, and Florida. Because of the Electoral College, votes from smaller states do tend to carry slightly more weight than votes from more densely populated states. This allows less populated states more equal participation in the actual election process than they would likely get otherwise, but it also violates the idea that all votes are equal.
Map: the U.S. without the Electoral College https://t.co/xqomRuLw3C via @TheWeek — Tree (@j_trieloff) November 25, 2016
However, the bigger problem with the Electoral College is the winner-take-all system. California, for example, has a total of 55 electoral college votes. According to the New York Times, Trump won about 33 percent of California voters. However, with a winner-take-all system, these votes are not allocated proportionally. Instead, in all states except Nebraska and Maine, whoever receives the most votes per state wins all the electoral college votes from that state. In this case, Clinton received all of California’s 55 electoral college votes. In Maine, on the other hand, although Clinton again won the overall statewide vote, Trump won the 2nd Congressional District, so he was awarded one of Maine’s four electoral college votes.
The electoral college is just gerrymandering: slightly redraw the map moving only 4 counties & it flips the electionhttps://t.co/c6vOCeoDhI — Jonathan Riley (@JonRiley7) November 30, 2016
The winner-take-all system is not mandated by the Constitution. Both arguments for and against faithless electors in 2016 do have merit. It’s both unfair to the candidates to change the rules after the votes have been cast, and it’s unfair to the voters that states effectively erase thousands of votes using the winner-take-all system. However, whichever way you look at it, both of these complaints pale in comparison to a handful of faithless Hamilton Electors attempting to install a candidate who wasn’t even on the ballot.
Although many of the 538 electors are not bound to vote for the candidate chosen by their state, faithless electors are rare and have never affected the outcome of an election. This fact alone is enough to advocate for reforming the Electoral College. The idea of electors who meet in state capitals to cast votes more than a month after the election has been decided is an outdated concept. Technically, while voters elect the Electoral College electors, who in turn cast votes for their state’s chosen candidate, in reality, the electors themselves are generally unknown by the public. The names of the electors do not appear on the ballot, and votes are cast for the presidential candidate, not some unfamiliar party insider with the power to go rogue.
In 2016, we have technology that allows us to communicate instantly. Baring irregularities or recounts, the electoral college votes can be cast directly by the people of each state based on the voting results immediately after being counted. If we intend to reform the Electoral College in the future, faithless electors would be a good place to start.
While it’s highly unlikely that the faithless Hamilton Electors will succeed in their attempt to install a candidate of their choosing, this scheme highlights the absurdity of giving electors the power to vote their conscience. In a year marked by the increasing willingness of the public to take to the streets in protest, overturning the election results for someone that a handful of faithless electors have deemed to be more acceptable is a dangerous and undemocratic game to play. While there is room to debate whether or not an elector has the right to defect to Clinton based on the popular vote, should faithless Hamilton Electors succeed in an attempt to install an entirely new candidate, it would unarguably set a very troubling precedent.
[Featured Image by John Trumbull/Wikipedia Public Domain]Central London’s highest garden opens to the public at some point shortly, depending on which newspaper you read, even though in reality it is less a garden than a waiting area for a nearby restaurant.
Of course, I am talking about the Skygarden at the top of the poorly nicknamed Walkie-Talkie skyscraper, which was for a while more appropriately nicknamed the Fryscraper due to its tendency to focus light onto a patch of ground that could just about cook an egg.
Fried eggs probably wont be on the menu at the semi-posh restaurant that is taking up residence at the top of the building, if only to avoid the pun-laden menu.
What will be on offer though is the potential, with a probably very long waiting list — for the general public to go to the top floor and have a look at the views — without forking out for a meal at the same time.
Quite how that works seems difficult to find out for a building which is due to open to the public tomorrow (FT) or next week (Guardian). What they do agree on is that we mere mortals will need to book at least three-days in advance for permission to ascend to the top of the building.
Sadly, if the first day is tomorrow, then no one will be going up there, as the booking page seems conspicuous by its absence (see the edit below this article).
The original garden concept of a presumed row of grass terraces to lounge on is also now absent, having been replaced by a much smaller stepped terrace of managed planting to walk past and do not linger. Less garden and more restaurant.
The booking page will have to appear at some point though, as public access of some sort was a condition of the planning permission.
The planning permission being controversial due to the overwhelmingly unique shape of the building. I was wary at first, as often computer renders overplay the benefits of buildings, but this time I have been won around.
The detailing in the fins that run up the side help to thin down the design bulk while emphasizing the taper. I also prefer the newly added fins on the main side of the building to reduce its notorious solar-glare. In fact, I think they enhance the building which was a bit too much of a vast sheet of glass otherwise.
Obviously, the top of the building is defined architecturally by the curved roof which sits slightly apart from the rest of the structure.
Some (many) have bemoaned the impact of the building on the skyline, with views of Tower Bridge “ruined” by the new skyscraper — although if you take a photo of Tower Bridge from the other side, you get two rather ugly tower blocks in the background, which isn’t much of an improvement.
The building will be a marmite structure. I like it, many wont.
The way it bulks up as the floors ascend is a consequence of financial constraints — higher floors command higher rents, and larger floors up high command even higher rents.
It’s almost fully let though, with most of the available space lower down, in the less desirable floors.
While most of the fuss will be about the top floor, I suspect that the majority of local workers will benefit far more from what happened at ground level.
The upside down taper of the design makes it top heavy, but also narrower at the base than the rectangular block it replaced. A narrow city pavement is now three times wider than it was in the past, and that is probably of more benefit to more people than the carefully controlled access to the Skygarden would ever be.
—
Edit — seems that the booking page is open, and has been for months… just that hardly anyone knows about it.Why else Yoo's cockamamie assertions of presidential authority to violate all laws and ignore all treaties? Why else the fantastic secrecy and bureaucratic end-runs? Why else the cover-ups - like actual destruction of critical evidence of torture like the waterboarding tapes? Why else the ludicrous euphemisms?
And Cheney, to his credit, I suppose, proudly declared his intent to go where no previous administration had ever gone. On the Sunday after the attacks he blurted out the following immortal words:
"We'll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done will have to be done quietly, wihout any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies - if we are going to be successful. That's the world these folks operate in. And, uh, so it's vital for us to use any means at our disposal basically to achieve our objectives."
Cheney all but told us, if we had only been able to hear him at the time, that he was going off the legal grid, off any zone of public accountability, able to deploy "any means at our disposal" to do what he believed had to be done. Now, you may want to defend this act of radical executive power as a necessary, temporary breach in the aftermath of 9/11, but you cannot, I think, credibly argue that Cheney was unaware of what he was doing. Or that he insisted on retaining this kind of illegality and torture long after the immediate crisis passed. As late as 2005, Cheney was getting Bybee to write legal memos for any combination of any number of torture techniques, long categorically recognized as such by everyone in the field. From a former CIA official in Mayer's book: "They were torturing people. No question. They did disgusting things to people. Their attitude was, 'Laws? like who the fuck cares?'"
When you have the highest officials in a constitutional democracy with that view of the world, and with the appalling human rights record of these people, the case for war crime prosecutions is overwhelming - if we are to uphold the basic rule of law. Remember that?
We impeached a president for perjury in a civil lawsuit. We're going to proactively pardon a president who authorized torture?
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.AirView is a free iOS app that lets you send video wirelessly between iOS devices, and from iTunes to iPhones and iPads.
The app does this by tapping into Apple's AirPlay, the technology introduced in iOS 4.2 that lets you send music and movies from your iPhone to compatible devices. Up until now, "compatible devices" has meant either the AirPort Express router, the AppleTV v2 and a handful of third-party stereos.
Run the AirView app on any iOS device and it will then show up on your Wi-Fi network as a new destination for video, just like any other, and you'll be able to choose it in the pop up list in iTunes or another iOS device. This lets you stream from iTunes to an iPad (previously impossible), or to send a movie from your iPhone to your friend's iPad when you go visit.
It works perfectly in testing, with one big caveat: the app is for video-only. You can't stream audio (although movie audio is transmitted, of course). This means you can't use an old, broken iPod Touch as a makeshift AirPort Express. Not yet, anyway.
It's worth grabbing this one now, as you never know when you may need it, it's free, and it's only 400k in size.
Also worth a mention is AirFoil, a well-established Mac (and now Windows) application from Rogue Amoeba which lets you stream any audio from a Mac (not just from iTunes) to an Airport Express or iOS device. That costs $25.
AirView product page [iTunes]
See Also:With the announcement that Amazon intends to buy Comixology, a number of questions have been raised by consumers, publishers and retailers. Amazon has never been quick to answer questions about their business and Comixology can’t really say very much until the purchase is completed. It will be at least a couple months, if not several, before the answers start to materialize, but these are the seven big questions that the comics community is thinking about.
1: Will Comixology continue to offer in-app payments through iTunes?
Amazon famously shunts you over to the web to purchase e-books for your Kindle iPad or iPhone app. Amazon doesn’t like giving Apple a 30% cut of every sale and at this point it’s an open question whether Comixology, which does offer in-app purchases through its iOS apps, will adopt that philosophy. It might be a little more hassle for consumers, but under the terms of Comixology’s current agreements, eliminating Apple's 30% fee would mean more revenue paid to publishers.
2: Will the acquisition of Comixology change how Apple handles comics?
Let’s face it, a lot of people in comics are a little peeved about how Apple is handling comics in iTunes. [See "Are Comics Too Hot For Apple?"] Apple has been banning comics like Sex Criminals and Saga for adult content, although details of what exactly triggered the bans has not been clearly communicated. Comixology has also been proactively conservative in their dealing with Apple, in some cases self-censoring comics that they believe Apple will not approve. Should Comixology start following Amazon’s lead for payments and avoid Apple's 30% cut, Apple would lose one of their highest comics sales clients on iTunes. Could this lead to Apple being a little more transparent about how they accept or reject comics? Perhaps comics might be given a bit more real estate in the iBookstore?
3: Will Comixology’s comics get listed inside Amazon’s website?
One of the rumored models for Comixology’s acquisition is Audible, the audiobook company Amazon previously acquired. Audible’s listings are integrated into Amazon’s website. If you’re looking at the page for the paperback edition of A Game of Thrones, you’re also seeing the Kindle (ebook) edition, the mass market paperback edition, the library binding edition, the audio CD and the Audible edition. This could open up comics to a larger audience and, in theory, Comixology Submit, the Comixology self-publishing channel, has much better financial terms for comics creators, especially when compared to the data download fees charged by Kindle Direct Publishing.
4: Will Comixology’s reading format be supported in the Kindle software?
Perhaps the least controversial question is whether you’ll need Comixology’s app to read Comixology comics or whether you’ll soon be able to read them like native files on the Kindle and in the Kindle app? If Amazon folds Comixology listings into the main site like they did with Audible, you have to think they’ll add support to their standard software package. If this happens, it will likely come in the form of a software update.
5: Does the Comixology purchase mean Amazon has an increased interest in print comics?
Some retailers are highly suspicious that Amazon is looking to move into the physical comics space with this acquisition. After all, Amazon is a famously data-driven company and if a store has been using Comixology to manage their print subscribers, there’s a lot of data floating around that is even geographically-based. Remember, Comixology launched as a service to brick and mortar retailers, not as a digital comics app. To be fair, Comixology has stated that Amazon will not get the retailer subscription data and Amazon hasn’t shown much interest in selling monthly comics, but some retailers are holding their breath.
6: Will Comixology’s sales date inform Jet City Comics?
While Comixology has said they aren’t going to share their retail subscription data with Amazon, there have been no reports that they won’t be sharing digital sales information. Amazon’s Jet City Comics imprint started out with Amazon only having their own data to crunch. Data that reflected the sales of graphic novels, not monthly comics (or digital comics in this case). As a result, the initial Jet City Comics batch didn’t necessarily resemble what sells well in the Direct Market, also called comics shops, the national network of about 2000 physical stores serviced by Diamond Comics Distributors. Comixology monthly digital editions tend to reflect the Direct Market a little more closely. Will we see some editorial changes based on new data?
7: Will Comixology integrate with CreateSpace?
Amazon set up a potential one-stop shop with the combination of CreateSpace, its self-publishing unit for print, and Kindle Direct Publishing for digital. Comixology has set up Comixology Submit to aid self-publishers. Will Comixology integrate with CreateSpace to offer print editions of the Comixology Submit offerings? This one would likely take a little longer to set up and would be politically charged with the retail community, but if you look at Amazon’s history it is a legitimate question.There would probably be too much red tape in the way of it actually happening, since one fighter is in the biggest MMA promotion on the planet, while the other is in the biggest of kickboxing, but "The Dragon" and "The Lion" both said they would be interested in fighting one another.
Over the weekend, while Artem Levin was putting on his masterful three-fight performance at GLORY: "Last Man Standing" (results here), UFC middleweight Lyoto Machida was in attendance and was impressed at Levin defeating Alex Pereria, Filip Verlinden and Joe Schilling in one night to become GLORY middleweight champion.
Machida told BloodyElbow.com, "I'd love to fight that guy. If I could do a one-fight deal to fight with him, I definitely would. I like his style."
It would indeed be an interesting chess match between the two, as they are both tough-to-hit counter strikers that possess unique and difficult styles to prepare for and yet, are very different from one another.
The GLORY middleweight champion caught wind of Machida's interest and took to Twitter to say the feeling was mutual.
If he wants to fight me, I have no problem with that and I'm ready as long as UFC allows it @lyotomachidafw @GLORY_WS @ufc @danawhite — Artem Levin (@ArtemLIONLevin) June 24, 2014
First things first though, Machida is fighting for the UFC middleweight title in two weeks against Chris Weidman at UFC 175 on July 5th (Levin wished him good luck). Also, in an article on GLORYworldseries.com, Levin said if the people are interested in a rubber match between him and Joe Schilling, he would do that. If that were to happen, the Russian middleweight said "he would like to invite him (Schilling) to Russia."
The odds of it happening are very slim, but man, it would be fun to see how Levin vs. Machida would unfold.
Let's hear it Maniacs: Lion vs. Dragon... who ya' got?the bluebottles on camera at Bass Point Cove in New South Wales, Australia
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Drifting on the surface of the ocean, jellyfish-like creatures called Portuguese man o' war are feared by swimmers and surfers because of their painful stings.
But one photographer has braved numerous agonising encounters to capture these beautiful creatures on film.
Taken at the waterline, the photographs show the siphonophore’s luminious tentacles glowing brightly beneath the waves.
Drifting on the surface of the ocean, jellyfish-like creatures called Portuguese man o' war are feared by swimmers and surfers because of their painful stings. They glow because of a natural phenomenon called bioluminescence
Matthew Smith, originally from Newark in Nottinghamshire, was attracted to the creatures, also known as bluebottles, because of their vivid colouring.
Found in tropical and subtropical waters, the bluebottles live at the water’s surface and because they have no means of propulsion, and are carried along by currents, winds and tides.
However, they are far from helpless because their tentacles deliver a painful sting.
Matthew Smith was attracted to the creatures, also known as bluebottles, because of their vivid colouring. Found in tropical and subtropical waters, the bluebottles live at the water’s surface (pictured left and right) and because they have no means of propulsion, are carried along by currents, winds and tides
The Portuguese man o' war is a carnivore. Using its venomous tentacles (pictured) it traps and paralyzes its prey. It typically feeds upon small marine organisms, such as fish and plankton, but is itself eaten by loggerhead turtles and the blanket octopus, for example
WHAT IS BIOLUMINESCENCE? Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. It occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi and microorganisms such as phytoplankton. The word comes from the Greek 'bios' for living and the Latin 'lumen' for light. Bioluminescence is a type of light energy produced by a chemical reaction. Different types of animals use bioluminescence in different ways. Deep sea squid use it for counter illumination camouflage so they match their environmental light, but Anglefish use it to lure prey with a light-up dangling appendage from their head that draws in smaller fish, which they can eat. Fireflies use bioluminescence to attract mates by flashing their abdomens, while their larvae use it to repel predators.
On numerous occasions the alien-like marine creatures wrapped their tentacles around Mr Smith’s wrist and neck, which were not covered by his wetsuit.
He spent the last 12 months at Bass Point Cove in New South Wales, Australia, photographing the Bluebottles.
Mr Smith, 38, used an 'over-underwater' technique with a waterproof lens dome he made himself.
In order to get highlight the glowing effect of the bluebottles he used an underwater flash gun.
The bluebottles appear to light up because of a natural process called bioluminescence.
Bioluminescence is also the reason why sea waves to light up neon-blue at night.
Tiny plankton are disturbed, causing them to emit light though a complex chemical reaction.
Organisms such as plankton, jellyfish and anglerfish are able to glow by releasing the chemical luciferin, which reacts with oxygen to create light.
While some fish use their light to lure prey, it’s thought that jellyfish and siphonophores glow as a defence against predators.
For example, comb jellyfish flash brightly to startle attachers, while siphonophores such as bluebottles either display a chain of light or release thousands of glowing particles into the water in order to confuse predators.
In the bluebottle’s case, it may draw attention to its venomous tentacles to scare off hungry loggerhead turtles, or equally lure small fish, which it traps and paralyses with its fronds.
Dr Andy Davies, a marine biologist at Bangor University's School of Ocean Sciences, explained: 'Bioluminescence occurs widely among some groups of animals, especially in the open sea and in insects.
Mr Smith (pictured left) spent the last 12 months at Bass Point Cove in New South Wales, Australia, photographing the Bluebottles (right) and suffered numerous stings to his wrists and neck. He used an 'over-underwater' technique with a waterproof lens dome he made himself to create his beautiful images
While some fish use their light to lure prey, it’s thought that jellyfish and siphonophores glow as a defence against predators and in the bluebottle’s case, draw attention to its venomous tentacles
‘Most marine light-emission is in the blue and green light spectrum - the wavelengths that pass furthest through seawater,’ he said.
‘However, some loose-jawed fish emit red and infrared light, and the genus Tomopteris emits yellow light.
‘Sometimes thousands of square miles of the ocean shine with the light of bioluminescent bacteria in the milky seas.'
Mr Smith said: ‘What you don't see in the still image is the constantly changing dynamics of what's going on.
‘The ocean is surging back and forth, the wind is blowing and these guys are perfect sailors - they motor along in the slightest breeze.
‘I'm also trying to frame all this up whilst treading water or swimming alongside trying not to get stung. It can be frustrating at the best of times.’
Describing what it feels like to be stung by bluebottles, Mr Smith said: ‘The stings start out like an electric shock feeling, followed by a stinging, tingling sensation which then dulls to muscle numbness around the area after an hour or two.
‘The numbness lasts the rest of the day and too many stings can be potentially dangerous so I do my best to minimise it.
‘I guess they do say you have to suffer for your art.’I made an emblem for Neo. It was done in paint and took a little while, but it was fun to make.
I remember reading somewhere, either on a headcanon blog or on roman-and-neo, that they thought Neo’s emblem would be like the Cheshire cat to counter Roman’s Jack-o’-Lantern emblem. Taking that and loving the idea, I filled in the Jack-o’-Lantern smile on Roman’s emblem to make a full smile, used the eyedropper tool on Neo’s character model to get the right colors, and filled in the eyes and the smile. Then I darkened each color slightly to fill in the cracks and make it look relatively natural, and filled what I needed to in pixel by pixel. Hence why it took a while. And I think it looks pretty awesome. Please feel free to use it.Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private residential undergraduate science and engineering college in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges which share adjoining campus grounds. Harvey Mudd College shares university resources such as libraries, dining halls, health services and campus security with the other Claremont Colleges, although each college is independently managed, with their own faculty, board of trustees, endowment, and admissions procedures. Students at Harvey Mudd College may take classes (acceptable for academic credit at Harvey Mudd College) at the other four undergraduate Claremont colleges. The Bachelor of Science diploma received at graduation is issued by Harvey Mudd College.
The college is named after Harvey Seeley Mudd, one of the initial investors in the Cyprus Mines Corporation. Although involved in planning of the new institution, Mudd died before it opened. The college was funded by Mudd's friends and family, and named in his honor.[5]
Academics [ edit ]
[6] Harvey Mudd College entrance on Dartmouth Ave.
HMC offers four-year degrees in chemistry, mathematics, physics, computer science, biology, and engineering, interdisciplinary degrees in mathematical biology, and joint majors in computer science and mathematics; or in biology and chemistry. Students may also elect an Individual Program of Study (IPS) or an off-campus major offered by any of the other Claremont Colleges, provided one also completes a minor in one of the technical fields that Harvey Mudd offers as a major.[7]
In 2018, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that, in response to student " complaints first to mental-health counselors and then to outside evaluators" the college was " considering how to ease pressure on students without sacrificing rigor. " [8]
Admissions [ edit ]
For the class of 2021, the college received 4,078 applications and admitted 529 applicants (a 13.0% acceptance rate). Of the 225 freshmen who enrolled, the middle 50% of SAT scores were 750–800 in mathematics and 720–770 in critical reading, while the ACT Composite range was 33–35.[9]
Harvey Mudd, along with Wake Forest University, long held out as the last four-year colleges or universities in the U.S. to accept only SAT and not ACT test scores for admission.[10] In August 2007, at the beginning of the application process for the class of 2012, HMC began accepting ACT results,[11] a year after Wake Forest abandoned its former SAT-only policy.[10]
Tuition and other costs [ edit ]
In 2016, Harvey Mudd was for the second year in a row the most expensive college in the United States, with the total annual cost of attendance (tuition, fees, and room and board) being $69,717. About 70% of freshmen receive financial aid.[12]
Harvey Mudd College dormitories [ edit ]
View of central campus, looking out of the former Norman F. Sprague Memorial Library.
The official names for the dormitories of Harvey Mudd College are (listed in order of construction):[13]
Mildred E. Mudd Hall ("East")
West Hall ("West")
North Hall ("North")
Marks Residence Hall ("South")
J. L. Atwood Residence Hall (Atwood)
Case Residence Hall (Case)
Ronald and Maxine Linde Residence Hall (Linde)
Frederick and Susan Sontag Residence Hall (Sontag)
Wayne and Julie Drinkward Residence Hall (Drinkward)[14]
Until the addition of the Linde and Sontag dorms, Atwood and Case dorms were occasionally referred to as New Dorm and New Dorm II; Mildred E. Mudd Hall and Marks Hall are almost invariably referred to as East dorm and South dorm.
During the construction of Case Dorm some students decided as a prank to move all of the survey stakes exactly six inches in one direction.[15]
Galileo Hall and Hixon Courtyard
South Dorm is in the northwest corner of the quad. "East" was the first dorm, but it wasn't until "West" was built west of it that it was actually referred to as "East". Then "North" was built, directly north of "East". When the fourth dorm (Marks) was built, there was one corner of the quad available (the northwest) and one directional name, "South", remaining.[16] To this day "South" dorm is the northernmost HMC dorm.
The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth dorms built are Atwood, Case, Linde, Sontag, and Drinkward, respectively. They were initially referred to as "the colonies" by some students, a reference to the fact that they were newer and at the farthest end of the campus; these dorms are now more commonly referred to as "the outer dorms." The college had initially purchased an apartment building adjacent to the newer dorms to house additional students, but it was demolished to make room for Sontag.
Since any HMC student, regardless of class year, can live in any of the dormitories, several of the dorms have accumulated long-standing traditions and so-called 'personalities'.[17]
College traditions [ edit ]
A student-led organization, "Increasing Harvey Mudd's Traditional Practices" (IHTP), works to revive college traditions that have slowly faded over the years, and also starts new traditions that the group hopes to see take root on campus. It hosts annual events such as the 5-Class Competition, Friday Nooners, Wednesday Nighters, Frosh/Soph Games, and the Thomas-Garrett Affair.[18]
Athletics [ edit ]
Axelrood Pool
Athletes from Harvey Mudd compete alongside athletes from Claremont McKenna College and Scripps College as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags and Athenas.[19] The teams participate in NCAA Division III in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The mascot for the men's teams is Stanley the Stag, and the women's teams are the Athenas. Their colors are cardinal and gold.
Athletics history [ edit ]
According to the Division III Fall Learfield Director's Cup Standings for the 2016-2017 year, CMS ranks 12th among all Division III programs, and first among SCIAC colleges.[20]
Sports [ edit ]
There are 21 men's and women's teams.[21]
Men's sports
Baseball
Basketball
Cross Country
Football
Golf Soccer
Swimming and Diving
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on the character level. This was a large discussion with the CSM.
What will be happening for the skills endpoint is the addition of “active skill level”. This should solve the skill training calculation problems. This may also need to include a “potential skill level” as well. That would be a more important discussion to have on another issue.
Other comments on the same issue are pretty interesting, but what they amount to is this: ESI will not expose any account level information directly, but it will still be possible to infer some of it based on character level information. Also, the CSM seems to agree with me on that the characters on an account should stay separate, which is something I was really glad to see.
Let’s go back to the problem of figuring out the identity of all characters on a single account, this time using ESI, or rather what we can expect from it, as the “active skill level” from that comment hasn’t been implemented yet. Can we do it, and how?
The active/potential skill level would tell us if the character is an Alpha or an Omega, which is pretty much the same thing as the paidUntil property from the XML API endpoint mentioned above. When the player subscribes or his subscription ends, those properties would change to indicate that, at the same time for all three characters. Yes, we can! So, all we need to do is have the recruit grant us access to all three characters on their account, and send them a mail like this one:
Dear <recruitName>,
Your application to join our corporation has been received, and you have successfully logged into our auth system with all three characters, as required.
To complete the registration process, please allow your EVE Online subscription to expire for a short period of time. This will let us confirm your identity, and assuming no issues are encountered during this final screening procedure, you will be allowed to join our corporation.
Sincerely, leadership of ParanoidCorp Inc.
Yeah, no.
You can still associate the characters on a single account with each other, but it is no longer a straightforward process, or one that any sane person would be willing to deal with.
Will getting (and confirming) account level access still be possible? Yes, but it will be far too complex for anyone to bother with it. In my eyes, that’s a win for privacy.
Some other considerations
There are things other than the changes to account level access to consider. Despite account level access going away, the amount of information accessible on the character level is going to increase. Once all the functionality present in the XML API and CREST is implemented in ESI, there won’t be much else to do but work on new features! Initially, those features will most likely take the form of performance improvements or simplified access to information which was already available somewhere else, but later on they will provide access to loads of information which wasn’t accessible before. One day, we might even see the possibility of joining in-game chat channels outside the client! While those will allow the third party developer community to build some even more amazing applications, they will also represent another avenue that some organizations may want to use to spy on their members.
However, one great thing about this move is that developers who wish to use EVE APIs to create apps will have to accept the EVE third party developer license agreement. Accepting this agreement is a prerequisite for being able to register an app to use with the SSO, which wasn’t required when using the XML API with API keys. Among all the legalese dealing with copyright and what not, one section in particular is of special interest to all end users. That is section 2.3.
Developer acknowledges and agrees that no Application shall be used
(a) to inject, deliver, or activate malware, worms, Trojan horses, or other bugs,
(b) as a means of phishing or spamming,
(c) as a means of tracking Player information or Player activity without the express knowledge and consent of such Player,
(d) as a means to misappropriate a Player’s in-game items or other information, or to otherwise cheat, scam, or defraud Players who subscribe to the Application, or
(e) as a means of implementing a denial of service attack, distributed denial of service attack, or other method of disabling or denying access to EVE or the Licensed Materials. […]
Developers may not use their apps to cheat, scam, spy, or do any of the other things EVE players are well known for doing to each other!
Will this stop an unscrupulous developer from building a mail management app and selling the contents of their user’s mails to any interested parties? Not really. That kind of thing would be impossible to prevent and really hard to detect, so you should still avoid just giving any nifty looking application full access to your character info, especially if you don’t know or trust the developer.
Like most contracts, that license agreement isn’t meant to make it impossible for violations to happen. Its purpose is to deter the involved parties from even considering to do so. Don’t think that is good enough? It’s better than nothing.
TL;DR
If you managed to read through all of this, congratulations. Hope you didn’t find it too boring. If you’re just here for a summary, here are the important parts:Martin Henry in his article 'Atheists need a New Testament', published July 26, made many claims which have no factual bases. Atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods. It has nothing to do with belief. It needs no testament. It is not a faith (as Henry would have us believe). Unlike atheism, Christianity changes its testament (the Old Testament and violent God, to the New Testament and peaceful God).
He is a communications specialist (as I recall), and if so, there is nothing more egregious than a misguided and deluded communications specialist. He needs a lesson in history, and indeed one is never too old to learn. If Mr Henry was genuinely interested in the truth, he would analyse his arguments critically. But, already stuck in his faith, he is not questioning, he is defending. His first blooper is, "the founder of Christianity is Jesus Christ". It was the Apostle Paul and his followers who defined what became Christianity, not Jesus.
His claim that the Christian society created modern science is delusional. Modern science did develop in a Christian milieu in the hands of scientists who were indeed Christians (Copernicus, Galileo, Newton etc.). Christianity only had to adapt to embrace those pagan values that drove scientific progress such as reason, logic, mathematics and philosophy, and craftily invented Christian arguments based on scriptures, revelation and inspiration. Christianity in fact impeded the rise of modern science (dissection of cadavers was outlawed and more recently there are issues with contraception and stem cell research). Atheism is no impediment. To the contrary.
He says: "There is no moral imperative in atheism as there is in Christianity". Where does Christianity get its morality? From the Commandments? The first four (do not worship idols, kill your neighbour if he mows his lawn on Sunday, etc.) are hardly exemplars of good moral behaviour. The others are vague. Should we honour evil fathers and mothers? What about killing in self-defence and war? What about rape and incest? The New Testament is no better. Give away all your possessions, take no thought for tomorrow (consider the lilies)? Certainly not a livable morality. While morality for atheists comes from within humanity, Christians believe they are accountable not so much to people but to God.
He further claims: "Only the Christian culture has ever repudiated and abolished slavery on moral grounds". Reliance on Biblical authority was instrumental in promoting and maintaining slavery, and it was only by shifting to secularised, economic and demographic factors that a greater impact was made on abolition. The arguments of British abolitionists like William Wilberforce and the black abolitionist and former slave, Frederick Douglass, show how little they appealed to the Bible to support their cause.
Another claim: "It was the Christian society which anchored freedom in parliamentary democracy". Taking the constitution of the US as an example, the founding fathers although mainly Christians, devised their government directly from reason and observation from the natural world not from God or the laws of Moses. That's not a foundation of Christian principles; that's a foundation of atheistic naturalism.
Atheism and humanism are about people and human needs. They require no belief in an afterlife. They require no belief in another world. This is their world. They require no promises of rewards or threats of punishment. They require only reason and kindness to make this world a better place.
n Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.comHow to Overcome Barriers
by Suzanne Andrews
How to Overcome the Top 5 Barriers to Your Best Health
“Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”
We all have areas of our lives that could use some improvement but we often put it off, make excuses, or can't make the time to address them. In the process of living our lives to build a career, raise a family, compete to acquire it all, we overlook the vital need to relax, eat sensibly and understand our limitations. Don't wait until your first heart attack, DUI accident, or other shocking event to realize your lifestyle may be destroying you from the inside.
Here’s five barriers and more importantly how to overcome them for your best health ever!
Your Own Psychology
This one of the most formidable barriers. We place limits on our ability to become healthy. Rather than trust that change can happen, we talk down or highlight the impossible aspect of the changes we want to make. Believing that we can't lose weight because both our parents and grandparents were overweight is a false comfort and a method to avoid accepting a challenge. As long as you don't even try, you won't fail.
Society
Changes in society is another barrier. Smoking used to be fashionable, now it’s a primary health hazard. Butter and cream sauces are considered gourmet but now are known to be fattening and increase cholesterol in blood. Don't allow society to sway you with its criticisms, traditions and paradoxes.
Fear
This is a tough one because it comes from within and without.
What will changing be like?
Will I be different?
Will my spouse, family, and friends still love me?
Many fears are deeply rooted in childhood, an event when discipline, accidents, or unhappiness set limits on imagination and exploration. These events place limits on our life potential and individual performance without even realizing it.
Rationalizations
Denial...hides the reality of your situation
Blame...can't or won't accept responsibility
Procrastination...today is the tomorrow you said you'd start. Get going.
Fear of loss...why fear sleeping better, fitting new clothes, more energy, saving money, fewer pills and doctor visits, improved health and self-esteem?
Fear of Failure
Set realistic goals...lose 1 lbs. this week and do it. Next week, 2 lbs. and do it. Then each week after go for 3lbs. and do it.
If you begin a health plan by promising yourself that "I'll look like an Olympic athlete in one month", you already know how that's going to turn out. Persistent baby steps become leaps and bounds.
Functional Fitness Wisdom for You
Time is the most used excuse to not do something. How much time do you spend watching TV? (Honestly). The average person watches 3.5 hours of TV a night. That's 105 hours of television in a month. So all those people would rather watch somebody else live their dreams rather than pursuing their own? Turn it off!
Knowledge...use all the extra time you just discovered to research and educate yourself on what it will take to find out how to remedy all those fears, denials, and pressures in your life.
Energy...you will quickly realize that a healthy diet, regular exercise, lots of water (no sugary drinks) and even just a daily vitamin will give you the energy you've always wanted.
Support System...get your family, friends and co-workers involved. In most cases, you will have overwhelming support and even be considered a role model for those around you that have always wondered what it would be like to become what you are doing.
Has anything stopped you from achieving your goals and you still overcame and plowed through?
Collage Video’s Facebook page… I look forward to reading them! Let me know by leaving a comment on… I look forward to reading them!We’re going to start this one with a statement of fact: not everyone wants to have children. If this fact confuses you or causes you great moral outrage, proceed with caution. It’s only going to get bumpier from here. If you’re capable of processing that first fact, but are still kind of tilting your head, wondering if it’s really necessary to point out that very simple, basic notion, let me assure you: it is. I just want to make sure everyone’s clear on that before we go any deeper. Mostly because life experiences have taught me that way too many people have a notion in their head that having children is not a decision; it’s a predetermined fact. And for someone who has decided not to have children, that notion is equal parts infuriating and exasperating.
People who have decided not to have children call themselves a variety of things, but “childfree” and “childless-by-choice” are the two most common. Some don’t call themselves anything special, because they are optimistic enough to believe that making a personal decision like that doesn’t need to be given a name. Unfortunately, it sort of does. Because being a parent is seen as the default, and anything that is different from the default seems to need a name so people can process it better. If I have to use a name, I prefer “childfree,” because any version of “childless” implies that children are the desired result, and I am lacking in them. There’s also the fact that “childless” is often used to describe someone who is infertile, or who wants children and does not have them, for whatever reason. While the childfree may be infertile, it’s usually by choice.
When I was younger, I would have classified myself as “militantly childfree.” It was a defense mechanism, really, since at every turn, I was being told I was wrong and young and stupid and didn’t know my own mind. Being part of the over-30 set now has brought me a little bit of credibility, I guess, because while the questioning and the insulting still exist, they’re a lot less overt. So I’d say my current stance is more “gently childfree.” I don’t begrudge the people I know who are parents any happiness with their children, but it still doesn’t mean I want any of my own. And it really doesn’t mean I want to try to be convinced otherwise.
Childfree people get a lot of shit from other people about making this choice. You know, because other people totally have the right to pass judgment on what is, at its core, a very personal decision. Here’s some of the crap we hear:
-“You’ll change your mind.” This is probably the most infuriating, because it assumes that someone doesn’t know their own mind well enough to make a major life decision. And yet, no one says this to anyone who, at 19 or 25 or 30, decides that the only possible way their life will be complete is to have children. Why is that? Why are people who decide the “default” given the benefit of the doubt that they know what they want, while those who decide something that requires an awful lot of contemplation are assumed to be flighty and immature? Do you tell someone who’s pregnant that she’ll change her mind? That it’s permanent and you can’t undo it? That a baby is a big decision that affects the rest of her life and she can’t possibly know at 19 or 25 or 30 that it’s something she’ll want forever? Of course not. But try being a woman who wants to get her tubes tied before having any children. Try telling people that your life plan doesn’t include reproducing. Then, suddenly, you’re an idiot who doesn’t know her own mind, regardless of age.
-“It’s different when it’s your own.” This one comes in response to someone saying they don’t like kids, or don’t have the patience for them, or any other reason that involves not actually wanting a child around in your everyday life. The argument is that when it’s your own child, those things don’t apply. You love it no matter what. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Plenty of parents can’t stand their own kids. And even if there’s a possibility it’s true, should someone really take that chance? That maybe they won’t hate kids once they have one? Seems awfully unfair to the hypothetical kid if it doesn’t turn out that way.
-“You’re selfish.” So? Quite frankly, I have the right to be. If I decide that free time, discretionary income, peace and quiet, and flexibility with various parts of my life are important to me, then it would be awfully dumb to think I could still have all that with a child. As parents are fond of telling anyone in earshot, having children changes everything. And if someone doesn’t want everything to change, then why do we try to force that? Plus, isn’t having children one of the most fundamentally selfish things one person can do? What are the reasons people give for having kids? “I want someone to love (or to love me) unconditionally.” “I think my DNA is special enough that it needs to be propagated.” (That one’s clearly a paraphrase. Save the angry emails.) “I want a little me.” “I want a perfect combination of me and my spouse.” I want, I think, I want, I want, I want… I have rarely, if ever, heard a reason to have kids that doesn’t start with “I want.”
-“You don’t know real love until you have children.” Yeah. Fuck you very much. Who are you to decide that the love I have for my husband, or my parents, or my friends, isn’t “real?” There are lots of kinds of families, and the ones created from choice are just as meaningful and full of love as the ones created by biology.
-“It’s a miracle.” Every living organism ever since the beginning of time begs to differ. Everything alive reproduces. One could argue that it’s the least miraculous thing possible. It’s happened billions and billions of times and will happen billions and billions more.
-“You’re not a real woman.” Yes, I’ve heard this. Yes, the person was serious. Yes, I did somehow manage to stop myself from telling the person to go fuck themselves. Aren’t we as women, hell, as people, past deciding for other people what makes them a “real” woman?
-“Who will take care of you when you’re old?” Do me a favor. Go to your local nursing home/assisted living facility. Talk to some of the residents. Ask them when their children last visited them. Producing offspring doesn’t guarantee you security when you’re old; money does. Most people end up having to pay people to take care of them in their declining years. Plus, fifty years sounds like an awfully long time to wait for a payoff, and frankly, the investment is too high for the potential return.
-“But you’re such a good dog mom!” Last I checked, you can’t crate kids while you’re at work. Not to mention, dogs are pretty self-sufficient, except for the feeding and walking stuff. They amuse themselves. I don’t need to teach them values and spelling and how to use a fork and stuff. The dogs=children thing is not even a thing. Seriously. I love my dogs; hell, I love them more than I like most people, but they are not a substitute for children.
The point I’m trying to make here is that all the choices are valid. Just because you don’t agree with mine doesn’t mean you need to belittle me, infantilize me (and how’s that for some irony?), and insult me. And take a moment to think about this: if someone has decided that they really don’t want children, why would you spend so much time trying to convince them otherwise? Does it minimize your choice as a parent if someone takes a different path? If you feel that children are The Greatest Miracle Ever and being a parent is The Most Important Job In The World, wouldn’t it be preferable if every child was born to parents who are 100% certain that they want them? After all, a child is a permanent decision, and I’d rather take the very very small chance that I regret not having one than risk the more likely outcome that I would regret it if I had one.
AdvertisementsRaúl Llanos
Periódico La Jornada
Viernes 2 de septiembre de 2011, p. 37
En lo que constituye el primer caso en el país, un juzgado en materia familiar de esta capital resolvió favorablemente la solicitud de adopción de una menor por un matrimonio gay.
La sentencia fue emitida el 17 de noviembre del año pasado por un juzgado del Tribunal Superior de Justicia del Distrito Federal, luego de que las interesadas cumplieron ante el DIF (Sistema para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia) con todos los requisitos que fija el Código Civil local.
El hecho fue dado a conocer ayer en la Asamblea Legislativa (ALDF), donde hace un año y nueve meses se aprobó la reforma al Código Civil, por la que se legalizó tanto la unión entre personas del mismo sexo como su derecho a adoptar.In China, there are rehab boot-camps for internet addiction. They treat it just like alcohol or drug dependency, it’s considered a clinical disorder that can, and should, be cured, even against the patient’s’ will. Teenagers are the most common sufferers of the affliction.
When their enthusiasm for virtual reality starts to have a negative effect on their studies, family lives and socialisation, the parents conduct an intervention. A ruse is devised to lure the addicts to a camp, invariably against their will. There they remain confined until their internet obsession is under control.
Related: Drug addicts seek cure in the remote steppes of Kyrgyzstan
RT Doc visited a camp to see how internet addicts are re-introduced to the real world. We spoke to the patients to hear their side of the story, as well as their parents. Because of China’s history of ‘one child’ policy, they’re willing to pay a hefty price to have their only offspring treated, they’re also required to attend classes themselves to relearn how to communicate with their escapist young.
Related: Chinese'makers' - a new generation of inventors
An obsession with online gaming or net surfing though is just the tip of the iceberg. The problem is said to be rooted in an array of issues with self-esteem, school and family life. That is why a complex approach is needed to curing internet addiction, addressing its underlying causes. This film provides behind-the-scenes glimpse of an internet addiction rehab camp, offering an inside view of how the condition can be treated.Do you know what portion of your traffic comes from bots? Do you know which bots are good and which ones are bad? Do you know what the bad bots are up to?
We all know Googlebot and consider it a good bot. It crawls your site and makes it possible for others to find you via Google. Great! What do you know about Mars? No, not the red planet – Mars is one of the top bad bots that’s probably going through your site right now. What about all the other bad bots? In the simplest case, they could be consuming your bandwidth, using up your server resources, and increasing your monthly bill. They could also be stealing your content, modifying your pages to include viruses, or performing other malicious acts.
But while some bad bots are easy to spot, there are a lot more bad bots pretending to be regular human-controlled browsers, making them very hard to detect. This is where Access Watch comes into play. Access Watch, a startup from Berlin, deploys the industry’s most precise robot intelligence that can be easily plugged into any existing data pipeline, such as those handling web server logs.
Web server logs typically contain the following information:
– IP Address of the client
– Request URL
– User agent
– HTTP protocol version
– HTTP method etc.
Web server logs are often analyzed purely for getting web access statistics – most popular pages, top countries, etc. Sometimes web server logs are enriched with GeoIP information to get a bit more information about visitors. Using a threat intelligence databases we could figure out a lot more about our “visitors”, some of which are not visitors at all, but malicious bots. Some IP addresses are known to spread viruses or are abused to execute hacker attacks. Many attacks have a typical fingerprint – a combination of URL, header fields, user agent and IP address from a blacklisted server. The relevant information changes frequently and accurate classification requires real-time access to a threat intelligence database. Access Watch REVEAL is able to identify good and malicious web traffic and provides this information via HTTP API.
Enriched web server log with request reputation and threat analysis from Access Watch API call.
All we need to do to get accurate threat intelligence information is call the Access Watch API with information from our web server logs, and then store the enriched web server log to visualize and analyze the malicious traffic. To make this super simple, Logagent users can use the new Access Watch plugin to perform security and traffic analysis, store that in Sematext Cloud or any place else (e.g. their own Elasticsearch cluster) for further analysis, visualization, etc.
Visualisation of bot traffic with bad reputation
Combining real-time security analysis of logs with alerting and ChatOps integration one is able to receive real-time alerts about malicious traffic and take countermeasures like blocking specific clients. Another obvious application of data gained via Access Watch is the exclusion of all bot traffic prior to website traffic analysis in order to get more accurate statistics.
Visualisation of enriched logs in Kibana
To make this super simple, Logagent users can use the new Access Watch plugin to perform security and traffic analysis, store that in Sematext Cloud or any place else (e.g. their own Elasticsearch cluster) for further analysis, visualization, etc.
Using Access Watch and Sematext provides you with:
Detection of all robotic behaviour, good and bad, profiled, and threat assessed
Clear and precise insights into the makeup of your traffic
Knowledge of what robot activity comes from search engine crawlers, feed readers, price or data scrapers as well as abusive activity from brute force bots and more
Interested in seeing what Sematext Cloud can do for you? SIGN UP TODAY
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*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
In 1902, they purchased 1.3 million acres of land in Saskatchewan and sold it in smaller parcels to American investors and settlers. Their success at that venture led to a contract with Canadian National Railway as industrial agents, responsible for establishing and settling the hundreds of townsites that were being created adjacent to its rail lines. Their company, Davidson McRae, was headquartered in Winnipeg and had offices in Montreal, Toronto, London, Ont., and Vancouver.
Davidson, born and raised in Ontario, went to the United States to earn his first fortune. From Little Falls, Minn., he and his brother Andrew built up a chain of banks that operated throughout the U.S. Midwest.
Men such as George Galt, Chester Stovel and James Ashdown built fine new homes for themselves during this period, but none was larger or more opulent than Alexander Davidson’s 10 Ruskin Row.
During Winnipeg’s great boom years leading up to the First World War, the city boasted it had nearly as many millionaires as Toronto.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/3/2016 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/3/2016 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
During Winnipeg’s great boom years leading up to the First World War, the city boasted it had nearly as many millionaires as Toronto.
Men such as George Galt, Chester Stovel and James Ashdown built fine new homes for themselves during this period, but none was larger or more opulent than Alexander Davidson’s 10 Ruskin Row.
ARCHIVES OF MANITOBA, PERSONALITIES COLLECTION Alexander Davidson, who came to Winnipeg in 1906 and had the mansion built six years later;
Davidson, born and raised in Ontario, went to the United States to earn his first fortune. From Little Falls, Minn., he and his brother Andrew built up a chain of banks that operated throughout the U.S. Midwest.
In 1902, they purchased 1.3 million acres of land in Saskatchewan and sold it in smaller parcels to American investors and settlers. Their success at that venture led to a contract with Canadian National Railway as industrial agents, responsible for establishing and settling the hundreds of townsites that were being created adjacent to its rail lines. Their company, Davidson McRae, was headquartered in Winnipeg and had offices in Montreal, Toronto, London, Ont., and Vancouver.
Davidson hired architect William Channing Whitney of Minneapolis to design a new family home for himself, his wife, Laura, and their teenage son, Rolland, on Ruskin Row. The original $100,000 building permit was issued March 29, 1912, a record for the most expensive single-family dwelling built in the city at the time. The final construction cost, before furnishings, was around $150,000.
To get a sense of just how expensive it was, consider other buildings that were being constructed around the same time. Ashdown House at 529 Wellington Cres. cost a measly $45,000, the comfortable 37-unit Rothesay Apartments on Preston Avenue was built for $150,000 and Westminster Church on Maryland Street came in at $158,000.
The contractor was the Imperial Construction Company of Toronto, under the supervision of J. Robertson. Alfred Canton, also of Toronto, was brought in to oversee the exterior masonry work.
WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Mrs. Little (left) and Mrs. Guberman, members of the women’s committee of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, in the pool room in February 1963.
The home was modelled on a late Tudor manor house and boasted 37 rooms, including a ballroom for 300 people with a musicians’ gallery, a billiards room and a basement wine cellar. Wall coverings ranged from oak and walnut panelling to Belgian silk and gold brocade over mahogany wainscoting. Central features included its walnut staircase and three floor-to-ceiling fireplaces.
The one-acre lot also had a large garage that was accessible to the home by underground tunnel.
The Davidsons moved in the following year, but it took craftsmen four years to complete the detail work.
It seems the Davidsons were private people. They did not appear in the newspapers, even in the social pages. It was perhaps because of a desire for privacy that the home’s completion or events that went on there during their tenure were not mentioned.
The family did not have a lot of time to enjoy their lavish home. In the years after its construction they travelled frequently, mainly to the U.S., where Alexander still sat on numerous corporate boards.
It was on a visit to Chicago that Laura Davidson fell ill and died on April 16, 1917. Son Rolland, who was attending university in the U.S. at the time, appears not to have returned to Canada to live. This left just Alexander at the home until his death in 1922 at the age of 67. The family is buried in Little Falls, Minn., Laura’s hometown.
In 1924, the home was sold to Robert T. Evans. Evans was an American businessman who came to Winnipeg with his family in 1906 and established the British America Elevator Company. At this point in his life, he was the assistant general manager of the company and sat on numerous other corporate boards, including a seat on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange.
It was his wife, Minnie Seeger Evans, who kept the home lively with an ongoing schedule of social, charitable and cultural events.
WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Interior design students Karen Wolinsky (left) and Lesley Bremness admire the intricate, hand-carved work on the newel post of the main staircase in early 1963.
In the early years, these events often revolved around their three children and their friends. She hosted pre-theatre or after-dance banquets and made sure classmates leaving to attend university or get married were properly feted. When daughter Marie would return from McGill University for the Christmas holidays, Minnie put on parties for university students who were unable to leave town to be with their own families.
As the children were married off, Minnie concentrated more on her own interests.
She was on the executive of numerous organizations, including the Margaret Scott Mission, the Women’s Musical Club and the Women’s Canadian Club, often hosting meetings and special events at the home for them. She was also a supporter of Girl Guides and their fresh-air camp at Lake Winnipeg — the Evans family had a summer home near it, at Ponemah — and hosted camp fundraisers in the ballroom.
In 1935, the home likely had its most famous visitor when Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin stopped by after his recital at the Winnipeg Auditorium for a reception in his honour.
Robert Evans died on Feb. 3, 1936, and Minnie Evans continued to live there for more than 20 years, until shortly before her death in May 1959.
The Evans estate was then faced with a dilemma. Who was going to purchase a 37-room manor as a single-family home? Not only was it monstrously sized and out of fashion, at almost 50 years old it needed a long list of upgrades and repairs.
The home was rented briefly to Dr. John M. Kilgour, but even at the bargain price of $250,000, the family was not interested in purchasing it and soon moved out.
Another potential suitor was the Church of the Nazarene for use as a seminary. When word got out, though, area residents banded together to create the Crecentwood Homeowners Association, which the Winnipeg Tribune described as "an unincorporated body established to maintain the area exclusively for single-family dwellings."
The group successfully blocked the church deal and anyone else thinking of converting it to another use or dividing it into multiple residences. That sealed the house’s fate, and it sat vacant for the next three years.
In 1963, the estate sold the house to the Winnipeg Supply Company. There was a family connection, as the firm’s retail manager, Alex Robertson, was married to the Evans’ daughter Marie. The company wanted to build an upscale townhouse development on the lot and figured they had the resources to wait out the homeowners association.
Before its demolition, the house was opened up for a series of tours. First, for architecture students at the University of Manitoba, then to the public.
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The public tours were offered by the Women’s Committee of the Winnipeg Art Gallery over seven days in early February 1963. They charged $5 per visitor and made it a fundraiser for their activities. It was expected 50 or 60 people would come each evening, but it ended up attracting more than 2,000 visitors on the first two nights alone.
Overwhelmed, the women had to call on neighbours and extra volunteers to act as crowd control, parking attendants and tour guides.
One guide said, "Some of the visitors are heartbroken that the house is being torn down. Many wanted to know if they can buy the door handles or wall brackets."
Once the expanded tour schedule was completed, it was time for Atlas Wrecking to take over. They hosted a number of cash-and-carry salvage sales where anything that could be removed, from panelling to bathroom fixtures, even the massive staircase, was sold off. By the end of summer 1964, 10 Ruskin Row was just a memory.
The property sat vacant for a number of years, and the new owners never got permission to build their town |
The weight lifting world has introduced multiple methods of assessing grip strength, with one of the most popular being the Captains of Crush grip trainers. Mr. Vogel trains with these little gadgets regularly. He can close a #3 grip trainer…which is rated at 280 pounds of resistance. In this video, Mr. Vogel is shooting a Bill Drill. Watch his forearms as he presents the pistol from the holster:
Note how little the pistol moves as it cycles. That’s not trixy recoil spring setups or a compensator…it’s a combination of the Glock 34’s inherent characteristics and applying extraordinary levels of force to the grip of that pistol.
Also notice the position of Mr. Vogel’s elbows, how they’re turned slightly up. He’s actually sort of driving his elbows up to cause a pinching force between his hands. To conceptualize it, put your hands together in front of you and lock your wrists. Now raise both elbows and note how the tops of your hands are “pinched” together. If you’ve ever used the rope attachment for a tricep pulldown at the gym it’s sort of the same concept. You’re almost trying to force your hands down and apart, but because the gun is in the way all that force gets applied to the grip. One of the big obstacles for new shooters trying to learn the grip is keeping their hands together during recoil…this pinching action, properly applied, cures that nicely. This was one of my big light-bulb moments of the course. It’s one of those things that once you see it you wonder how you didn’t think of it before, but when properly applied it makes a big difference your shooting.
The location of the weak-hand grip was also covered in depth. Mr. Vogel’s general rule was to get as high up and far forward on the gun as possible. He stated that his affinity for the Glock is primarily due to the more aggressive grip he can get on the gun as opposed to other pistols he has tried. In my hands I find that I’m also able to grip higher on the Glock than on most other pistols…which is one reason why I get bitten by the slide without the Grip Force Adapter installed on the gun. Where many instructors teach to not have any airspace between the right and left hands on the gun, Mr. Vogel’s approach is different. He doesn’t care about space between the hands as long as he can get his support hand out farther on the gun.
Note that his support hand is clamping down around the farthest point forward on the trigger guard of the pistol. Mr. Vogel mentioned that in the process of acquiring this grip he occasionally neuters the function of the slide lock, but he considers that possibility a worthwhile tradeoff for the higher level of control he gets from the hand position. The extended slide lock that comes from the factory on Glock 34 and 35 pistols makes a failure to lock on empty even more likely with his grip, so he replaces them with standard slide locks from Glock.
I’d also encourage you to watch the video again and pay specific attention to how he acquires his strong hand grip as he’s drawing the pistol. Most people will typically come from behind the gun or straight down on top of the gun when they’re trying to draw. Mr. Vogel comes in almost from the front of the gun, the result being the web of Mr. Vogel’s hand ends up on the lower 1/3 of the slide as he acquires his grip. From that point he tightens his strong hand down around the grip and that act pulls the web of the hand down just low enough so that the slide misses it…most of the time, anyway. As you can see from the screen capture, this is also being done with considerable force. I really noticed this when he was setting up for drills and mocks up grabbing his grip. I saw that he was almost grabbing on the back of the slide and then sort of letting the act of tightening his grip and locking his wrist drag his hand into the final position on the grip. Whether this is a conscious adaptation on his part or not I couldn’t tell you…but I found it interesting.
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News
Single brain cells show selective response to specific celebrity photos.
Snaps of Aniston made a single neuron in one subject’s brain light up © Photo/Lionel Cironneau
Is a single cell in your brain devoted to Jennifer Aniston or Bill Clinton? Maybe so, according to new research.
A recent experiment showed that single neurons in people's brains react to the faces of specific people. Researchers see the findings as evidence that our brains use fewer cells to decode a given image than previously thought.
The subject of visual processing has sparked much scientific speculation in the past. Exactly how our brains extract meaning from an image remains unclear. At one end of the spectrum of possibilities, a network of cells would process various bits of information in a scene and piece it all together to form an understandable picture.
At the other extreme, the brain would contain a separate neuron to recognize each and every object in the world. Neurobiologist Jerome Lettvin coined the term 'grandmother cell' to parody this view, as it would mean that the brain contains a specific cell to recognize one's own grandmother.
Very few experts believe that grandmother cells exist. But that did not dissuade Rodrigo Quian Quiroga of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues from investigating single neurons in the brain, to find out how devoted they might be to single people or objects.
Fired up
“In this case it almost seems to be a cell that responds the concept of Halle Berry as it were. But nobody's saying that it's a grandmother cell.” Martin Tovee
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
The study involved eight patients suffering from epilepsy, all of whom had been temporarily implanted with devices to monitor brain-cell activity as part of their treatment. Quian Quiroga and colleagues took advantage of this opportunity to monitor the firing behaviour of their neurons.
Using a laptop, they presented the subjects with a series of one-second snapshots of celebrities, animals, objects and landmark buildings. Each person was shown a total of almost 2,000 pictures; in each sitting they saw about 90 pictures showing roughly a dozen distinct items.
The recordings taken as they viewed the photographs revealed just how selective cells within the medial temporal lobe - located deep inside the brain- can be. For example, a neuron of one patient responded almost solely to different pictures of Bill Clinton.
The researchers say that these types of cell are involved in sophisticated aspects of visual processing to identify a person, for example, rather than just a simple shape.
Acting on cue
Various pictures of Jennifer Aniston elicited a response in a single neuron inside the medial temporal lobe of another patient. Interestingly, images of her with her former husband Brad Pitt did not sway this cell, the authors of the paper report. Their findings appear this week in the journal Nature1.
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Quian Quiroga also found that a lone neuron in one subject responded selectively to various pictures of the actress Halle Berry - as well as drawings of her and her name written down. Other cells were found to respond to images of characters in The Simpsons or members of The Beatles.
The team thinks that these brain cells probably respond to a range of different items, but that this limited study didn't include all the various pictures that might make a particular cell light up.
Despite appearing to find a 'Halle Berry cell', notes Martin Tovee, a neuroscientist at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, who has conducted similar research in monkeys, "nobody's saying that it's a grandmother cell".
Nevertheless, the researchers say the results hint that we might use fewer brain cells to recognize familiar objects than previously thought.
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK“How do you define an Iranian moderate? An Iranian who is out of bullets and out of money.” This was what Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk had to say Wednesday after a briefing by his former Senate colleague, Secretary of State John Kerry, on the state of play in nuclear negotiations with Iran. Last weekend, the talks came tantalizingly close to closing a deal on a first phase agreement to halt to Iran’s nuclear work in exchange for limited and reversible sanctions relief, creating space for a broader comprehensive deal addressing the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.
The thrust of Kirk’s remark is that, whatever friendly noises any Iranian leader might make—and new President Hassan Rohani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have been making a lot of them—these do not represent any genuine difference of opinion within the Iranian political system, are only the result of pressure that’s been brought to bear on Iran, and should not distract us from the country’s intrinsic villainy. It’s a simplistic view that unfortunately has a lot of adherents in Washington, and, as I noted in a piece several weeks ago, mirrors the view of many hardliners in Iran, who are just as suspicious of the United States’s motives as Kirk and company are of Iran’s.
In addition to being both ignorant and offensive, Kirk’s statement raises an interesting question about his own past support–or rather “support”–for Iranian moderates like Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, former presidential candidates and nominal heads of Iran’s reformist Green movement, who have been under house arrest since early 2011. In March of that year, Kirk issued a statement calling for Mousavi and Karroubi’s immediate release. Why, if Iranian moderates are a figment of naïve liberals’ imaginations, would he do that? Perhaps he just thought Mousavi and Karroubi were out of bullets? Or, more likely, he saw the championing of Iranian political prisoners as a way to score cheap political points bashing Iran.
For those of us who take the cause of human rights in Iran more seriously, though, it’s worth keeping in mind that a nuclear deal probably offers the best hope of improvement in the near term. While Rohani has not yet made significant steps to improve Iran’s human-rights situation (managing the nuclear negotiations is already a heavy enough political lift), a successful outcome that eases Iran’s economic situation while also securing Iran’s nuclear rights could create the sort of momentum that would help Rohani’s administration address these broader issues. "It would give Rohani and his team more bargaining power with the hard-liners,” Iranian activist Taghi Rahmani said recently. “A successful deal would definitely, positively impact social and political conditions inside of Iran.”
On the other hand, failure to achieve those goals would almost certainly have the opposite effect, which is why some Iranian human-rights groups are wary of the negative impact that further sanctions could have on the talks. In a statement Thursday, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called on the U.S. Congress to hold off. “Adding more sanctions at this stage in the negotiations, when there is a lot of hope about the fate of nuclear talks with Iran, is tantamount to sabotage,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Campaign. “The idea of adding more sanctions at this crucial point in the negotiations disappoints millions of Iranians who are hopeful these talks will lead to a compromise and help lift the sanctions, and sounds like a drumbeat leading to war.”
While it’s quite true that the range of opinions represented in the Iranian government is small and conservative, and has grown smaller and more conservative in recent years, the fact of the matter is that Rohani and Zarif do represent a relatively moderate faction that believes that Iran’s security interests can be achieved through engagement and diplomacy, rather than through conflict.
And they've showed that this is more than just rhetoric. In addition to the serious and substantive engagement that Iran’s new negotiating team has, by all accounts, shown in Geneva, a new report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the body tasked with monitoring compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, stated that Iran had brought its installation of new centrifuges—the machines used to enrich uranium—to a virtual halt since Rohani became president.
Speaking at a security conference that I attended in Istanbul two weeks ago, Foreign Minister Zarif stated, “the perception that Iran seeks a nuclear weapon is detrimental to our [Iran’s] security.” The current negotiations represent an opportunity for Iran to reverse that perception, but it has to be managed in such a way that all sides can present to their respective publics as a win. The idea that Iran will simply capitulate if only the U.S. pushes hard enough is attractive to some, but it’s both false and dangerous, as it could lead to us squandering an opportunity that will not come again soon.Steamed Steamed is dedicated to all things in and around Valve’s PC gaming service.
Steam Spy just released a big 2016 data dump, and it’s certainly revealing.
Valve revealed the top 100 most money-making Steam games of 2016, but they didn’t provide any data beyond vague rankings. Steam Spy, on the other hand, offers data for days, but it’s all estimated, albeit fairly rigorously. Here are their most interesting findings:
About 370 million games got purchased or otherwise picked up in 2016. “Of course, that includes the sales outside of Steam, bundles, giveaways and free promotions,” added Steam Spy’s Sergey Galyonkin.
5,245 new games were released on Steam in 2016. The number’s been steadily increasing over the years, going from a mere 565 in 2013, to 1,772 in 2014, to 2,964 in 2015. This year, nearly 600 games were released in December alone.
While Steam now houses significantly more games than it did in previous years (nearly 40 percent of all games on Steam were released in 2016), revenue from game sales seems to have stagnated. Steam Spy estimates the 2016 total at somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.3 billion to $3.6 billion. They estimated a $3.5 billion total in 2015.
That said, Steam Spy’s Galyonkin added that Steam is generating tons of money elsewhere, in ways he can’t measure accurately. Microtransactions, especially, are only becoming more prolific as Steam opens the floodgates ever wider. “CSGO and Dota 2 have been improving in-game monetization steadily by adding more reasons for people to spend money,” Galyonkin told me in an email. “And then there is a number of 3rd-party free-to-play titles on Steam that seem to perform quite well: War Thunder, Paladins, Warframe, SMITE. GTA V also sells in-game currency for GTA Online.” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
As far as individual game sales go, No Man’s Sky made the most money of any self-published game, despite the negative reception (and because of a massive marketing campaign). Stardew Valley also did extremely well, pulling in more money from pure unit sales on Steam than heavy hitters like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dishonored 2, Mafia III, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
People really like Civilization. Also Grand Theft Auto. Oh, and it seems like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is doing pretty alright.
And finally, the (in my opinion) most interesting insight: there weren’t really any big new crafting/survival hits in 2016. Games like Ark: Survival Evolved kept on trucking, but the genre failed to produce its Next Big Thing. Strategy and simulation games, however, had a sudden explosion of popularity. Steam Spy pointed to big rags-to-riches hits like Stardew Valley, RimWorld, Factorio, Planet Coaster, Slim Rancher, Scrap Mechanic, and Youtubers Life as well as games from established companies like Civilization VI, XCOM 2, Stellaris, Total War: Warhammer, Football Manager 2017, and Master of Orion.
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Do you see any other interesting trends in Steam Spy’s data? And did you buy more Steam games this year than in previous years, or fewer?
You’re reading Steamed, Kotaku’s page dedicated to all things in and around Valve’s wildly popular PC gaming service. Games, culture, community creations, criticism, guides, videos—everything. If you’ve found anything cool/awful on Steam, send us a message to let us know.Share 11 Share Shares 11
I have never seen anyone this genuinely insane ever. If you have weak stomach turn back now.
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I’ve seen some really horrible shit working here. Dogs beaten, kids abused, people ruining their lives with drugs, a girl convincing her boyfriend to kill himself.
What I haven’t seen is a mentally ill woman walking around Walmart, taking pictures of random children, and posting them online claiming that they have been kidnapped and raped. That they were now prostitutes.
This story gets so much worse but I need to say something before I go any further.
Before you all light my ass up for not respecting this woman, whose name is Marie Samedy, because she’s clearly psychologically ill – you need to understand that the hospital released her a few days ago and she is out walking the streets. She’s back to taking photos of our kids and posting them online again. My kindness ended there. I’m not going to be my usual funny self here. There is nothing funny about this. I’m bullshit.
She looks like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.
Marie needs to be in an institution. She is escalating and the next thing she will do is kidnap a kid. I give zero fucks about what you feel is right and wrong when she is FEET away from small children and taking pictures of them. To see a child and claim they have been raped is just beyond my level of understanding. People need to be aware of her. They need to know her face. Because if she came anywhere near the turtle babies I would put my fist through her sternum and take a bite out of her heart. Once you take a look at her Facebook pages you’ll understand why she terrifies me. Understand why I have no sympathy.
Let me rewind a bit here. This post was made this afternoon. I had one of my Turtlepals blowing my phone up because he said he had never seen anything like it.
I went looking for the profile Christine had mentioned. I saw this chick Marie only had only four friends I thought that we were being trolled. We weren’t. She is a very real person. This was just one of her several accounts.
Marie was arrested last week for calling in a bomb threat to the Dunkin Donuts on Main St. The same one her son works at. She claimed she owned the building and worked for the FBI. That there was a bomb Ithe buildinh. She was arrested, thrown in for a psych evaluation, and they let her out. Mistake.
When Marie was released she continued posting pictures of small children all over her Facebook page. She went unnoticed until she popped up on Mamas Of The South Shore. (Yeah, that’s the one the minions started after Ashley Brady faced off with SSTG and lost harder than anyone in history.)
Marie wanted to warn other mothers that their children were in danger. Here is how she did it.
Here she claims the young girl in the photo is HER daughter. You want to tell me she’s not dangerous? She’s sizing up who is around them. How many, roles, vicinity.
Again, Marie has three separate pages that date back years. She posted her license. It matches the horrid display of pictures she posts of herself.
What I found on them was some of the sickest shit I’ve ever seen. Chilled me to the bone. Marie is real and she frequents the Westgate Mall area in Brockton. If you’ve been around there, and she looks familiar, I’d like you to check her page to make sure that you and your children aren’t on there. I think I got them all but just in case….
I’m warning you now. If you’re queasy about anything to do with the bathroom – just hit the back button. Don’t do this to yourself.
If you want to see her horrific nude photos of her ass, vagina, and breasts feel free to visit her page. I’m not posting them.
Marie seems to have a fascination with human fluids. Urine, feces, spit, vomit, and menstrual blood.
She talks to someone she calls “daddy” in all her posts as if she’s appeasing some unseen parental figure as she presents her trophies. By trophies I mean whatever she bled, pissed, shit, drooled or hurled that day.
Let’s not forget to mention her dirty underwear. I have zero idea how someone can make this happen in their pants but something tells me that my ignorance on this is a good thing.
Her absolute favorite is taking photos of her used feminine hygiene pads and posting them. There are hundreds of these photos on her page. She even once burned them in effigy.
Dudes, I tried to warn you.
My personal favorite was the picture of the pad with her EBT card under it.
She’s also got some weird obsession with her body. Her page is riddled with X-rated photos.
From what I understand she no longer has custody of her children and used to be a regular person. That’s all fine and well but I don’t really care.
If the hospitals are going to ignorantly release her, regardless of the signs of danger, and allow her to walk among us while hyper-focusing on the sexualization of our kids, we have every right to know who she is. We have the right to stay aware when we find ourselves in the same area as her. I don’t care how crazy you are – you don’t take mess with the kids. You want to make a shrine out of your shed uterine lining, great, keep it to yourself.
People have been contacting the Brockton Police all night so hopefully we will have an update for you soon. Until then… stay clear of this maniac. If you see her in a store taking pictures of children alert security and call the police.
We urge you to support the following local businesses.The Sentinel’s Creed is the Tomb Guard standard. The 99 words of the creed captures the true meaning of their duty. You will often hear the words “Line 6″ proudly uttered by Tomb Guards as they converse with each other or with their chain of command.
The Sentinel’s Creed
My dedication to this sacred duty
is total and whole-hearted.
In the responsibility bestowed on me
never will I falter.
And with dignity and perseverance
my standard will remain perfection.
Through the years of diligence and praise
and the discomfort of the elements,
I will walk my tour in humble reverence
to the best of my ability.
It is he who commands the respect I protect,
his bravery that made us so proud.
Surrounded by well meaning crowds by day,
alone in the thoughtful peace of night,
this soldier will in honored glory rest
under my eternal vigilance.
– Simon 1971Tanya Gersh woke up the morning of December 16, 2016, unaware of the storm that was about to hit her inbox, mailbox, social media accounts and voicemail.
Gunshots rang out on her answering machine.
A wave of anti-Semitic and violent messages flooded her inbox.
"Death to Tanya," read one of them.
"Rat-faced criminals who play with fire tend to get thrown in the oven," threatened another.
Similar comments appeared on her social media feeds. "Hickory dickory dock, the k*ke ran up the clock. The clock struck three and the internet Nazi trolls gassed the rest of them," one user tweeted at her.
In total, Gersh, her husband and 12-year-old son received more than 700 messages of harassment, according to court documents.
Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent from Montana, had been the target of a coordinated harassment and intimidation campaign, spearheaded by Andrew Anglin, a blogger who the runs the country's most widely visited neo-Nazi website.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says Anglin's Daily Stormer - a blog that includes sections such as "The Jewish Problem" and "Race War" - receives more than 400,000 views a month.
In April, the SPLC, along with a co-counsel in Montana, filed a suit on behalf of Gersh against Anglin, who it says is liable for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violating Montana's anti-intimidation act.
In response, Anglin hired Marc Randazza, one of the country's leading free speech lawyers.
Analysts and experts say the case could set a precedent for the way courts draw a line between free speech and online harassment.
David Dinielli, SPLC's attorney on the case, says the wave of harassment triggered by Anglin is a part of an ongoing shift in the way people "terrorise" others.
"In the past, they would have burned a cross in the lawn," he tells Al Jazeera. "Now they're doing it from behind a keyboard."
READ MORE: Threats and attacks as white supremacists target campuses
Property and protests
Gersh's nightmare started after local community members in her hometown of Whitefish, Montana, approached her with concerns about Richard Spencer, a white supremacist and leading figure in the alt-right movement.
Anglin has been a vocal supporter of the alt-right, a loose-knit coalition of far-right populists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
In the past, they would have burned a cross in the lawn. Now they're doing it from behind a keyboard. David Dinielli, Southern Poverty Law Center
After Donald Trump won the US elections in November, videos of Spencer evoking German phrases associated with the Nazi regime at a conference in Washington, DC, went viral.
"Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory," he bellowed as several members of the crowd rose to their feet and made fascist salutes.
Because Spencer's mother, Sherry, owned property in Whitefish, some locals intended to protest outside the building.
According to the suit, Spencer authored a blog post that accused Gersh of extortion, saying that the estate agent had pressured his mother to sell her property or face a wave of protests and negative media attention.
Gersh, however, claims she had notified tenants of Spencer's property of the protests, leading one of them to suggest she speak with Sherry Spencer.
After Spencer sought out her advice, Gersh recommended Spencer sell the property, disavow her son's views and donate the profits to human rights groups in order to alleviate local concerns. Spencer then hired Gersh, but shortly after decided to sell the property independently, the complaint says.
An 'old-fashioned Troll Storm'
Spencer's blog post appears to have prompted Anglin to take to his website, urging readers: "Jews targeting Richard Spencer's mother for harassment and extortion - TAKE ACTION!"
In the first of dozens of articles and comments, Anglin encouraged his readers to "hit em up" in an "old-fashioned Troll Storm".
He provided Gersh's phone number, address, social media profiles and email accounts. He also gave contact information for Gersh's husband and other acquaintances, and linked to the Twitter account of Gersh's 12-year-old son.
In the months that followed, Gersh's inbox, voicemail and mailbox become inundated with death threats, harassment and hate messages.
A tirade of insults inundated phone calls to Gersh's home. "F*ck you, you stupid Jew," one said.
Another caller said: "Listen here you f*cking Jew. You had better back off of Richard Spencer's mom. Everybody is watching you."
Others tweeted at her with memes about suicide, such as: "Are you going to take yourself out of the equation? #JustDoIt."
Her son received a number of messages on Twitter. One read: "psst kid, there's a free Xbox One inside this oven," and included an image of an oven.
Anglin reiterated his call several times in a series of articles, often adding new contact details of those associated with Gersh.
On at least two occasions, Anglin included images of Gersh and her son superimposed on photographs of the Auschwitz concentration camp and a Nazi propaganda poster.
OPINION: Trump's America - Bring on the hate
'More than trolling'
Because Anglin hired a prominent First Amendment lawyer, many commentators have placed an emphasis on the concept of free speech in discussing its use by hate groups to defend their actions.
Henry Giroux, author of America at War with Itself and dozens of books on politics and education, says the current public discussion over whether racist incitement should be protected by the constitutional right to free speech "speaks to [the] demise of the public discourse".
"For the right, 'free speech' is basically [a] way to legitimise hate speech," he tells Al Jazeera, arguing that critics need to stand up for freedom of expression while putting forward clear and consistent principles that make no space for hate speech and incitement.
I think there is this sort of conflation in the public discourse that trolling and hate speech are protected, and that's not what we're talking about here. People often say it's just trolling; it's much more than that. Danielle Citron, University of Maryland law professor
Yet Danielle Citron, a University of Maryland law professor who advised the SPLC on the case, argues the lawsuit is not about hate speech.
Citron, who focuses on cyber-harassment, said Gersh's suit is about "reputation-ruining lies" and the "solicitation of harassment", placing it outside the scope of the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression. Among the few exceptions to the rule are incitement to violence, defamation and threats of violence.
Arguing that Anglin's posts constitute "extreme, outrageous behaviour", Citron tells Al Jazeera that his comments are not protected under the First Amendment, citing Gersh's emotional and physical trauma and the potential damage that Anglin's claims could inflict on her career.
"I think there is this sort of conflation in the public discourse that trolling and hate speech are protected, and that's not what we're talking about here," she says. "People often say it's just trolling; it's much more than that."
Randazza, Anglin's free speech lawyer, was unavailable to provide comment to Al Jazeera at the time of publication.
READ MORE: White Lives Matter, a new US hate group, shows its face
'The terror was real'
The SPLC complaint says that as a result of the harassment Gersh endured severe emotional and physical distress, weight gain, joint pain, hair loss and other maladies.
It states that Gersh "had panic attacks, goes to bed in tears, wakes up crying, startles easily".
She "received medical treatment … feels anxiety and discomfort in crowded places, has had trouble leaving her home, and fears answering her phone".
Laura Beth Nielsen, a sociologist and lawyer who teaches at Northwestern University and the American Bar Foundation, says Gersh's suit raises speech-related questions that US courts have yet to fully answer.
"Threat has always been illegal," Nielsen tells Al Jazeera. "The question here, though, is whether the courts are going to buy the argument that unleashing trolls is a genuine threat and genuine infliction of emotional distress."
Explaining that the court will have to determine whether the harm outweighed the damage resulting from restricting speech, Nielson says new research suggests the way society understands the concept of free speech may be changing.
"We're starting to have quite a bit more social science and research about the harms of being targeted by hate speech," she says, pointing to cases in which the target of online harassment committed suicide.
"There's a growing group of young people who have seen first-hand the harm that can happen when internet trolling goes crazy," Nielson says, arguing that "we're consistently asking already-disadvantaged members of society to bear [the] burdens for 'the great American ideal' that we have."
For Gersh and her family, the case against Anglin may have a long road ahead. At the time of publication, the SPLC had still been unable to serve Anglin with the lawsuit because his whereabouts remained unknown.
Attorney Dinielli says that the group is confident that "a jury will find that this conduct is beyond any bounds of acceptability in a civilised society".
"There was a night when [Gersh] returned home and her husband considered if they needed to flee in the middle of the night because they're Jewish," he recalls. "There's no doubt that the terror was real."
Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_
Follow Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath on Twitter: @ElleDubGFOREWORD to
The Illustrated Concordance of Marielda, Second Printing
No chronology will be observed here, nor could one ever be observed—Marielda resists sequential arrangement. Where other atlases and dictionaries seek to duplicate the facts of a culture, treat this text instead as a replica of Marielda’s constant reconfiguration.
Thus, the reader should use this concordance as if they were wandering through a city street on the afternoon of an empty day. Follow the the capricious arcs of the written characters from one entry to the next, like the scent of an unseen cafe in the distance. Or, move from entry to entry with the speed and purpose of a busy hour of errands.
But understand that neither of these methods will bring you to more truth than any other. As with a mirror, you will get out of this text only as much as you put into it.
But if I may make one recommendation: Begin with the entry on dreams. Though there may be no worse place to begin than the reveries of those poor citizens, there is neither any better.
-Semiotician Emeritus Uklan Tel, Ed.
Hosted by Austin Walker ( @austin_walker )
Ali Acampora ( @ali_west ), Andi Clare ( @captaintrash ), Jack de Quidt ( @notquitereal ) and Andrew Lee Swan ( @swandre3000 Featuring
Produced by Ali Acampora ( @ali_west)
Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)
Episode description by Austin Walker
Music by Jack de QuidtGETTY Books encouraging Muslim parents to teach their children jihad are on sale in Birmingham
Extremist literature which also advocates the death penalty for adulterers and promotes hatred of the gay community, is on sale in Alum Rock, Birmingham. The predominantly Muslim suburb is a small corner of the city that has produced 10 per cent of all the UK’s convicted terrorists, according to a report published last week. The Henry Jackson Society think tank found that 26 of 269 Islamic extremists over the past 20 years came from just five council wards in Birmingham – Springfield, Sparkbrook, Hodge Hill, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green.
The Sunday Express visited the Madina Book Centre just off the bustling Alum Rock Road, which falls into the Washwood Heath ward, and bought a copy of the 440-page Bringing Up Children In Islam for £5. In what is intended to be a thorough guide to creating the perfect Muslim family, the book encourages parents to “keep alive in the children the spirit of jihad”.
PH A copy of the 440-page Bringing Up Children In Islam could be bought for £5
It said: “They may be inspired to strive for the restoration of the glory of Islam and Muslims. Jihad of warfare is where all humans spend their energies to stop a tyrant from being oppressive, for example when a tyrant makes it difficult for people to fulfill the commands of Allah to propagate Islam.
These books encourage a hatred and intolerance Hannah Stuart
“Tyrants must be subdued whether they rule in an Islamic or non-Islamic land, or whether they are on a battlefield. “It is the duty of Muslims to divert people from worshipping created things to the worship of the Almighty Allah alone.”
PH In Major Sins, homosexuality is branded as the 'dirtiest act'
The book rallies against cinema and theatre, arguing they are the work of “evil-minded” Jews before warning of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. Written by Dr Muhammad Habibullah Mukhtar, the book also supports adulterers being stoned to death and Muslim schoolchildren being kept separate from others, adding: “Education under unbelieving and atheist teachers results in them going astray. “Dangerous, communistic and materialistic ideas grow in their minds.” In another book, Major Sins, bought from a nearby gift shop, homosexuality is branded as the “dirtiest act”.Rolls-Royce seeks to participate in Turkey’s next-gen fighter program
In tandem with fellow British defence vendor BAE Systems, the aero-propulsion producer Rolls-Royce is interested in participating in the TFX, Turkey’s next-generation fighter program.
According to the Daily Sabah, the recent visit by Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was driven by the company’s interest to provide the EJ200 turbofan for use on the TFX.
The EJ200 is currently used onboard the Eurofighter Typhoon, a mainstay air superiority fighter in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was developed by Rolls-Royce in partnership with three other European vendors under a consortium known as EuroJet Turbo GmbH.
If selected for the TFX, Rolls-Royce had promised to select a local production partner in Turkey to manage the manufacturing and integration of the EJ200 in the TFX.
Defense News added that Rolls-Royce’s offer also encompassed an interest in supporting helicopter, armour, and missile propulsion work. Besides transfer-of-technology, the issue of giving Turkey export licenses to re-export Rolls-Royce technology – especially the EJ200 – was also a main topic of discussion.
Notes & Comments:
Although Turkey has stepped away from having the TFX conduct its maiden flight in 2023, the program is still on the table, and it is still garnering attention from overseas vendors. For the British defence industry, the TFX would offer a valuable opportunity to further distribute longstanding research and development (R&D) investments, many of which had gone into the Eurofighter Typhoon, which is now facing very tough competition from its fellow ‘Euro Canards’ in the Dassault Rafale and Saab Gripen.
Securing the TFX would enable Rolls-Royce (and EuroJet Turbo GmbH) to build market-share for the EJ200 as well as scale the engine, which could help in reducing the cost of the system. Including the Turkish industry could also help broaden the support base for the EJ200, especially if there is a large domestic customer in need of it in order to operate a potentially large TFX fleet.
It may not be smooth sailing for Rolls-Royce. General Electric maintains very strong industry ties in Turkey: The Turkish Air Force’s F-16s all utilize General Electric (GE) turbo |
website declares he was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father.
Trump: ‘I have no idea’
Trump, at the height of the controversy in 2011, said he couldn’t be certain of the truth because so much has been hidden from the public.
At one point, he offered $5 million to the charity or charities of Obama’s choice if he would release his passport records and authorize the colleges he attended to release his applications and other records.
Trump argued that those documents would show whether or not Obama ever accepted scholarship or other aid as a foreign student, which could preclude him from being a “natural-born citizen.”
In an interview, ABC’s Jonathan Karl charged Trump took on the “not serious” issue of eligibility.
“Why does that make me not serious?” Trump demanded. “I think that resonated with a lot of people.”
Karl replied: “You don’t still question he was[n’t] born in the United States, do you?”
“I have no idea,” Trump said. “I don’t know. Was there a birth certificate? You tell me. You know some people say that was not his birth certificate. I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows, and you don’t know either. Jonathan you’re a smart guy, and you don’t know.”
When Karl admitted he was “pretty sure,” Trump jumped on the statement.
“You just said you’re pretty sure … you have to be 100 percent sure,” he said. “Jonathan, you said you’re pretty convinced, so let’s just see what happens over time.”
Among the many records the Obama camp has refused to release are the marriage license of his father (Barack Sr.) and mother (Stanley Ann Dunham), name-change records (Barry Soetero to Barack Hussein Obama), adoption records, records of his and his mother’s repatriation as U.S. citizens from Indonesia, baptism records, Noelani Elementary School (Hawaii) records, Punahou School financial aid or school records, Occidental College financial aid records, Harvard Law School records, Columbia senior thesis, Columbia College records, record with Illinois State Bar Association, files from his terms as an Illinois state senator, his law client list, medical records and passport records.
Go to the WND Superstore right away for all of Carl Gallup’s books, “Be Thou Prepared,” “The Magic Man in the Sky,” “The Rabbi Who Found Messiah,” “Final Warning” and the newest “When the Lion Roars.”The CIA’s admission that it broke into Senate computers and spied on Intelligence Committee staffers has created a firestorm for the spy agency, with some calling for change at the top.
The scandal has stirred fresh doubts about Director John Brennan John Owen BrennanBrennan fires back at'selfish' Trump over Harry Reid criticism 'Dear Attorney General Barr': Advice from insiders Overnight Defense: Trump declares border emergency |.6B in military construction funds to be used for wall | Trump believes Obama would have started war with North Korea | Pentagon delivers aid for Venezuelan migrants MORE’s ability to lead the CIA and could make it difficult for the agency to push back on the findings of a Senate report on Bush-era “enhanced interrogation” techniques that might be released this month.
“This is going to feed into the Hollywood narrative about a wicked CIA,” said Jim Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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The agency’s admission this week that officials hacked into Senate staffers’ computers comes after months of controversy about the surveillance activities exposed by Edward Snowden.
Though the CIA’s hacking is unrelated to the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), the snooping on Congress could add to the perception that America’s spy agencies are out of control.
“Folks are sick and tired of intelligence agencies running amok, and this only makes things worse,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said in a statement on Friday. “These actions cannot stand, and I will keep working with my colleagues to make sure that the intelligence community starts respecting civil liberties.”
The CIA’s inspector general said five officials — two lawyers and three information technology staffers — hacked into Senate Intelligence staffers’ drives and emails, but also said the three IT staffers “demonstrated a lack of candor about their activities” in interviews.
Most troubling for Brennan, the report confirmed allegations Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) made in March, after he specifically denied the charges and called them “beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we’d do.”
The reaction in some quarters of Congress was swift and strident.
Three senators, including two members of the Intel panel, called for Brennan to step down, saying that the relationship between the agency and Congress could not recover while he still held his post.
“I think that at this point, it would probably be better for the agency, frankly, if he step aside,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday evening.
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), too, called for Brennan to resign over the “tremendous failure of leadership,” for which “there must be consequences.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who led a 13-hour filibuster against Brennan’s confirmation in March, echoed the call for him to be “relieved of his post” along with the officials responsible for the snooping on Friday.
At least for the time being, Brennan’s job seems secure.
President Obama gave a full-throated defense of the CIA director in a news conference on Friday, claiming that he had “full confidence” in Brennan while praising him for both launching the watchdog report in the first place and subsequently passing the matter along to an accountability board.
Leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have also declined to call for Brennan’s ouster.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the Senate panel’s vice chairman, on Friday told the Washington Examiner that the watchdog report seemed to clear Brennan of any wrongdoing. In fact, he said, the agency chief had “done what he’s supposed to do.”
Nonetheless, heads are likely to roll at the CIA.
Lawmakers across the political spectrum called for accountability from the agency, either in the form of a full and public apology from Brennan, criminal cases against the five people behind the incident or new laws to reform how the agency operates.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said in a statement that he expected “those responsible for those actions to be appropriately held accountable.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has often sparred with more hawkish members of the Intelligence Committee, declined to call for Brennan’s resignation but said that whomever “authorized and carried out this unconstitutional act... need[s] to be held accountable.”
Exactly what form the accountability takes remains to be seen.
The upcoming release of the Senate’s unclassified executive summary of the so-called “torture report” is likely to put an even harsher spotlight on the CIA’s activities.
That report is expected to contain explosive details about the interrogation techniques, and reportedly alleges that the agency lied to both Congress and the public about the techniques that were used.
The agency has begun pushing back against the report, but the hacking revelations could make it harder for present and former officials to win the battle of public opinion.
“This is the beginning of the story, not the end,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at American University.© PA Photos Enlarge Fernandinho joined Manchester City for £30 million from Shakhtar Donetsk earlier this summer
Fernandinho has revealed that he forfeited £4 million to realise his ambitions by joining Manchester City.
Having sealed a £30 million switch from Shakhtar Donetsk this summer, Fernandinho said he would have made more money had he stayed in the Ukraine.
"Why should people be surprised by that?" he said. "Maybe England should have more players who don't only think of money.
Week in Words Arsene Wenger feels the strain on the touchline © Getty Images In the latest collection of our favourite quotes of the week, Ian Poulter wants a clampdown on golf fans, women turn against Ian Botham (his own fault), and Arsene Wenger speaks from the heart
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"If I only wanted money and a comfortable life from my career, I would have stayed in the Ukraine.
"I was in Donetsk for eight years and I was happy there. I won six titles, I knew everyone and I was a big part of the club.
"But I was presented with the challenge of coming to Manchester City. The owner and the people who are managing the team want to win titles and other trophies, and I wanted to be a part of that. I came here to win. Of course I will be paid as a professional footballer but the only thing I am greedy for is success.
"In my country, we say that football is like a huge plate of food - well, I want to eat everything because I want to win every trophy I can for Manchester City."
And Fernandinho, 28, revealed that he could have joined either Chelsea or Tottenham before signing for City.
"I know there were negotiations between Shakhtar and Chelsea. Shakhtar told me they had refused an offer. There was also a stage a year ago when I spoke to people from Tottenham but nothing came of that."
© ESPN Sports Media LtdSome of you may know that I run the Twitter account CryForByzantium, which presents the history of the Byzantine Empire one tweet at a time. Many of the individual tweets contain dates, such as “7 August 626. Just got a report that Patrician Bonus set a brilliant ambush for the Persian and Avar ships…” I think this is necessary in presenting historical tweets.
Often, the Emperor “speaking” on CryForByzantium will mention Christmas. Almost invariably when a Byzantine tweet goes out mentioning December 25 as the date of Christmas, I will get an @ reply or a direct message from someone claiming that I’ve made a mistake–that the Byzantines, being Greek Orthodox, celebrated Christmas on January 7, not December 25. This is quite a common impression, but actually it’s wrong. They really did celebrate Christmas on December 25, from almost the very beginning of Byzantine history.
The confusion stems from two issues. The first is that Christmas was not the only religious holiday the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates in connection with the birth of Jesus, nor is it the most important. The more important holiday is Epiphany, which is traditionally celebrated on January 6. However, it’s important to recognize that Epiphany commemorates the baptism of Christ and the visit of the Magi, not the physical birth of Christ, which was believed since Roman times to have occurred on December 25. (Whether that date is accurate as a matter of historical fact is an entirely different issue).
In fact, Justinian I, who ruled from 527 to 565 A.D., officially set the date of Christmas as a civic holiday in the Byzantine Empire on December 25, where it had already been traditionally celebrated for a long time. Christmas was the beginning of a season of religious holidays and feasts, climaxing with Epiphany on January 6 (sometimes January 7). Figuring the actual dates of religious feast days is notoriously complex, and was even more so in the Middle Ages.
Who says Christmas is December 25? Justinian does. Just accept it.
The second issue that makes people think the Byzantines celebrated Christmas on January 7 is the fact that some Greek Orthodox today do. This is, of course, because some Orthodox churches still use the old Julian calendar, which is (depending on how you figure it) 11 to 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. Thus, what is December 25 on that calendar is often January 7 on the new calendar. Thus, Christmas “occurs” in January.
But this was not true in Byzantine times. The Gregorian calendar was not even introduced until 1582, more than a century after Byzantium fell to the Turks. The Julian calendar was the only calendar around during the Byzantine era. (Yes, it is true that the Byzantines counted years differently than the Julian calendar–and that their year began on September 1, not January 1–but they counted days and months the same way people did in Rome).
Therefore, if you went back in time and asked someone who lived in Constantinople in, say, 700 A.D. what day Christmas was, he or she would always tell you it was December 25.
Case closed…I hope!
AdvertisementsBRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Council President Donald Tusk said he would meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May in London next Tuesday to discuss Brexit, days after she is due to make a keynote speech on her vision for future ties with the EU.
FILE PHOTO: European Council President Donald Tusk gives a joint news conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (not pictured) in Brussels, Belgium June 22, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal/File Photo
He made the comment in a tweet after meeting May at the United Nations General Assembly.
The London meeting between the pair will come at a sensitive time - just after her speech in Florence on Friday and before an EU heads of state dinner on Sept. 28 in Tallinn, Estonia.
The Financial Times said May’s top EU adviser has told his counterparts in several European that she would in Florence offer to fill a post-Brexit EU budget hole of at least 20 billion euros.
The newspaper cited officials briefed on the discussions.
Senior EU officials have given talk of such offers short shrift. They have dismissed suggestions floated in British media that an offer of up to 30 billion euros payable during a transition period after Brexit would be acceptable to Brussels.
It could not be, they have said, an alternative to the 60 billion or so that the EU executive has estimated may be payable before Brexit in March 2019.
Brussels negotiators acknowledge privately that it may help the British government “sell” its settlement to domestic voters if London can meld the exit payments with transition payments to reduce the headline “divorce bill”.
EU officials told Reuters there would be no discussion of Brexit at the Tallinn dinner but that May might take the opportunity to brief the bloc’s other 27 leaders on her position.
Talks on Brexit have made little progress and deepened rifts in May’s party, setting up the Florence speech as a chance to put negotiations back on track and reassert her authority.
While Tusk is coordinating the 27 EU leaders on Brexit, only Michel Barnier is negotiating with the British and they have made clear to London that he is the only point of contact for Brexit talks.
Barnier’s negotiating directives have frustrated his British counterparts, who want to move the talks from divorce issues such as the EU departure bill and Irish border to future relations.
Barnier first wants to see progress on the terms of Britain’s exit.The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve while promising to protect critical migratory bird and caribou habitat.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday that the Bureau of Land Management will offer 190 tracts, covering more than 2,800 square miles, with bids to be opened Aug. 11 in Anchorage. The sale is one of dozens, mostly in Western states, that Salazar announced in November.
The petroleum reserve on the North Slope was originally created by President Warren Harding in 1923 and covers 23 million acres  an area slightly smaller than the state of Indiana. It currently has 310 authorized oil and gas leases totaling more than 3 million acres.
BLM has withdrawn for lease sale consideration lands in a buffer zone around Teshekpuk Lake, citing its importance to migratory birds. The area contains significant molting habitat for black brant, Canada geese and greater white-fronted geese.
The buffer zone also includes calving grounds for the Teshekpuk caribou herd, an important source of subsistence hunting for North Slope villages. In recent years, the herd has almost doubled in size  reaching about 70,000 animals.
Salazar said the lease sale reflects the Obama administration’s efforts to encourage environmentally responsible energy development to ease the nation’s reliance on imported oil.
Eric Myers, of Audubon Alaska, considered BLM’s plan “quite reasonable,” saying the agency provided additional areas for drilling while protecting special wildlife habitat.
But Brendan Cummings, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the reserve is the country’s largest and most intact unprotected wilderness area, and protecting Teshekpuk Lake isn’t enough.
“They’re not going to cut out its heart, but they’re still cutting off an arm and a leg,” he said.
Cummings said politicians unwilling to allow leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the east are willing to sacrifice the petroleum reserve, where, he said, caribou, wolves and waterfowl also need protection. Just having a sale, he said, defeats the original purpose of setting aside the land, which was to provide a reserve of petroleum resources as an emergency supply in time or war or other crisis.
“This lease sale is yet another symptom of a flawed energy policy where irreplaceable wildlands are sacrificed for a short-term oil fix,” Cummings said.
___
Online:
Detailed lease sale information: //www.blm.gov/ak/
Source: AP NewsIs Operation Payback A Crime... Or Just The Modern Equivalent Of A Sit In?
from the ddos-the-student-center,-man dept
I don't think that their attacks are necessarily illegal or immoral. As long as they don't break into other people's computers, launching DDoS should not be treated as a crime by default; we have to think about the particular circumstances in which such attacks are launched and their targets. I like to think of DDoS as equivalents of sit-ins: both aim at briefly disrupting a service or an institution in order to make a point. As long as we don't criminalize all sit-ins, I don't think we should aim at criminalizing all DDoS.
With the news coming out that Dutch officials have supposedly arrested someone involved in "Operation Payback," the Anonymous-driven DDoSing of certain websites (first those in favor of stronger copyright, and now those working against Wikileaks), Evgeny Morozov raises an interesting question: is this just the modern digital equivalent of staging a sit-in That's part of a larger post, where he worries that the government will overreact to these forms of attacks and use it to try to get greater oversight over the internet, and force less anonymity online. Of course, I would imagine that any such attempt to do so would backfire, and simply drive forward efforts to create more truly distributed and underground connections.Later, Morozov notes that, in Germany at least, courts have said that activism-driven DDoS's are, in fact, the equivalent of a sit-in I can see both sides of this argument. Of course, you can also argue that a basic sit-in is a form of trespassing, and thus against the law, but we tend to tolerate it for the most part. But, like many sit-ins, I think the bigger issue is that I'm not convinced these DDoS attacks are even remotely effective. Do they get attention? Yes, absolutely. Especially the attacks on Visa and MasterCard. But will it actually do anything productive? That's not clear. It might make some companies think twice before doing certain things, but I'm not sure it will really matter that much.The longer term effects may be more damaging. I'm not convinced the government would actually be able to successfully crack down via any attempt to get greater oversight on internet usage, but I think that there is the potential that these forms of attacks will backfire and could make people take the real issues behind censorship and online freedom less seriously, as they're associated with what's viewed as a sort of immature and sophomoric approach to the discussion.
Filed Under: activisim, anonymous, crimes, operation payback, protests, sit-insHas Mitt Romney given Israel a blank check for war?
So it seemed from the declaration in Jerusalem by his adviser Dan Senor, who all but flashed Israel a green light for war, signaling the Israelis that, if you go, Mitt’s got your back:
“If Israel has to take action on its own in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision.”
“No option would be excluded. Gov. Romney recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself and that it is right for America to stand with it.”
What does “stand with” Israel, if she launches a surprise attack on Iran, mean? Does it mean the United States will guide Israeli planes to their targets and provide bases on their return? Does it mean U.S. air cover while Israeli planes strike Iran?
This would make America complicit in a preemptive strike and a co-belligerent in the war to follow.
What Senor said comes close to being a U.S. war guarantee for Israel, while leaving the decision as to when the war begins to them.
This country has never done that before.
And what does Senor mean by Israel’s need to act “to stop Iran from developing [the] capability” to acquire nuclear weapons?
The collective decision of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007 that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon — reportedly reaffirmed in 2011 — has never been rescinded. Nor has the White House produced any hard evidence Iran is building a bomb.
Moreover, Iran’s known nuclear facilities are under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Does the government know something the American people are not being told?
Undeniably, Iran, by enriching uranium to 3.5%, then up to 20%, has a greater “capability” than five years ago of building a nuclear weapon. But Japan, South Korea, and Brazil also have that capability — and none has decided to build a nuclear weapon.
Gov. Romney did not go as far as Senor, but he, too, seems to be saying that not only is Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon a casus belli for the United States, even an Iran that is capable of building such a weapon is intolerable.
“The regime in Iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability,” said Romney. “Preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority.”
Preventing what outcome is “our highest national security priority”?
Stopping Iran from building a bomb? Or stopping Iran from being able to build a bomb years from now?
The governor seems to be aligning himself with Israel’s hawks who are demanding that not only must Iran swear off nuclear weapons forever, Iran must cease all enrichment of uranium and dismantle the facilities at Natanz and Fordow.
Romney’s policy is zero enrichment, said Senor. Tehran must understand that “the alternative to zero enrichment is severe, and that’s why the threat of military force has to be critical.”
This is tantamount to an ultimatum to Tehran: Either give up all enrichment of uranium and any right to enrich, or face war.
Here we come to the heart of the issue, which may be impossible to resolve short of war.
Unlike its neighbors Israel and Pakistan, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has no nuclear weapons. The ayatollah has said they are immoral and Iran will not acquire them.
But under the NPT, Iran claims the right to enrich uranium and seek the benefits of nuclear technology. And in that decision, the people of Iran stand behind their government.
Is denying Iran the right to enrich uranium a reason for America to plunge into its fifth war in that region in a generation?
That appears where we are headed. Reportedly, Obama’s national security adviser recently briefed Bibi Netanyahu on the specifics of U.S. contingency plans to attack Iran.
Has Congress been briefed? Have the American people been consulted? Or are we simply irrelevant?
A decade ago, this country sent an army up to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam and strip Iraq of a vast arsenal of chemical and biological weapons we were told it had and was preparing to use.
We were misled; we were deceived; we were lied to.
Before we outsource to Bibi and Ehud Barak the decision to take us to war with a country three times the size of Iraq, we need to know:
Was the U.S. intelligence community wrong in 2007 and 2011? Is Iran hell-bent on building nuclear weapons? If so, where are they constructing and testing these weapons?
Finally, if Iran is willing to permit intrusive inspections of its actual and suspected nuclear sites but insists on its right to enrich uranium, should we go to war to deny them that right?
But if we are going to go to war again, this time with Iran, the decision should be made in America, according to our Constitution, not by any other country.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM
Read more by Patrick J. BuchananWhile the male leads of the upcoming tvN drama “Entourage” has been confirmed, it has been recently revealed that rookie actress Kim Hye In will be playing the female lead.
This drama is a remake of the hit HBO series of the same name, and it will deal with the real-life events that happen in the Korean entertainment industry.
Actors Jo Jin Woong, Seo Kang Joon, Lee Kwang Soo, Park Jung Min, and Lee Dong Hwi will be appearing in the drama. Hundreds of actresses had auditioned to play the female role, who will ultimately be in the center among all the men.
The talented and lucky girl who earned her place as the main female character is Kim Hye In. She will be playing Seo Hee, a fancy interior designer. In the drama, she is a beautiful, well-educated, and skilled career woman who is very honest when dealing with relationships.
Kim Hye In signed a contract with Key East and will be making her drama debut with “Entourage.”
Meanwhile, this drama will start its production in the end of May and it will air in the second half of 2016.
Source (1)Today's [I can't think of anything W related to it] project is one that I've followed and played for years. Do you remember the old MicroProse Transport Tycoon Deluxe game by Chris Sawyer? I don't know about you, but I spent many hours (as in many many hours) playing that game. There was just something about building the road and rail networks that I couldn't get enough of.
Now lets fast forward to today. Wouldn't it be cool if we could not only play that game, but play an improved one, one that didn't require any files from the original AND one that we could dig through the source for too?
Well I give you...
OpenTTD is an open source simulation game based upon the popular Microprose game "Transport Tycoon Deluxe", written by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features. OpenTTD is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0. For more information, see the file COPYING included with every release and source download of the game. Features OpenTTD is modelled after the original Transport Tycoon game by Chris Sawyer and enhances the game experience dramatically. Many features were inspired by TTDPatch while others are original. Significant enhancements from the original game include: bigger maps (up to 64 times in size)
stable multiplayer mode for up to 255 players in 15 companies, or as spectators
dedicated server mode and an in-game console for administration
IPv6 and IPv4 support for all communication of the client and server
in game downloading of AIs, NewGRFs, scenarios and heightmaps
new pathfinding algorithms that makes vehicles go where you want them to
autorail/-road build tool, improved terraforming
canals, shiplifts, aqueducts
larger, non-uniform stations and the ability to join them together
mammoth and multi-headed trains
different configurable models for acceleration of vehicles
clone, autoreplace and autoupdate vehicles
the possibility to build on slopes and coasts
advanced/conditional orders, share and copy orders
longer and higher bridges including several new designs, plus fully flexible tracks/roads under bridges
reworked airport system with many more airports/heliports (e.g. international and metropolitan)
presignals, semaphores, path based signalling
support for TTDPatch NewGRF features offering many options for graphics and behaviour configuration/modification
drive-through road stops for articulated road vehicles and trams
multiple trees on one tile
bribe the town authority
many configuration settings to tune the game to your liking
save games using zlib compression for smaller sizes, while not interrupting gameplay
significant internationalisation support. OpenTTD has already been translated into over 50 languages
dynamically created town names in 18 languages, plus NewGRF support for additional languages
freely distributable graphics, sounds and music
framework for custom (user) written AIs
zooming further out in the normal view and zooming out in the small map Lots of effort has been put into making OpenTTD easy to use. These include: convert rail tool (to electrified rail, monorail, and maglev)
drag&drop support for almost all tools (demolition, road/rail building/removing, stations, scenario editor, etc)
sorting of most lists based on various criteria (vehicle, station, town, industries, etc.)
mouse wheel support (scroll menus, zoom in/out)
autoscroll when the mouse is near the edge of the screen/window
sell whole train by dragging it to the dynamite trashcan
cost estimation with the'shift' key
advanced options configuration window, change settings from within the game Graphical/interface features: screenshots can be in BMP, PNG or PCX format (select in game options menu)
more currencies (including Euro introduction in 2002)
extra viewports to view more parts of the game world at the same time
resolution and refresh rate selection for fullscreen mode
colourful newspaper after a certain date
colour coded vehicle profits
game speed increase (through fast forward button or by pressing the TAB key)
snappy and sticky windows that always stay on top and neatly align themselves to other windows
more hotkeys for even less mouse-clicking
support for 32 bit graphics
support for right-to-left languages
support for other (sized) fonts where the user interface scales based on the font and translation Posting a full list would be futile as it would mean updating this page almost daily, and even then some things might be forgotten. Play with the game to experience all the features yourself, or take a look at the Wiki for a more thorough listing and explanation of the features and possibilities available. Supported operating systems OpenTTD is officially supported on the following operating systems. *BSD, especially FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7
As this is Coding4Fun (and since I mentioned digging through the source) with just a little bit of effort, which is fully documented, you can get the source and compile, run, debug it in Visual Studio 2008/2010 (even in the free Express editions, though with those there's a note that you can't build the x64 version)
The wiki.openttd.org Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express Editions page walks your through the process, from even getting the VS Express editions, other Microsoft SDK's, related libraries, getting the source, setting the Include/Library paths and compiling the project. Just today, I followed these steps and got the project compiling and running on my system in less than 30 minutes (most of which was the first time compile/link time)
So let's see the Solution;
As you can see, this is a complete and complex project/game;
Here's the app running on my notebook;
As the doc's note (and as you'd expect) there's a major difference in performance between Debug and Release modes. Use Release mode if you can.
One of the cool things about OpenTTD is isn't extensbility. You can easily extend it, adding about about anything, from new AI to trucks and tiles without touching this source code.
Development
Development of NewGRF Extensions OpenTTD allows the use of NewGRFs and different base sets for graphics, sounds and music. These files require special formats and you may need to use the following helper programs to assist with the creation of these add-ons: nml High-level language and compiler for writing NewGRFs. See also the specs and tutorial
grfcodec Compiles NewGRF's low-level programming language NFO into a GRF file. Use the enclosed nforenum to check the code for sanity. See also the specs and tutorial.
pngcodec Compiles 32bpp PNG files and their alignment files into a 32bpp replacement file. Note: this is also feasible with NML.
catcodec Compiles the sound set description file (sfo) and the sounds into a sound set For further help see the wiki, the DevZone or visit the forums. NewGRFs can be made available to players via the online content. Development of AIs OpenTTD allows the use of several AIs. AIs and AI libraries are written in squirrel and need to make use of OpenTTD's API for AIs. Useful resources include: NoAI API API for OpenTTD's AIs.
DevZone The DevZone is the home of a number of open-source AIs and libraries.
Wiki Wiki section dedicated to AI development.
Forum Forum dedicated to OpenTTD's AI development. AIs can be made available to players via the online content.
If you're interesting in seeing a very complete, complex, fun and just plain cool game, want to dig into the source, build game extensions, help the project out with translations or just have fun, OpenTTD is there for you and free too...Earlier this year, Coca-Cola began running TV ads here and in the UK showing you all the fun activities you could do to burn off the extra calories you consumed while chugging down a Coke. But regulators overseas have since banned one version of the ad saying it misled viewers into thinking they could work off a can of soda with a lot less exertion than is actually required.
The ad, which you can see above, says that one can of Coke is equivalent to 140 calories — or as the ad puts it “140 fun calories,” which are much less boring than your standard calories.
It then shows captions like “25 minutes of letting your dog be your GPS” (or walking the dog, in non-ad parlance), “10 minutes of letting your body do the talking” (better known as dancing), “75 seconds of laughing out loud,” and “1 victory dance.”
Coca-Cola’s intention with the ad was to show that doing all of these things combined would add up to 139 calories, but many viewers didn’t notice the “+” flashing between each caption and complained to UK ad regulators that the ad was saying you could burn off 140 calories just by laughing for 75 seconds — which, by the way, is a long time to laugh; go ahead and try it if you don’t believe me.
Coca-Cola Ad Banned In UK For Misleading Consumers (VIDEO) [AP]Map: Colonial Pipeline network through metro Atlanta
Did you know that the Colonial Pipeline network runs along the new Braves stadium? (UPDATE: This map now shows the pipeline's path along the outside of the new Braves stadium property. It was rerouted in 2014.)
This map shows the Colonial Pipelines network in Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry counties that carry fluids, according to the National Pipeline Mapping System. (Zoom closer for more detail.) Green pointers show major Colonial Pipeline tank stations and orange pointers indicate points of interest where the pipelines pass through.
This map does not include pipelines owned by other companies, nor pipelines identified for natural gas. Not every pipeline shown here may be actively used. Pipelines may extend beyond what's shown within these counties.
Where can I fill up in metro Atlanta? | Cheapest chain to get gas in GeorgiaBree Olson cast as Jerrica!!
UPDATE 8/20/12---- First bit of casting news, just announced!!
BREE OLSON is going to be playing fan favorite, Jerrica, in THE BIGHEAD!!Please check out the latest update for more news on this fantastic information!
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UPDATE 8/6/12 ---- Please don't forget to check out the updates for new and exciting bits of information.
Of note is the new interview with THE BIGHEAD's author, EDWARD LEE. He mentions our new perk of getting your name listed in his upcoming book's thanks page. How can you beat that?! For more details please take a peak at the backer reward column on the right of the page.
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Who, or what, is THE BIGHEAD? A mutated psychopath? An inbred homicidal freak? A maniac sent from Hades itself? Or something far, far worse... Whatever it is, it's been cutting a swath through the backwoods of Appalachia, leaving a trail of blood and horror in its wake.
In 2003, author Edward Lee introduced readers to THE BIGHEAD and shocked the world of horror into submission. Here are but a few of the reactions:
"Edward Lee is to horror novels what Spain and S. Clay Wilson were to Underground Comics over twenty-five years ago--funny, evil, perverse as it is humanly possible to get...and gleefully outrageous about it. I'd say we got us a whole new sub-genre goin' here, boys and girls-- splatterspunk!" -- Jack Ketchum, Award-Winning author of Off Season, The Girl Next Door, and Red
"A demented Henry Miller of horror. Sexually revolting, outrageous, disgusting, THE BIGHEAD is the sickest piece of fiction I've ever read!" -- Douglas Clegg, author of Goat Dance, Children's Hour, and The Halloween Man.
"An outrageous, over-the-top gross-out! A must for any reader who thinks s/he's shockproof! Should carry a warning: do not read on a full stomach.... Far and away the grossest novel I've ever read!" -- Lucy Taylor, author of The Safety of Unknown Cities, Close to the Bone, and Spree
"Never have I been so ashamed of myself for laughing so hard at something so utterly depraved!" -- John Mason Skipp, co-author of Light at the End, The Bridge, and Animals.
"The grossest book I've ever read, an all-you-can-stomach fictive fanfare of nonstop perversity, pulp horror themes yanked inside-out with a vengeance, forabsolutely shocking entertainment. THE BIGHEAD would make the Marque de Sade wince!" --T. Winter-Damon, author of Rex Miller: The Complete Revelations, and over 250 stories
“Lee is the One Who Crosses the Line.”
–FANGORIA
THE STORY
THE BIGHEAD isn't just another "creature feature" - it's a no-holds-barred tour de force of horror that you'll never forget. And now with your help, and working very closely with author EDWARD LEE, we want to bring |
smartphone).
Hayek's mention of automobiles is interesting, too; if Swatch/Renata really has developed some kind of magical battery chemistry with significantly higher capacity than existing lithium-ion batteries, then I'm sure the automotive industry will be interested. This is turning into a bit of a fracas, with computer companies making smartwatches, watch companies making smartwatches and batteries, and car companies making household batteries.The disappearance of Amelia Earhart is one of the worst examples of television promoting pseudohistory.
by Brian Dunning
Filed under Ancient Mysteries, Conspiracy Theories, Urban Legends
Skeptoid Podcast #295
January 31, 2012
Podcast transcript | Download | Subscribe
Listen:
http://skeptoid.com/audio/skeptoid-4295.mp3
Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, and the Lockheed Electra, 1937
(Public domain photo) Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, and the Lockheed Electra, 1937(Public domain photo)
Today we're going to point the skeptical eye at some of the rumors surrounding one of the twentieth century's great mysteries: The disappearance of pioneering woman aviator Amelia Earhart, when her airplane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on her famous 1937 flight around the world. Conventional wisdom says that she simply ran out of fuel and ditched into the ocean, but stories have persisted for decades that she might have made it safely to an island, perhaps even survived for some time. Here and there, various artifacts have been found: A shoe, a zipper, a scrap of aluminum. There are even some crazy stories: that she made it back to the United States and lived out her life under an assumed name, or that she was captured by the Japanese and executed as a spy. Let's take a look to see if any of these alternate explanations can withstand scrutiny.
Amelia Earhart and her navigator, the highly experienced and esteemed Fred Noonan, were on the third-to-last leg of their circumnavigating flight in her Lockheed Electra 10E, a 1200 horsepower, state-of-the-art twin engine aircraft. They took off from Lae in Papua New Guinea on July 2, 1937, headed for a remote refueling stop in the South Pacific, a tiny island called Howland. From there they would continue to Honolulu for a final refueling before completing the journey in Oakland, California.
And as everyone knows, they never made it to Howland. A US Coast Guard cutter, the Itasca, was on station at Howland transmitting a radio direction-finding signal, and made sporadic voice contact. Most historians agree that a half-hour time zone difference disrupted both parties' attempts to establish two-way voice communication, and a photograph of the Electra taking off from Lae appears to show that a belly antenna (of unconfirmed purpose) may not have been in place. And to top it off, it turns out that Howland's position was misplaced on Earhart's chart by about five nautical miles, but which would still have kept it within visual range. Whatever role these problems may have played, if any, is unknown; but Earhart's final radio transmission to the Itasca said they were in the immediate vicinity of Howland. And ever since then, the best analysis is that they ran out of fuel, ditched in the Pacific Ocean, and perished.
But one group of historic aviation enthusiasts called TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) has been tirelessly promoting their hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan flew not to Howland, but by mistake to an island 650 km to the southeast, now called Nikumaroro but then called Gardner, where they crashed and survived for a time as castaways. TIGHAR's hypothesis and claimed discoveries saturate virtually all television and print reports of Earhart for the past decade, but these media outlets almost never mention that TIGHAR's is a fringe theory supported by poor evidence and that has almost no serious support from mainstream historians or archaeologists.
Here's the problem with TIGHAR's findings. Even though they meticulously document and preserve every artifact, they exhaustively research each one to find matches with real objects from the 1930s, and they look exactly like what such an expedition should look like, their overall methodology is fundamentally, fatally unscientific. It's unscientific in that it's done completely backwards. TIGHAR begins with the assumption that Amelia Earhart crashed, camped out, and died on Nikumaroro. They take everything they find — every anomaly in a photograph or in a story, every piece of bone or manmade artifact found on the island — and try to match it to their assumption, rather than trying to objectively assess its origin.
Nikumaroro, this tiny island where TIGHAR has recovered its artifacts, is in Kiribati, a nation of 100,000 people spread over millions of square kilometers of the South Pacific. People leaving artifacts come and go all the time. For example, pearl divers. Fleets of pearl boats have plied these waters since the 1800s. Every island and reef in the South Pacific has been visited countless times by pearl boats, who anchored, made camp on shore, and spent a few weeks free diving for oysters. Their exploits and histories have been published in dozens of books, such as Roy Miner's 1941 volume Pearl Divers, and the many colorful tales in Frank Coffee's 1920 book Forty Years on the Pacific. TIGHAR found evidence of campfires and fish bones on Nikumaroro and concluded "Amelia Earhart" who is not known to have visited the island; but I found no attempt made by them to exclude the pearl divers who are known to have camped there, and to have done so countless times over more than a century. TIGHAR appears to be dedicated to proving the least likely explanation for the artifacts.
They found an object identified as the heel of a woman's shoe. Many pearl divers were women, and they came from Fiji, the Philippines, and New Zealand, where shoes were not unknown in the 1930s. Could the shoe have come from the 1929 wreck of the steamship SS Norwich City that killed 11 of its 35 crew on Nikumaroro? Could it have belonged to one of the sixteen women who settled on the island in 1939 as part of a British colony? Could the shoe have even floated to the island from anywhere else? I find no reason to exclude the women who lived on or visited the island as possible owners of the shoe, or any reason to suggest Amelia Earhart was the most likely owner.
The found the remains of a buckknife. Is Amelia Earhart really more likely to have brought a buckknife to Nikumaroro than pearl divers, the British settlers, the operators of an 1892 coconut plantation, or the 25 crew of a 1944 Coast Guard station?
At its height, Nikumaroro had a population of about 100 people. Half a dozen smaller populations had come and gone over the prior century, and throughout it all, pearl divers camped ashore. Would you expect such an island to be pristine, or would you expect random debris from not just the 1930s but other periods as well? Without exception, every one of the artifacts recovered by TIGHAR should be expected to have been found there whether or not Amelia Earhart had ever even lived.
This even extends to a partial human skeleton that was found on the island in 1940 during its British colonial occupation. At the time, the young officer who found it, Gerald Gallagher, shipped the bones to Dr. David Hoodless, principal of the Central Medical School of the South Pacific on Fiji. Hoodless studied the bones and reported them to be "definitely" male, judging by the pelvis; and from an individual about 5 foot 5 1/2 inches tall, of European heritage and not a Pacific Islander. No clothes or hair were found, and the bones were severely weatherbeaten and in poor condition.
Near the skeleton, Gallagher also found a small wooden box with dovetailed joints, that he determined to be a sextant box. It was delivered to Harold Gatty, founder of Air Pacific, and a good friend of Fred Noonan and familiar with his navigation habits; for example, that he often carried an old-school sextant with him on flights in addition to modern equipment, just to double-check things the way a good navigator should. Regarding Gatty's own expertise, Charles Lindbergh had described him as the "prince of navigators". Another British officer in the area cabled Gatty's findings back to Gallagher:
Mr. Gatty thinks that the box is an English one of some age and judges that it was used latterly merely as a receptacle. He does not consider that it could in any circumstance have been a sextant box used in modern trans-Pacific aviation.
After studying all these results in light of his original speculation that they may have been related to Earhart, Gallagher wrote:
It does look as if the skeleton was that of some unfortunate native castaway and the sextant box and other curious articles found nearby the remains are quite possibly a few of his precious possessions which he managed to save.
Neither the bones nor the sextant box still exist today, but TIGHAR has made their own analysis of them, based on reading these original reports. As expected, TIGHAR has concluded that the skeleton was consistent with that of Amelia Earhart, and that the sextant box was consistent with one Fred Noonan may have used. Essentially, TIGHAR took the original first-hand expert analyses, and rejected and re-interpreted them to support their desired conclusion.
From a navigational perspective, the fundamental assumption of TIGHAR's theory is almost inconceivable. Fred Noonan was one of aviation's top experts in using the latest navigational techniques and equipment, including the then-new E-6B flight computer, which (among other things) corrects for the effects of wind on speed and course. Nikumaroro is a full five and one half degrees of latitude south of Howland. That's a massive, massive error; it's simply not plausible that Noonan could have been that far wrong. Earhart was no slouch of a navigator either. Could they have made such an error without either of them catching it?
Moreover, the bearing from Papua New Guinea to Howland is about 79° true. To Nikumaroro, it's 89° true. Nikumaroro was about 4272 km away, only slightly farther than Howland, which was 4160 km. The Electra's maximum's range did allow them to make it to either island, but only if they flew an absolutely direct course. The TIGHAR hypothesis suggests that they made their entire flight at a full 10° off course, without catching it, while following their compass and homing in on the Itasca's direction-finding signal, and were as much as five degrees of latitude too far south. Even for 1937, this size of an error strains credibility. Either the E-6B or the sextant would have caught either of these errors easily.
Clarification: The above paragraph has given many readers the impression that I've wrongly interpreted Gillespie's hypothesis. Gillespie does not claim the Electra flew 10° off-course, and does not claim they headed straight for Nikumaroro. Gillespie's basic claim is that they arrived at Nikumaroro, one way or another. The fuel analysis makes his hypothesized dogleg path impossible; this straight line off course is mathematically the only way to make his basic claim workable. I didn't mean for it to sound like I was misrepresenting his hypothesis.
Howland Island, the intended destination, is basically just a flat coral sand cay in the middle of nowhere, about two and a half kilometers long and less than a kilometer wide. It's uninhabited and has no trees, and no structures other than an automated lighthouse beacon. It's about as featureless and bleak as a desert island can be. But in 1937, there was a tiny temporary population there. Hawaii's Kamehameha School for Boys had set up a camp where students would spend a few months learning about the plants and animals there. It was called Itascatown, named after the Itasca that supplied it and handled all the transportation of students.
Three unpaved runways were bulldozed in anticipation of Earhart's landing, but since she never arrived, they ended up having never been used at all. The Japanese bombed them during World War II and they were never repaired.
But back on that day in 1937, the airstrips were ready, the Itasca sat on station off the coast of Howland, and drums of fuel had been sent ashore to refuel Earhart's plane. Coast Guardsmen and teenagers from the Kamehameha School stood watching the skies. They watched and waited, the time for Earhart's arrival came and went, and still they watched. The skies remained quiet. Eventually it became clear that there would be no landing that day, and word gradually spread that the Itasca had lost contact and the plane was now well past the point at which its fuel would have run out.
Following the bearings of Earhart's final radio transmission, just northwest of Howland, the search ships combed the ocean for a week. The aircraft carrier USS Lexington, the battleship Colorado, the Itasca, and even a few Japanese ships scoured the ocean's surface, tiny gray dots on an unimaginably vast shimmering blue curtain. But well hidden, deep in the peaceful darkness thousands of fathoms below them, rested what remains aviation's most enduring legend.
Further information is in this followup blog post.
By Brian Dunning
Follow @BrianDunningInspired and conceived by musicians, engineers and industry veterans, we have taken some of the biggest real life struggles in the modern day music production process, and developed a platform to bridge these gaps.
We set out to create a place where people anywhere could get access to a global community to write, compose and produce songs together. There are many challenges in this process and our mission is to offer a comprehensive collaborative musical exchange and production management system.
What is MixLuv?
There are three core areas that define our platform:
COLLABORATION | Users post their talents, services and requests to the global community. Once signed up, members communicate through search, messaging, and audition music tracks to build their perfect mix.
Here's a quick prototype demonstration of a first time user signing up and music post to the community.
CREATION MANAGEMENT | Our design uses version control and change management techniques adopted by several innovative software communities. The audio track management and storage solution keeps stakeholders informed of all aspects in the production process. Educational components of collaboration layer into this method.
LABEL LOGISTICS | Our label offering allows users involved to secure registration, publishing, licensing and appropriate royalty allocation. Our network of independent and industry contacts aid in distribution, promotion and marketing.
This has been an amazing journey so far. Now we need your help to get MixLuv into the hands of musicians around the world. Hitting our funding goal will allow us to cover initial costs for our Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and deliver to you in 2015. This MVP will allow you to:
Post your talents and services directly to the global community.
Search, request, and audition song components to help build your perfect mix.
Explore and contribute to a variety of music projects.
Connect with other artists based on geographic location, musical style, instruments, influences and involvement in the community.
Retain and share your content easily with an audio track management system to better organize your ever expanding cloud of storage.
Use our simple rights handling and publishing system to ensure appropriate publishing allocations.
Join the MixLuv community now and help build the ultimate social music collaboration tool!
This real world collaboration includes an all-star lineup of musicians including, former EMI-Caroline recording artist and NYC songstress Lachi, Gary Nesta Pine of Wailers fame, award winning singer Shea Rose, Scott Sharrard from The Allman Brothers band, Omar, and other artists from across the globe. full details here
Thanks to Kicking It Forward for their supportYes! Vindication! I am one of those people who can't read a book without flicking to the end to check what's going to happen, and it turns out that, rather than being an "impatient idiot who is spoiling it for myself", actually I am very wise. Scientists say so, so it must be true.
A study by Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt of UC San Diego's psychology department, due to be published in the journal Psychological Science, gave subjects 12 short stories, by authors including Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl and John Updike. Some were presented in their classic form, others with spoiler paragraphs, with each version read by at least 30 people. And you know what? The spoiled readers actually had more fun.
"Subjects significantly preferred the spoiled versions of ironic-twist stories, where, for example, it was revealed before reading that a condemned man's daring escape is all a fantasy before the noose snaps tight around his neck," the research reveals. "The same held true for mysteries. Knowing ahead of time that Poirot will discover that the apparent target of attempted murder is, in fact, the perpetrator not only didn't hurt enjoyment of the story but actually improved it."
As a huge reader of crime and thrillers, this is definitely rings true for me. Sometimes I like to try and guess the twist/murderer (I rarely, rarely manage); mostly I like to know in advance. Quite often when reading horror novels, I get so frightened I need to check the hero/heroine is still alive at the end of the book, and I usually take a sneak peak at the end of romantic reads just to make sure who is going to end up with whom. This tendency has long been criticised by my nearest and dearest; now I shall present them with this research – that "people who flip to the last page of a book before starting it have the better intuition", and that "spoilers don't spoil stories".
The psychologists go on to wonder why this is: perhaps, they say, it's because it's "easier" to read a spoiled story. "It could be," says Leavitt, "that once you know how it turns out, it's cognitively easier – you're more comfortable processing the information – and can focus on a deeper understanding of the story." Yes, I can see this – I knew the twist before watching The Sixth Sense, and it meant that I could scrutinise the film carefully to see if it actually held together. (This is the nerdy, obsessive way I like to behave.)
I am not sure I agree with this assertion, though – that the reason spoilers don't matter is because plot is overrated, and "plots are just excuses for great writing. What the plot is is (almost) irrelevant. The pleasure is in the writing". I like my spoiled plots and twists to be good, as well as well-written.
Anyone else care to reveal a fondness for spoilers? I will also admit that, even when I know full well what is going to happen in a book, either because I've read it a million times before (Gone with the Wind) or because I've flipped to the end (countless thrillers), I often find myself hoping that, this time, it's going to be different, that Rhett and Scarlett are going to end up together... Now I just need a psychological study to prove that that tendency isn't, also, ridiculous.BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian state-run oil company Ecopetrol has halted pumping on the country’s No. 2 oil pipeline after a rebel bombing that sent crude spilling into a nearby river, a source at the company told Reuters on Friday.
The attack on the 485-mile (780 km) Cano-Limon Covenas pipeline caused a spill in Arauca province’s Bojaba river, near the border with Venezuela, Ecopetrol said in a statement.
Clean-up crews were working to contain the spill, the company said, which so far was several kilometers away from drinking water sources.
President Juan Manuel Santos blamed the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group for the attack.
The government and the ELN announced in March they would soon begin formal peace talks in Ecuador, after over two years of preliminary negotiations.
“It’s inconceivable that this group, instead of giving concrete displays of peace, insists on kidnapping and attacking the infrastructure of Colombians, like it did today with another pipeline bombing, causing immense harm to the environment,” Santos said in televised remarks.
The president will travel to Arauca on Saturday to meet with security officials.
Cano-Limon has the capacity to transport up to 210,000 barrels of crude daily from oil fields operated by U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum, near the border with Venezuela, to the Caribbean port of Covenas.
Attacks by the ELN on oil installations have been a frequent occurrence during a conflict that has taken more than 220,000 lives and displaced millions over the past 52 years.A recently released FBI file alleges that a young Edward M. Kennedy made arrangements to rent a brothel in Santiago, Chile for a night in 1961.
Public interest group Judicial Watch first obtained an almost completely redacted version of the file last July. After months of arguing the the blackouts were baseless, the FBI released the file (.pdf) in a largely unredacted form.
The document details Kennedy’s 1961 visit to Chile, where he allegedly “made arrangements to ‘rent’ a brothel for an entire night.”
“Kennedy allegedly invited one of the chauffeurs in for the night’s activities,” the document adds.
While touring Central and South American countries, the future senator was also reportedly interested in meeting with “leftists” to determine “why they think as they do.”
“While in Mexico City, Kennedy asked the Ambassador to invite left-wingers to the Embassy where he could interview them; however, the Ambassador refused to do so and stated that if any such interviews were to be conducted, all arrangements would have to be made by Kennedy himself.”
“Douglas Henderson, State official in Lima, confidentially advised that Kennedy had made similar requests in Peru. Henderson described Kennedy as a pompous and spoiled brat,” the memo notes.
Dennis Argall, assistant section chief for the records dissemination section of the FBI, explained the delay in releasing the memo by saying the FBI had to check with the originating agency before releasing it to the public.
“We had to send it to another agency and when the information came back, that is when it was released,” he told The Boston Globe.
The document indicates that it originated with the CIA and State Department.
“The FBI’s reluctance to follow the law and release this material shows that it, too, is not above politics,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
“We will continue to investigate why the FBI improperly chose to keep this information secret.”
Read the entire document below.
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tedkennedy-docs-02242011Pictures from Wednesday’s #justice4hamza march (Images: Alex Garland for CHS)
The police investigation into the death of a 16-year-old Seattle Central College student continues as concerns about the cause of the incident have mounted on social media.
Hamza Warsame died on Saturday following a 60-foot fall from a building near Summit and Thomas, according to Seattle Fire. Seattle Central identified Warsame Monday in a message to students. In a statement released Tuesday, Seattle Police said its investigation was ongoing and did not specify if detectives suspected foul play.
The department is aware of community concerns about the case and Assistant Chief Robert Merner is personally supervising the matter. As with all death investigations, we ask the community to be patient and avoid jumping to conclusions while detectives conduct their work.
A representative from the King County Medical Examiner’s Office told CHS its investigation into the death was on hold while police continue to work on the case. The medical examiner’s report may also be delayed as investigators gather details from Harborview Medical Center, the representative said. UPDATE 12/9/2015 3:10 PM: The medical examiner said Wednesday afternoon that the announcement of the cause of death in the Warsame case remains “pending investigation.”
Four days after her brother’s death, Ikram Warsame told CHS she has become increasingly frustrated with the lack of information on the investigation. “I want the police to bring justice to my brother, to find out what happened to him,” she said on Wednesday while on her way to a vigil for Hamza at Seattle Central.
The 18-year-old UW Bothel student said she believes its unlikely her brother’s death was accidental and she’s certain it was a not a suicide. “This was murder, this was not a suicide,” she said. “He was content with his life, he had high hopes for the future.”
Ikram said her and Hamza’s parents immigrated from Somalia to Seattle in 1994, where Hamza and Ikram were born and raised. After obtaining his associates degree, Ikram said Hamza wanted to attend MIT in Boston to study computer science. “He was interested in technology, he was a game fanatic,” she said.
CHS has received many messages about Warsame’s death and concerns about the investigation. A group called Americans for Refugees & Immigrants has planned a gathering on Thursday to call attention to Warsame’s death. The creator the of Facebook event page wrote Warsame is “a casualty of the xenophobic, Islamophobic hate speech.” A call for a prayer circle at Seattle Central on Wednesday has also made its way through social media.
Others have taken to Twitter and Facebook using #justice4hamza to call out a perceived lack of concern over the teen’s death, which some have speculated was a homicide. Friends and family of Warsame said that a memorial service was planned for Tuesday in Tukwila.
Warsame was a Rainier Beach High School student starting his first quarter at Seattle Central under the college’s Running Start program, a Seattle Central spokesperson told CHS. Running Start allows high school juniors and seniors to take college–level classes for high school and college credit.
Police are asking anyone who may have additional information to contact investigators at (206) 233-5000.
UPDATE 12/9/2015 10:00 AM: SPD has released a Somali language version of its post on the investigation.
UPDATE 12/9/2015 3:15 PM: Dozens of Seattle Central students, members of the Somali community, and their supporters held a prayer vigil for Warsame inside the Capitol Hill college Wednesday afternoon. Following the prayer, Warsame’s cousin Mohamed Abdi addressed the gathering inside Seattle Central. “This could happen to any of us, so we’re going to make sure his story is heard,” he said.
The group then marched with a police escort to the E Precinct to call for more information on the investigation into the teenager’s death.
Protestors carried signs that read “Justice4Hamza” and “Muslim Lives Matter” while chanting “Hamza.” One speaker said she believed Warsame’s death should be investigated as a homicide and hate crime.
As the group chanted outside the 12th and E Pine precinct, Captain Paul McDonagh came out to speak with Ikram. McDonagh said he didn’t have any additional information to share on the investigation, but detectives would be meeting with the family privately Wednesday night.
“I appreciate you coming and being respectful,” McDonagh said.
Seattle Central’s Somali Student Association planned the vigil and march, along with the Black Student Union and the Muslim Student Association. In an email to students, Interim President Sheila Edwards Lange urged students who didn’t feel comfortable speaking with police to speak with faculty or staff. “This incident has brought to light very real concerns among our community of black and Muslim students who are worried about their safety,” she said in the email. “Amid reports of an increasing number of racist and discriminatory acts locally and nationally, the fear and sorrow our students feel is real.”
Students rally in front of E Precinct, calling for quicker investigation into death of Hamza Warsame pic.twitter.com/LZHAFEOJjb — Bryan Cohen (@bchasesc) December 9, 2015
#Justice4Hamza protest arrives at SPD East Precinct pic.twitter.com/QT1W13mpuM — Alex Garland (@AGarlandPhoto) December 9, 2015This article is over 3 years old
Sheikh Imran Abdulla detained and accused of attempting to overthrow regime amid clashes with police, as thousands march on capital
Authorities in the Maldives arrested three opposition leaders and nearly 200 other people after clashes erupted between police and protesters demanding the resignation of the country’s president and the release of a jailed ex-leader.
With the arrests, nearly the entire opposition leadership behind Friday’s anti-government protests were detained, opposition lawmaker Eva Abdulla said on Saturday.
Police arrested Sheik Imran Abdulla, leader of the Islamic conservative Adhaalath, or Justice party; Ali Waheed, chairman of the main opposition Maldivian Democratic party; and Ameen Ibrahim, deputy leader of Jumhooree, or the Republican party.
The arrests could exacerbate an acrimonious political climate in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation, which is still in its early years of democracy.
The Maldives government accused Abdulla of inciting violence among the protesters with the aim of overthrowing the government. The government, however, did not comment on the arrests of the other opposition leaders.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Opposition supporters at Friday’s protest in Malé. Photograph: Sinan Hussain/AP
Thousands of people marched in the capital on Friday, accusing president Yameen Abdul Gayoom of jailing former president Mohamed Nasheed and others he sees as political threats.
The opposition activists ran through a cordon of shield-carrying police protecting the military headquarters in Malé and clashed with police officers.
Police fired teargas and arrested 192 protesters. They later declared the demonstration was not peaceful, saying they will break up any gathering without warning.
Police told reporters that Imran “incited violence amongst protesters with the aim of toppling the government and called for clashes with the police if necessary”.
However, Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic party said police officers charged the protesters without provocation.
The protesters also beat up two policemen, who were flown to neighbouring Sri Lanka for treatment.
Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in prison in March for ordering the arrest of a senior judge when he was president three years ago. He was sentenced under the country’s terrorism laws after the court declared the arrest was akin to kidnapping.
Nasheed’s imprisonment after a rushed trial sparked widespread international condemnation.
In a statement after a fact-finding mission to the Maldives, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva said Nasheed’s trial was “vastly unfair and his conviction was arbitrary and disproportionate”.
The statement, which noted that the delegation met with Nasheed in addition to government officials and members of civil society, also said the country’s legal system is “perceived as politicised, inadequate and subject to external influence”.
Release Mohamed Nasheed – an innocent man and the Maldives’ great hope | Amal Clooney Read more
The statement added: “In the absence of an adequate criminal code, evidence law, and criminal procedures, the prosecutor general and the judges have excessive discretionary powers that worked in this case against Mr Nasheed.”
Gayoom’s former defence minister, Mohamed Nazim, has been jailed for 10 years for importing and possessing a firearm, which is forbidden for private individuals.
Known for its luxury island resorts, the Maldives became a multiparty democracy in 2008, when Nasheed was elected president, ending the autocratic 30-year rule of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
Nasheed resigned in 2012 after weeks of public protests against the arrest of the judge, whom Nasheed’s government had accused of being corrupt and politically biased.
In 2013, he lost a presidential election to the former leader’s half-brother.Lehigh University students say they've never seen professor Beth Gallant shy away from standing up for what she believes.
And that's why they want to do the same thing.
The professor of practice, who graduated from Lehigh in 1986 and has taught there for 11 years, said she fears she won't be back to teach in the fall and believes it's because she has raised issues with the university administration about practices she believes are discriminatory toward female faculty.
Students worried that the school's administration won't be renewing the marketing professor's contract have started an online petition to show their support. So far, the petition has garnered 391 signatures and almost 100 comments and testimonials from students.
"She has always stood up for every single student who went to her for help," said 22-year-old senior David Canfield, of Erdenhein, Pa. "We want to do the same."
Lehigh denies any discriminatory action, according to spokesman Jordan Reese.
Professor files complaint
Lehigh University maintains that Gallant's position with the university has not been determined. The reappointment process for 17 of the university's 52 professors of practice and lecturers is underway, Reese said. The process includes evaluation of the faculty member's entire range of responsibilities and expectations at the school, according to Reese.
Final decisions aren't expected until April, he said.
But Gallant said the indications she has seen have led her to believe her days with the university are numbered. She said she has turned students down who asked her to be an adviser because she doesn't think she'll be back, based on her evaluations and the fact that she's not listed among fall faculty.
"I've watched countless other women leave in silence," said Gallant, who said she's filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in July about her concerns with female faculty being treated differently than their male counterparts. "I feel like it's time for change. If I don't speak up, nothing will change."
The EEOC would not confirm or deny pending complaints. Gallant, who has also obtained an attorney, said she's not yet heard back from the commission on its findings. Gallant declined to go into specifics about her complaints with Lehigh, citing potential legal action in the future. She did say she finds the college fails to enforce rules and policies in a gender-neutral fashion and has imposed work rules on her that were not imposed on male colleagues.
Gallant's criticisms come as the university undergoes an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights regarding how the college has handled issues of racial hostility on campus in the wake of vandalism at a multicultural dormitory in November.
Concerns not addressed, professor claims
According to university statistics, 30 percent of Lehigh's full-time faculty is female. In the marketing department, where Gallant teaches, that figure rises to about 50 percent.
Gallant said that for the past several years, she has reported incidents to administrators when she felt female faculty are being treated differently than men but said she does not believe her complaints were taken seriously or addressed.
"They brushed them under the rug," she said. "Similar to the students' concerns — they've ignored them."
Gallant said she's heard from other female faculty members who have told her they've experienced similar issues.
"Ethically, I knew this was the right thing to do. I have two daughters and I want them to know you have to stand up for yourself," she said.
When Gallant's contract was up about four years ago, she said, students rallied around her with a similar petition after a man was offered a job she was never made aware of.
The support from students now, as then, has been overwhelming, according to Gallant.
"It brings tears to my eyes," she said. "I've cried. It's gratifying because I realize I do have an impact."
Students say Gallant more than teacher
Justin Mahoney, 20, said he sat near Gallant at a university awards banquet early in his college career and was convinced to pursue marketing after a night of talking with the professor. Ever since, the junior said, Gallant has been a valuable teacher and mentor.
"She goes beyond her job title all the time," Mahoney said.
An example is Samantha Elgort, 20, who recounted how Gallant has helped her find a dentist to get her wisdom teeth removed.
"From the minute I met her, I knew she would be my mentor for the next four years. She has only continued to impress me," Elgort wrote in an email from Madrid, where she is currently studying. "Both her professional advice as well as personal have made me grow exponentially at Lehigh."
Canfield recalls how Gallant's classes, always full of discussions, also manage to include students who don't normally participate. The fact that she has experience in the marketing field changes the classroom dynamic, he said.
"Although she is one of the hardest teachers for the subject, she is also the most passionate," he said. "I don't know how many departments have one person so many people can cite as the reason they got a job."
Mahoney said he hopes Lehigh will consider the students' wishes in making their decision.
"We're the ones paying $43,000 in tuition," he said. "We should have a say in who leaves and who stays."
Canfield said Gallant was also among the loudest professors to express dismay about the November vandalism at the Umoja House — a crime that remains unsolved.
"I remember her being one of the most outraged people on campus," he said. "Even if we aren't successful (with the petition), it still raises all these issues the university fails to acknowledge. In doing that, I think it will make Lehigh a better place. If anyone can take it, it's her, because she's one of the most strong-willed professors I have ever known."HARTFORD, CT—Saying the incident had forced them to completely rethink their past decisions about the man’s coverage and how they would approach his policy from here on out, Aetna executives reported Thursday that the recent heart attack of longtime plan member Michael Burns was a real wake-up call for the 163-year-old insurance company. “This came as a terrible shock, but to be honest, it was probably just what we needed to shake us out of our old habits and realize we have to make some big changes around here,” said CEO Mark Bertolini, adding that the health care provider had known for years that Burns’ monthly premium could be easily two or three times its current level, and that it was unfortunate that it had taken a major emergency and hospitalization for the company to finally do something about it. “You want to believe you can keep charging someone the same co-pays forever, but after this, we’re really going to have to keep a closer watch to make sure his yearly deductible keeps pace with his increased health risk—that’s just common sense. I honestly didn’t realize things had gotten this bad.” Bertolini added that he was just glad they had caught the problem while Burns still had plenty of profitably healthy years left.
AdvertisementStory highlights The fossil is 520 million years old and was found in China
Using multiple images of the animal, the researchers discovered the nervous system
They also |
species, supporting one or more sea anemones on the shell can scare away predators. The sea anemone benefits, because it is in position to consume fragments of the hermit crab's meals. Other very close symbiotic relationships are known from encrusting bryozoans and hermit crabs forming bryoliths.[12]
Development and reproduction [ edit ]
Hermit crab species range in size and shape, from species with a carapace only a few millimetres long to Coenobita brevimanus, which can live 12–70 years and can approach the size of a coconut. The shell-less hermit crab Birgus latro (coconut crab) is the world's largest terrestrial invertebrate.[13]
The young develop in stages, with the first two (the nauplius and protozoa) occurring inside the egg. Most hermit crab larvae hatch at the third stage, the zoea. In this larval stage, the crab has several long spines, a long, narrow abdomen, and large fringed antennae. Several zoeal moults are followed by the final larval stage, the megalopa.[14]
Hermit crabs are often seen as a "throwaway pet" that would live only a few months, but species such as Coenobita clypeatus have a 23-year lifespan if properly treated,[15] and some have lived longer than 32 years.[16][17]
Classification [ edit ]
Hermit crabs are more closely related to squat lobsters and porcelain crabs than they are to true crabs (Brachyura). However, the relationship of king crabs to the rest of Paguroidea is a highly contentious topic. Many studies based on physical characteristics, genetic information, and combined data, support the longstanding hypothesis that the king crabs in the family Lithodidae are derived hermit crabs and should be classified as a family within Paguroidea.[18][19][20][21] Other researchers have challenged this, asserting that the Lithodidae (king crabs) should be placed with the Hapalogastridae in a separate superfamily Lithodoidea.[22][23] Six families are formally recognized in the superfamily Paguroidea,[1] containing around 1100 species in total in 120 genera.[2]
Coenobitidae Dana, 1851 – two genera: terrestrial hermit crabs and the coconut crab
– two genera: terrestrial hermit crabs and the coconut crab Diogenidae Ortmann, 1892 – 20 genera of "left-handed hermit crabs"
– 20 genera of "left-handed hermit crabs" Paguridae Latreille, 1802 – 76 genera
– 76 genera Parapaguridae Smith, 1882 – 10 genera
– 10 genera Parapylochelidae Fraaije et al., 2012 – two genera [24]
– two genera Pylochelidae Bate, 1888 – 9 genera of "symmetrical hermit crabs"
– 9 genera of "symmetrical hermit crabs" Pylojacquesidae McLaughlin & Lemaitre, 2001 – two genera
Fossil record [ edit ]
The fossil record of in situ hermit crabs using gastropod shells stretches back to the Late Cretaceous. Before that time, at least some hermit crabs used ammonites' shells instead, as shown by a specimen of Palaeopagurus vandenengeli from the Speeton Clay, Yorkshire, UK from the Lower Cretaceous.[25]Spain is undergoing its worst constitutional crisis since its return to democracy in the 1970s
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Madrid (AFP)
"Prison for Puigdemont," shouted thousands of people in central Madrid, gathered under a giant Spanish flag Saturday in anger at Catalonia's unilateral declaration of independence under secessionist leader Carles Puigdemont.
As music blared from giant speakers -- from British band Coldplay to Spanish singer Manolo Escobar's "Y viva Espana" ("And long live Spain" in Spanish) -- pro-unity protesters banded together on the square.
Unhappy with Catalonia's secession bid, many also directed anger at Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whom they accuse of having been too soft on the region's separatist leaders.
"It is a disgrace what happened in Catalonia, and it's a disgrace what happened after," said Carlos Fernandez, a 41-year-old mining engineer.
On Friday, the Catalan parliament declared unilateral independence.
Rajoy replied by axing Puigdemont and his executive, dissolving parliament, and calling snap December 21 regional elections to quash what he termed an "escalation of disobedience."
"Nothing is going to change in two months," said Fernandez of Rajoy's intervention, "it's just prolonging the problem."
Sitting on a concrete ledge clutching a large red and yellow national flag, he said he was disappointed at the low pro-unity turnout.
"It's because of what the government said yesterday, many people think that it's all solved," he said.
Speeches began at midday.
"Today, we have all come to demonstrate our unity, to proclaim that we will get Catalonia back," one presenter told the crowd.
To cheers and shouts of "prison for Puigdemont," she added: "We won't stop until we see them in jail."
Spanish prosecutors have announced they will next week file charges of "rebellion" against Puigdemont -- a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Near the square, a large banner proclaiming: "Spain doesn't surrender" hung from a building occupied by the far-right, xenophobic group Hogar Social.
People leant out of windows and cheered as dozens of protesters holding flags of the Spanish Legion, an army unit, and the small, far-right party National Democracy marched up, flanked by police.
Back on the square, Jorge Marin, a 38-year-old engineer, said: "In the end, this is going to come to nothing."
"The Catalans aren't serious, and we're not serious, because they're not really getting independence, and we're not going to put them in prison for what they're doing."
© 2017 AFPSugru is a silicone, which can be used to glue things together, patch leaky boots, or create a variety of custom-made handles, hooks, and feet for wobbly chair legs.
It has the appearance of children's modelling clay, which once out of its airtight packet, can be moulded into any shape and fixed onto leather, metal, ceramic, wood and plastic. After about 24 hours it "cures" and will adhere to any substance with the strength of ultra strong glue but it does not become rock hard. Instead, it stays slightly flexible.
Sugru, an Irish word for play, has been invented by Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh, a former art student determined to give old and broken household objects a new lease of life.
"I was inspired by the internet and the whole idea of user-generated content. I wanted something that people could make their own and use in their own way.
"A lot of stuff gets thrown away not just because it is broken but because it has stopped being useful or fashionable. If you can adapt it or hack it that's got to be better than putting it in the bin."
The product goes on sale this week but it has already caught the eye of design experts who have tested it out and hailed it as the most exciting product since Sellotape or Blu-Tack.
Guy Robinson, the head of the design consultancy Sprout Design, said: "I think this will really take off. I just hope people realise how great it is.
"It allows you to customise your own stuff by making it ergonomic. Too much industrial design is not ergonomic enough."
He said that he had already used it to make custom-made handles for hospital crutches.
The silicone is made from a new product trademarked as Formerol, which is far more flexible than the mouldable epoxy resins on the market, which tend to go rock hard when dry. The material, once cured, is dishwasher proof and heat resistant to 180C (356F). A packet, containing 10 sachets of Sugru, costs £7.Rajnath was accompanied by Chief Minister Raman Singh and other senior officers.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday urged Maoists to drop their weapons and come back to the mainstream.
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Speaking at a public meeting in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma, he said: “The Maoist challenge is a big challenge. They want to stop development. But we have taken a vow that we will establish peace in the region.” He added: “I am glad that I am the first home minister to visit Sukma. I will also visit in the future.”
On Sunday, the last day of his two-day Chhattisgarh visit, Rajnath visited Sukma and inaugurated the first fortified police station of the state in Dornapal. It is among 75 such stations being constructed in the state from the central funds. He also flew to the Chintagufa police camp, located near Tadmetla, where Maoists had killed 76 personnel in 2010. Rajnath was accompanied by Chief Minister Raman Singh and other senior officers.
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On Saturday, the Home Minister had inaugurated the new police headquarters in Naya Raipur and a police sports complex in Raipur. During his address to officers, he applauded the state police for carrying out the battle against Maoists. He also held a meeting with senior officers and discussed modalities for tackling the rebel issue.
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“The Home Minister visited our camps, interacted with our personnel and took stock of the anti-Maoist operations. He has expressed satisfaction. He has promised us all help from the Centre against Maoists,” ADG(Naxal Ops) RK Vij said.The family of a Hampden man charged with fatally stabbing a black man in Manhattan, in what police called a racially motivated attack, condemned the killing in a statement Thursday.
"Our family is shocked, horrified, and heartbroken by this tragedy. We extend our prayers and condolences to the family of Timothy Caughman," the family of James Harris Jackson said in the statement.
Jackson, 28, was raised in Towson, graduated from the Friends School of Baltimore in 2007, and most recently rented a brick rowhouse just two blocks south of The Avenue.
He came to New York last week to make a splash in the media capital of the world by killing as many black men as possible, New York police and prosecutors said. Late Monday night he saw Caughman on the street and thought he would make good practice for a larger attack in Times Square, authorities said. Jackson stabbed him in his chest and back with a 26-inch sword, police said.
Jackson was arraigned on a charge of murder as a hate crime Thursday in a Manhattan criminal court. He was being held without bail and did not enter a plea.
"His intent was to kill as many black men here in New York as he could," prosecutor Joan Illuzzi said. "The defendant was motivated purely by hatred."
Illuzzi said the charges could be upgraded because the killing was an act "most likely of terrorism."
Prosecutors said Jackson hated black men, especially those who dated white women.
After seeing his picture in the news, Jackson turned himself in at a police station. He was armed with two knives and told officers he had tossed the sword in a trash bin in Washington Square Park, officials said. It was later recovered.
Investigators said they were trying to determine exactly what drove Jackson to violence. They planned to search his laptop and phone and interviewed friends and family.
The New York City Police Department released surveillance video in the fatal stabbing. James Harris Jackson, 28, of Hampden turned himself in at a Times Square police station early Wednesday in the case, police said. The New York City Police Department released surveillance video in the fatal stabbing. James Harris Jackson, 28, of Hampden turned himself in at a Times Square police station early Wednesday in the case, police said. SEE MORE VIDEOS
Jackson's lawyer suggested that his client might be suffering from mental illness.
"What we're going to do is take a few minutes, let the dust settle and figure out what the facts are," defense attorney Sam Talkin said outside court. "If the facts are anything near what the allegations are, then we're going to address the obvious psychological issues that are present in this case."
Jackson's family declined to comment beyond the statement. No one answered the door at his parents' Towson home, which had a peace sign wreath and a small American flag in the planter on the front porch of the duplex. Several cars were parked outside the home and the blinds were down. An unmarked Chevy sedan with New York City Police Department plates sat outside the home.
Matt Micciche, the head of Friends School, said the school community is "shocked and saddened by the news of this horrific attack. Our school — and the Religious Society of Friends — has a long history of commitment to diversity, racial equality, social justice and nonviolence."
Jackson served in the Army from 2009 to August 2012 and worked as a military intelligence analyst, the Army said. Deployed in Afghanistan from December 2010 to November 2011, he earned several medals and attained the rank of specialist.
The circumstances of his discharge are unclear; the Army cites privacy laws that prevent releasing such details.
After serving in the Army, Jackson briefly rented an apartment on Read Street in Mount Vernon, said Marcus Dagan, the landlord.
Jackson told Dagan he was studying to become a lawyer, but the man kept to himself, Dagan said.
"No signs of anything close to what he's committed. He was just weird," Dagan said.
He said Jackson moved out in 2015. Most recently he had been living in a rowhouse on West 35th Street, near Elm Avenue in Hampden. No one answered at the door or at the neighboring homes Thursday.
A vigil in Caughman's memory will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at 36th Street and Chestnut Avenue.
"The purpose of the event is for white Hampden (and Hampden-adjacent) residents to stand up for our neighbors and visitors of color to let them know they are loved and welcome in Hampden," according to a Facebook post for the event.
Outside Jackson's home Thursday morning, a Baltimore police officer sat in a marked vehicle, along with vans from several TV stations.
A Baltimore Police Department spokesman said a uniformed officer had been posted outside the home at the request of the New York police to secure the residence until a search warrant is obtained.
Jackson did not have a criminal history listed in Maryland online court records.
Ryan Lenz, senior investigative reporter for Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, said that since the presidential election, "we saw an incredible rise in bias incidents."
He called Caughman's killing the "most extreme" example where a particular ideology has been realized. Such ideologies always lead to violence, he said.
"It's not a question of 'if' but 'when,'" Lenz said.
While the law center had no record of Jackson being linked to any hate group, Lenz said the internet has enabled people from all backgrounds to engage in extremist acts.
It's "proven to be incredibly powerful," allowing individuals to easily access and become inspired by the rhetoric "and no one will know," Lenz said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
jkanderson@baltsun.com
twitter.com/janders5Aslef opts for more talks as Transport for London prepares to delay the introduction of contentious night tube operations
London Underground drivers who are members of the Aslef union will not take part in planned tube strikes later in the month in the hope of clinching a deal, as it emerged that transport bosses were likely to delay the introduction of 24-hour tube services.
It has emerged that Aslef, which represents 85% of tube drivers, decided not to join the two planned stoppages after London Underground hinted that it was amenable to demands for an upper limit to the number of weekends drivers would have to work.
The unions fear that the introduction of a night service at weekends would mean unlimited weekend work. They are holding out for an upper limit of about seven or eight weekends a year. Aslef will hold direct talks with LU on Friday.
A source said hints from LU that the planned starting date for the night service at weekends will be pushed back from 12 September would give negotiators breathing space. But should the talks hit a dead end, Aslef could still join the two 24-hour strikes called by the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions.
Manuel Cortes, head of TSSA, said negotiations were now being conducted in “good faith”, adding: “Common sense seems to have broken out at last. We are hopeful in this new climate that it should be possible to reach a comprehensive and fair agreement.”
Even without Aslef, any stoppages would cause considerable disruption. Most signallers belong to the RMT. Without them, the tube would not be able to function. Even if Aslef’s official position is not to strike, some of its drivers may not cross RMT picket lines.
Earlier, Transport for London claimed that demands imposed by the unions would cost £1.4bn and hit Londoners with an extra 6.5% fare increase. “New demands made by certain trade union leaderships over the modernisation of London Underground, including the introduction of the night tube, would lead to significantly higher fares for LU customers or spell wholesale delay to vital improvements to London’s tube service,” TfL said in a statement, designed to win over public opinion as the dispute escalates.
Tube strikes: London Underground workers to stage two more walkouts Read more
TfL said a 6.5% rise in fares would mean an annual zone 1-2 travelcard immediately rising by £83 and an annual zone 1-6 travel card costing an extra £152.
Steve Griffiths, LU’s chief operating officer, said: “Having previously argued that it was all about ‘work-life balance’, certain unions have now made a whole series of unaffordable demands for more pay, shorter working hours and the reversal of the modernisation of the tube.”
TfL released the figures as LU and the four unions held a new round of talks under the auspices of Acas, the conciliation of service, to break a deadlock that has already led to two tube strikes in the past few weeks.
Mick Cash, the general secretary of the RMT union, immediately hit back at what he described as scare tactics. He said: “This is blatant scaremongering on figures cobbled together on the back of a fag packet before any agreement has been reached on issues of pay and rewards and are completely meaningless.”
Commuters face huge inconvenience on the evenings of 25 and 27 August, when stoppages threaten to disrupt services for days in the run-up to the August bank holiday weekend.
Nick Brown, the LU managing director, said he hoped progress would be made in the latest talks, following fruitless discussions on Monday. Rejecting union claims of “rosters from hell” to run the planned night tube service, he said concerns over work-life balance had been taken into account.
Brown told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have made the rosters available so frontline staff can see them and we want to discuss these with the trade unions. The discussions have been going on for many, many months. But now they have pulled it back to actually asking about money and the lie to that statement is given by the fact they demanded more money on Monday night.”
Cash said LU was trying to cover up the impact of action short of a strike on Wednesday’s services, particularly on the District line. He said: “The RMT will be raising again today serious concerns that safety tolerances are being fudged and breached to try to keep services running, threatening passengers and staff alike. The solution to this dispute is serious negotiations around the work-life balance issues that have led to the action, not a cavalier attitude to safety to try and cover up the impact.”
Len Duvall, leader of the London assembly Labour group, blamed Boris Johnson, the London mayor, for creating the mess. “By speculatively announcing a start date without any consultation with the people expected to run the service, Boris Johnson’s gung-ho approach has led to disputes, disruption and now delay,” he said. “I hope this delay will provide the breathing space necessary for unions and management to sit down and negotiate a resolution to this dispute without the need for further disruption to passengers.”Please, not another business imperative! Every time I open a journal or glance at a blog it seems as though the panacea to all business ills has just been discovered and is waiting for me to embrace it! One minute I’m being told to hire for cultural fit, the next to increase diversity. It’s no wonder that employee engagement is falling because if I’m being pushed from pillar to post then it’s not surprising that my people are confused……
Which of us can honestly say hand on heart that thoughts such as these haven’t slunk through our heads in the wee small hours of the night; when we should be resting but our minds are busy with the imperative to do more, be more, and to drive our organisations through to success. And the problem with dark thoughts in the middle of the night is that they come singly, they present themselves as completely individual challenges which have to be conquered one by one.
But life is not a series of isolated incidents, and nor is business. I’m not pretending that some ideas aren’t mutually exclusive, but then you get snake oil sellers in every walk of life. What I would say is that the strongest leaders are those who are able to see patterns of interconnectedness, to weave differing strands of ideas into a cohesive whole which drives business development and growth and stability.
Take the two ideas from my first paragraph as an example. Hiring for cultural fit does not mean taking on clones who will simply copy and echo the thoughts of the leadership team. Rather, cultural fit seeks to bring people into the organisation who share the aims and values of the business but who will bring something more to the mix. Thought of in that light, any move to increase diversity, to bring people on board who have a range of backgrounds and experiences but who also share the beliefs and values of the organisation can only enrich it in so many ways.
Five years ago in the UK a task force was set up to increase female representation in the boardrooms of the country’s largest companies. The program has been hailed as a success, with women now occupying over a quarter of board directorships within FTSE 100 companies. On the UK government website which reported on the programme the Vice Chairman of KPMG, Melanie Richards said: “Identifying and promoting diversity will deliver real benefits for business, both financial and non financial. By tackling homogeneity, boards should make more robust, balanced decisions and no longer run the risk of echoing the voices of the few.”
Collaborating for greatness
Don’t just take the market, shape the market or create entirely new markets.
So hiring for cultural fit and promoting diversity together can strengthen business prospects. If that’s the case, why did I title this article diversity and innovation rather than diversity and cultural fit? Quite simply, because taken together diversity and innovation are not only good for business, they will drive game-changing results. Let’s think for a moment about one of the key elements of a culture of innovation, namely collaboration.
Collaboration doesn’t mean you do this and I do that and together we create a finished product. True collaboration is a meeting of minds, a sparking of thoughts, a synergy and a solution which can only happen when experiences are shared. If a couple of people within a department try to collaborate they may get somewhere but if you then bring in people from other departments and customers and suppliers and interested third parties you start to open up the debate and see possibilities that you never thought of before. If those people also have a diverse range of backgrounds, outlooks and perspective then you have the chance to create real solutions which will not only take the market but shape the market or create entirely new markets.
Creating agile solutions
Or what about agility, another of the key elements of a culture of innovation. If you take as long to get products to market as you did five or ten years ago then by the time you’ve gone through all of your iterative development cycles a disruptor will have created the product, taken the market share and moved on to the next development.
If all of your people have identical backgrounds and levels of training then you are hampering your ability to create differentiated solutions and to optimise product delivery times. Bring in diversity, bring in left brain and right brain thinkers, bring in people who perhaps even from birth have been taught to approach problems in different ways and product development and delivery becomes something very different.
Admittedly, that something could be chaos! And this is where hiring for cultural fit weaves back into the equation. Because if you have taken the time to select people based on shared values and what they can bring to the organisation rather than simply what their qualifications are then they are far more likely to work together towards a shared goal.
Developing understanding
The third key ingredient for Next Generation Organisations, those businesses which are looking to build a culture of innovation not just for now but for a secure future, is the development of a deep understanding of their current and future customers. I’m not just talking here about knowing that someone always buys a newspaper on a Tuesday or that they prefer coffee to tea. I’m talking about developing a genuine insight into their lives, their thoughts, their motivations and their drivers.
When I join with others then our diverse thoughts and background and experiences can act as the catalyst for greatness.
Here again, the more diverse the organisational mix, the better able it will be to not only understand its customers, but to create solutions which genuinely meet customer needs whether articulated or not. And when a business is in tune with its customers, amazing things can happen.
There are many business theories out there but the best weave together to create a glorious fabric which strengthens and enhances and drives the business strategy. When I stand alone then my thoughts and my ideas are circumscribed by my experiences. When I join with others then our diverse thoughts and background and experiences can act as the catalyst for greatness.
By Cris Beswick
About the author
Originally trained as a product & industrial designer, Cris Beswick spent over a decade as a successful entrepreneur & CEO building an award-winning design group. After structuring a full exit in 2008 he founded The Future Shapers, a boutique innovation consultancy specialising in working with CEOs and senior teams on the strategy, leadership and culture required for innovation. As such Cris has coached, advised and delivered keynotes to some of the worlds most successful companies on how to become exceptional by building game-changing innovation capability and embedding it into organisational culture. Cris has also delivered executive education programmes on innovation for leading UK business schools such as Henley Business School, Southampton Business School and Cranfield University’s Centre for Competitive Creative Design as well as international business schools such as Synergy Business School in Dubai and Icesi University in Columbia. Cris is also the author of the book ‘The Road to Innovation’ and his next book ‘Building a Culture of Innovation’ is now available for pre-order with a publish date of 3rd December 2015. As well as authoring numerous white papers Cris has also contributed to articles for The Times, Financial Times and The Sunday Telegraph to name but a few.
Photo: Close-up Photo of Business People by Shutterstock.comThe founding of modern biology had to wait till the turn of the century. Mendel’s forgotten paper was discovered by biologists in Amsterdam, Cambridge and elsewhere. Mendel had discovered the basic unit of heredity, had proved there must be such a unit, and finally a Danish botanist, Wilhelm Johannsen, gave it a name: “gene,” he suggested — “a very applicable little word.”
What is the gene? First it was an abstraction, an enigma, “a ghost lurking in the biological machine,” Mukherjee writes. By definition the gene was the carrier of any trait that is heritable or partly heritable. One would say there are genes for eye color, height or even intelligence. But some traits are better defined than others. People have long bred dogs, for example, to be “short-haired, longhaired, pied, piebald, bowlegged, hairless, crop-tailed, vicious, mild-mannered, diffident, guarded, belligerent.”
In the 20th century, new technologies and new disciplines brought this abstract and hypothetical idea into sharper and sharper focus. The epiphany came in the discovery by James Watson, Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin of a vivid physical form, the famous double helix, the winding base pairs of DNA. Genes are strung along chromosomes like beads on strings (the common metaphor). Scientists isolated them and counted them: 21,000 to 23,000 to make a human being.
The gene is a message. It is an instruction for building a protein. It can be a blueprint encoding the design for a structure, or more accurately, as Richard Dawkins has suggested, a recipe encoding a process. The genome is an algorithm, and at the same time, it is a code, which had to be laboriously and ingeniously deciphered. It is the beginning and ending of an endless circle of life: A gene is a message, which builds a protein, which creates form and function, which regulates the gene.
Mukherjee arranges his history not just chronologically but thematically. This is necessary. Science seldom progresses in a neat logical order anyway, but genetics, especially, encompasses and influences many subjects at once: biology, information science, even psychiatry. Genetics has also played its part in the darkest currents of 20th-century history. One need only remember that Nazi genetics is a subject of its own, aimed at the improvement of Übermenschen by the elimination of the feebleminded and “degenerate.” But the social impulse for eugenics started earlier, in England and in the United States. More recently, we have lived through debates tinged with poorly understood notions of race. In the 1980s, James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein linked criminal violence to “bad genes” in “Crime and Human Nature.” Herrnstein returned in the 1990s with the incendiary “The Bell Curve,” written with Charles Murray, which claimed that whites and Asians had a genetic advantage over people of African descent in “intellectual capacity.”
Mukherjee’s analysis of these episodes is clarifying and, in my view, definitive. He notes the narrow and shifting definitions of “intelligence” and its measure by flawed and culturally bound tests. To understand the debate properly, though, we need to recognize how artificial our racial categories are to begin with. The explosion of knowledge that has come from the Human Genome Project and its successors allows statistical measures of genetic diversity in groups we classify as “races.” Between the races, diversity is slight; within them, diversity is enormous.
The gene is, and is not, the determiner of our identity. It behooves us to accept this paradox and understand it. As we learn how our genome defines us, we also learn how we transcend our genome. The gene, in the era of recombinant DNA, has become an instrument of its own manipulation. We have gene therapies and gene editing. In what Mukherjee calls the “post-genomic” world, we will wield a power as exhilarating as it is treacherous. Simply put, “We will learn to read and write our selves, ourselves.”In my five years of going to the bar, I’ve had my share of screw-ups. Mistakes that are seemingly harmless but dictate how women react to you. Unfortunately, it’s easy to recognize them in someone else but much harder to analyze yourself in the moment.
Now that I’m coaching, I have to be constantly observant. I get to see how interactions unfold from the outside and watch the dynamic between people. Patterns become obvious.
Here are 20 mistakes I notice all the time:
You hesitate too much. I know how it feels to have so much anxiety you’re ready to puke. The only way I got over it was by making that first approach. In all my years of doing this, I assure you that you won’t overcome your fears by thinking about them. Bite your lip and move your legs before your brain has a chance to feed you bullshit. You think you need a great line. You get yourself worked up trying to come up with the perfect “opener”. Instead, just be honest – it works incredibly well. “Hey you guys looked fun, I had to come say hi.” “You guys seem friendly, can we join you?” “Hey what’s up? I’m Nick *clink glasses*” You still hold your drink high. I say this a ton yet I see so many guys clenching a drink to their chest defensively. I know you might be nervous but keep it down by your side unless taking a sip. You get too drunk. Excessive alcohol makes you sloppy. You forget what you’re talking about, have a hard time listening, and don’t recognize what you’re doing right or wrong. Also, the liquid courage rarely carries over to when you’re sober. You arrive too late. Especially in cities where last call is by 1-2 AM, you want to get to the venue early. As the night goes on, a lot of great girls go home or meet guys they’re interested in. They also get progressively more intoxicated which makes for difficult conversation – unless you’re into that. Finally, you have less time to create a real connection. You don’t smile. It’s arguably the largest determining factor in how women will respond. She won’t feel comfortable smiling back if you don’t give her anything to work with. Smiles are friendly and inviting. You bring excess shit. Leave anything unnecessary at home. I’ve had guys carry backpacks, duffel bags, and even sunglasses that they don’t need for the night. It’s distracting to other people, adds no value, and easy to lose your stuff when drinking. You focus on the wrong girl. You spend more than five minutes talking to girls who are unreceptive, have boyfriends, or aren’t that into you. I used to waste countless nights like that. Once I stopped spinning my wheels and sought out girls who were initially attracted, I began making powerful connections You don’t focus on the right girl. When you do find a group that is receptive, you don’t start a personal conversation with the girl you’re interested in (after a few minutes, of course.) You keep engaging the whole group and can’t make up your mind. They can’t figure out who you’re going for and you fail to make a meaningful connection with anyone. You can’t hear them. Bars are loud, I get it. But complaining about it, constantly leaning in, or saying “HUH?” is not the answer. It only breaks the flow of conversation and aggravates the other person. If you can’t hear them it’s because… You don’t position yourself appropriately. You continue to stand face-to-face, straining to hear her replies. Early in the interaction, switch to standing next to her side. This will let you to touch her more easily since… You don’t break the physical contact barrier early on. Within that first minute or two, a casual touch is critical. It sets a personal dynamic and gets her acquainted that you’re a physical person. The longer you wait, the trickier it gets. You don’t pull the trigger in time. I watch girls paw at guys while gazing into their eyes and the dudes do nothing in return. If she’s letting you stand against her and touch her lower back, she’s probably ready to be kissed. If you hesitate, she’s going to get frustrated or think you’re not interested. Go for the kiss already! You believe you always need a wingman. Yes, going out with a friend or professional coach can improve the overall experience. But some of the most fun and successful nights I’ve had were when I went out solo. Approaching groups of three or more (so the other girls can entertain themselves) works well. Don’t worry about being called out, it’s not weird. Just be upfront, “My friends weren’t in the mood, so I decided to meet some new people myself!” You don’t ask questions you care about. Write down a list of 5-10 (minimum) qualities you look for in a woman. I like laid back, family-oriented, techie, creative, openly sexual women. Start asking questions that get her to convey or talk about those qualities. Examples: “What’s your nerdiest hobby?” “Are you close with your family?” “Where’s the wildest place you’ve had sex?” You don’t look your best. Dressing well and smelling fresh is one of the easiest ways to stand out against competition. I cringe when I see guys walk in with wrinkled shirts and BO. Take an hour to trim your facial hair, shower, and iron your clothes. Your voice is too quiet. Let me repeat, YOU’RE NOT LOUD ENOUGH! In my experience there have only been a handful of guys who spoke with enough force. Your voice is a vital tool to radiate confidence, sound attractive, and ensure she hears you clearly. You’re too vulgar. Combine alcohol, trying to look cool, and a nightlife setting and men tend to sound like immature high schoolers. It’s okay to swear but do it tastefully and for emphasis. You’re too sarcastic. You’ve read too much pickup advice and everything is a joke to you. You think it’s funny but you just sound like an arrogant douche. In reality, you’re just insecure and not letting her in. A little sarcasm is great and goes a long way but mix it up with genuine conversation. You don’t enjoy the journey. You go out with the primary objective of picking up girls rather than having fun. Therefore, everything becomes win or lose and your emotions are dependent on the outcome. Go out with the intention of being curious and actually getting to know people, you’ll have a better time.
I’ve committed all the above on more than one occasion. And it’s only with consistent effort that I was able to break my bad habits. So don’t just read the list and say “this is awesome!” That’s not the point.
Go through it, write down a few that may apply to you, and work on them next time you’re out. Accepting your flaws and being proactive will turn those mistakes into strengths.
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Have trouble at the bar or even approaching women? Talk to me for a free strategy session.Canada will make their first appearance at the Milk Cup this year while China will also compete in the Elite section.
The Chinese have sent clubs sides to the event and current U20 national coach Li Bing had a spell at Liaoning, who have participated in the Milk Cup.
Canada coach |
23 on Christmas Day and hails from Pennsylvania. Union assistant coach Brendan Burke should know Wenger well, having coached him in 2010 at Reading United in the PDL. Wenger’s versatility – he played center back for much of his college career – could attract John Hackworth, who prefers to move players to secondary positions before reaching too far down his depth chart to fill gaps.
Union offer: International roster spot(s), allocation money. Montreal will probably always need extra international roster slots, thanks to owner Joey Saputo’s fascination with the Italian league. The Union have several international slots to spare.
Likely outcome: Montreal will probably give Wenger another year, with Di Vaio’s retirement possible at any time, but with Saputo constantly seeking Italian players, he may need the salary budget space that Wenger’s departure could free up.
Steve Zakuani, winger, Seattle
Zakuani was a star in the making until Brian Mullan’s horror tackle in 2011 fractured Zakuani’s leg and ascent to stardom. Zakuani has played in just 16 games since then, as an assortment of other injuries (sports hernia, etc.) have dogged him on his comeback.
Few teams would risk much on Zakuani because of that injury history. And his contract situation remains unclear, so he could be available in the Re-Entry Draft. Seattle can’t afford dead roster spots for players making over $100,000, as Zakuani does, when they plan to burn one-third of their salary cap on designated players.
At the right price, Zakuani could be a gamble worth taking. The Union need a wide midfielder to play on the left side. Before his injury, that was Zakuani. He’ll be 26 years old in February. The question is whether he can ever replicate his pre-injury form.
Union offer: Allocation money or a draft pick. Zakuani could possibly be acquired for cheap, as there may not be many teams offering much. Seattle would love Jeff Parke back, but that’s not happening. Mike Lahoud is another possibility because of his versatility, but his injury problems in 2013 might scare off suitors.
Likely outcome: Zakuani could return to Seattle at a reduced salary, but some teams must be kicking the tires a bit, knowing that Clint Dempsey often functions best playing a left-sided attacking midfield role.
Eddie Johnson, striker, Seattle
Well, we have to touch on this one, don’t we?
Johnson is one of the league’s best forwards and can also play wide on the left, cutting inside as an auxiliary striker.
However, he probably wants to be paid at least $350,000 and is likely asking for closer to $500,000. He is a potential locker room problem, as one could tell from the various veiled references from the Sounders and the very explicit banning of Johnson from practice at one point during the season. He also turns 30 in March and will miss part of next season on national team duty.
Johnson has warning signs all over the place for a team like Philadelphia, which doesn’t have a ton of money to spend. He’s probably a better fit for another team with deeper pockets.
Union offer: Conor Casey or allocation money. There probably isn’t enough room in Philadelphia’s lineup for Casey, Johnson and Jack McInerney. Casey could be a perfect fit for Seattle though, giving Clint Dempsey and Lamar Neagle a target forward to play off.
Likely outcome: Johnson will probably go to a wealthier team, like Toronto or Los Angeles. He would fill clear needs for either team, and they should have the money to afford him. (Los Angeles would have to buy down his anticipated high salary figure with allocation money. Toronto has designated player slots open.)
Darren Mattocks, striker, Vancouver
This mercurial talent is buried beneath Camilo on Vancouver’s depth chart, and he may have talked his way out of town. There is no denying his talent after an impressive rookie season, but John Hackworth puts a lot of stress on character when he goes shopping for players. Add to that a $120,000 base salary in 2013 that will likely rise next year.
Union offer: Ray Gaddis or Sheanon Williams. Vancouver needs a right back after the retirement of Y.P. Lee. Gaddis is starting quality, he’s cheap, and he’s exactly the model citizen and perfect teammate that Mattocks isn’t. The same goes for Williams, but the Union may be more willing to part with Gaddis.
Likely outcome: Portland is a more likely trade partner. Mattocks’ college coach, Caleb Porter, could use a breakout striker. But Vancouver may not want to deal Mattocks just yet. Plus, Hackworth may not want Mattocks because he’s not the model teammate that Ray Gaddis is.
Servando Carrasco, midfielder, Houston
Carrasco looked to be having a breakout year with Seattle, as the team played better when he started (7-4-2) than when he didn’t (8-8-5). But Seattle unexpectedly traded him to Houston for Adam Moffat.
Carrasco could be a solid depth signing, with the potential to break in and replace Brian Carroll in central midfield, as his ability to push up and support the attack is superior to Carroll’s. Plus, Carrasco makes the league minimum salary, so he’s very economical. (We’ll leave his girlfriend out of this conversation.)
Union offer: No, Houston probably won’t take Danny Cruz back, so don’t ask. A high second round draft pick might do it, unless Dominic Kinnear is smart enough (which sometimes he’s not — see Wondolowski, Chris) to see that he has a decent player on his hands.
Likely outcome: A trade is unlikely. Kinnear got a decent deal by dumping Moffat’s salary – he became excess with the emergence of Warren Creavalle and return of Ricardo Clark — and getting a solid, cheap, 25-year-old player and a second round draft pick in return. Carrasco will probably stay with Houston because he’s cheap and good.
Chris Rolfe, attacking midfielder, Chicago
Rolfe’s stats slipped in 2013 after a banner return to Chicago from Denmark in 2012. That may be in large part because he and Mike Magee have similar styles, and Magee’s arrival eventually bumped Rolfe back to attacking midfield. That midfield role, however, could be what attracts the Union and other teams.
Rolfe made about $225,000 in base salary last season. With a new coach (Frank Yallop) in town and Magee potentially rendering Rolfe an expensive excess, Chicago might look to dump Rolfe’s salary, which means he could be available for cheap.
Union offer: Ray Gaddis. Jalil Anibaba has been decent at right back for Chicago, but Gaddis is a more natural fit for the role and would be an upgrade. Anibaba might best as a center back or a utility reserve defender.
Likely outcome: Rolfe will probably return to Chicago.
Zach Loyd, fullback, Dallas
Loyd is a natural right back who can play left back. Yes, the Union have seen that story before, but Loyd has shown a bit more facility on the left, even featuring there for the U.S. national team. This year, injuries marginalized him late in the year, and homegrown teenager Kellyn Acosta played well in his place.
Loyd’s contract expires this year, but Dallas could look to trade Loyd rather than give him up for nothing in the Re-Entry Draft. With a base salary under $100,000 and a previous track record of durability, Loyd would almost certainly be selected in the Re-Entry Draft.
Loyd could project as a starting left back for the Union, though he would not be as ideal a fit as a naturally left-footed fullback would. Either way, he’s a proven MLS veteran, and age 26, he has good years ahead of him.
Union offer: Danny Cruz, allocation money, draft pick. Dallas still lacks a coach, so the team may have some difficulty making trades until they hire one. Still, they have to decide what to do with Loyd. Allocation money would give the team’s future manager more flexibility, so that he doesn’t get saddled with a player he doesn’t like. But Dallas could use some help in the attacking midfield. It’s hard to envision Philadelphia giving up Michael Farfan for a natural right back when they already have Gaddis and Sheanon Williams. However, Cruz might do it, particularly if Dallas views a Loyd trade as a “getting something is better than getting nothing” scenario.
Likely outcome: Dallas resigns Loyd. Yes, Accosta played well, but Loyd played better. Loyd will cost more, probably around $150-180k, so that could still make him expendable. But he’s a solid starter entering his prime.
Marvin Chavez, winger, San Jose
Chavez was all-out nasty in 2012 as one of the league’s best wide players for San Jose, producing 3 goals and 13 assists. In 2013, new coach Mark Watson introduced him to the bench after Chavez netted just 1 goal and 1 assist in 12 games. Chavez indicated recently that he would likely be on the move to another team in MLS. With the ability to play on both flanks, he could fill the Union’s gap on the left side of midfield if he can return to his 2012 form.
Union offer: Same scenario as Justin Morrow above.
Likely outcome: Chavez will likely depart San Jose. It’s just a question of where he goes. The Union have likely at least inquired about his services. At age 30, the Honduran international likely has a few years left, but once his speed fades, he loses a ton of value as a player.Travelers inexplicably add Houston to top vacation list with Hawaii, N.Y.
#1: New York City, New York #1: New York City, New York Image 1 of / 32 Caption Close Travelers inexplicably add Houston to top vacation list with Hawaii, N.Y. 1 / 32 Back to Gallery
Another day brings another great list for Houston to find itself on. This time it is TripAdvisor's 25 Best Destinations in the U.S., as chosen by travelers.
Houston didn't top of the list, but there was some tough competition. Coming in at 25 on a roster that includes multiple locations in Hawaii isn't all that bad.
The top 10 on the list features classic American destinations like New Orleans, New York City, Boston, Las Vegas and Honolulu.
San Antonio comes in at #17, way ahead of Houston.
TripAdvisor also offers up 236 things to do in Houston, which includes all the usual sports facilities and museums, suspects, along with a few different options, like TopGolf in Katy, The Catastrophic Theatre, and The Orange Show.
"Even the architecture makes big, bold statements, like the medical center towers that resemble two giant syringes," goes the capsule write-up with it.
Some of us probably never noticed that.For fans of video games, a list like this will always be controversial. As with films, books, TV programs, etc., the hype of an eagerly awaited video game can dramatically outweigh its quality. This list shows top ten video games new and old which have been ridiculously overrated and for some reason praised as among the greats. Also I should mention that since I now live away from home at University, and have been for over a year, I have been ‘out of the loop.’ These games might not be latest releases, but I tried to pick ones which were successful enough to be remembered.
10 Assassin’s Creed
Assassin’s Creed was a game which showed great promise in the run up to its release. With stunning graphics and an apparent free world to explore the title looked certain to be a classic. Ultimately though the game was excruciatingly repetitive with just a handful of different things to do – like pickpocket someone or eavesdropping on a conversation, which were tiresomely repeated over and over again. This game was simply boring; I don’t know anyone who could play this game after the initial excitement which filled about half an hour.
9 Any Guitar Hero Game
The success of this game is a total mystery to me. It’s fun initially but why would someone buy more than one of these games? Is it because of the dreadful background graphics? Or maybe the terrible selection of music; especially from the third title ironically called ‘legends of rock.’ What sets this game out from many of the others on the list is that this game wasn’t even good. Even more repetitive then Assassin’s Creed, the only time I can remember enjoying playing this was while drunk at a party, probably had something to do with the beer.
8 Any Grand Theft Auto Game
Well, all GTA games after Grand Theft Auto III. The game play seems relatively unchanged since GTA III, and yes, newer titles have featured things like the ability to fly an airplane and the ability to get fat of a diet of burgers, but it’s mostly just stealing cars and shooting people. The missions are agonizingly boring and game time always descends into seeing how many stars you can get before being arrested or killed, a game which becomes very boring very quickly as you aimlessly drive around running people over for money.
7 Gears of War
GoW was arguably Xbox 360’s biggest selling point following its release. Yes, the game boasted the best graphics the 360 was capable of and the online play was apparently very good. But the campaign mode was boring! The levels are way too straight forward – all you have to do is follow a set path while killing enemies on the way. Because of this, the game play is very repetitive and you find yourself getting very bored easily. This game definitely isn’t as good as the 360 fanboys would have you believe.
6 Final Fantasy
This entry will probably cause the most arguments (see hilarious comments below), however as I stated before I don’t think this game is bad – it is in my opinion overrated, and the opinion of Gamespy who named it the seventh most overrated game of all time! I find the stories in these games have been without any ingenuity since Final Fantasy IX way back in the year 2000!
5 Any Sonic the Hedgehog Game
Back in the good old days of 1991, I remember so fondly, well I wasn’t born yet but apparently Sonic the Hedgehog made his debut appearance. Sonic was exactly what SEGA needed in response to the mega successful Mario. The first Sonic game was okay, but SEGA made a habit of ‘whoring’ Sonic out and producing title after title of pointless games. These games were ultimately too fast paced with lazy repetitive level designs which really were not entertaining.
4 Call of Duty 4
Actually, any Call of Duty game! Now obviously the entire gaming world will disagree with me on this point but I don’t care! This game takes no skill whatsoever to exceed in. The campaign mode on this game was good, no arguments. But the online play was certainly overrated. After being bullied into buying it by my friends, I found it utterly unchallenging. Out of the people I know who played this the higher ranking players were simply the ones who had the game longer. An anecdote which illustrates this point brilliantly was made by my mate, who mentioned this elsewhere on some COD4 forum: he briefly left his seat to go answer the phone and when he came back he had two extra kills, he was using a skill called martyrdom. The fact that you can succeed at this game without actually playing it suggests that there is no skill involved at all!
3 GoldenEye 007
The reason I added this to the list was because of the reaction my mates gave to the news of a remake. ‘OMFG a remake this is the best game ever.’ Correction WAS the best game ever (sort of). The reason I believe this game is overrated is because shooter games like this age terribly. There are much more recent shooter titles which also have aged terribly and certainly wouldn’t warrant a remake. It was a big mistake re-releasing this game. When reading this list before publishing two of my mates genuinely had no idea it was re-released.
2 Skyrim
This will surprise a lot of people. The reason I put this at number two, or on a list of overrated games at all, is because it simply doesn’t live up to the ridiculous hype it received. Don’t get me wrong it is a good game, much like Fallout (a game which missed this list by a fraction) but there is something very un-Elder Scrolls about Skyrim. It doesn’t play like its brilliant predecessors Oblivion and Morrowind. Skyrim has none of the quirky genius of the previous games and lacks the rich vibrant environment of Oblivion and Shivering Isles; the whole of Skyrim looks drab and generally moody. Skyrim reminded me of Fallout and not in a good way. The graphics were also very unimpressive, I know it’s a huge game and decent graphics would have added to the time taken to produce the game but, for PS3, it was on a bloody blu-ray disc! The Playstation 3 version had the potential for stunning graphics. Ultimately though, like much of the other games on this list, Skyrim very quickly becomes repetitive.
1 Halo
Maybe it’s because I grew up with a Playstation, then a Playstation 2, then a Playstation 3, but I have never understood why these games gained labels such as ‘best game ever made.’ From the few hours of snippets I got from various visits to friends with Halo, I found it extremely pointless. The story is totally unoriginal – a one man army hunts down and attempts to destroy a huge weapon called the ‘death star’ … I mean, err, ‘halo’ which is capable of destroying whole planets! We haven’t followed that storyline a hundred times before! Halo had one of the worst level designs I have ever seen; every room looked exactly the same, not to mention the most irritating bad guys in video game history. It sickens me that people would consider this game the best FPS ever with games like Half Life knocking around.LABOUR leadership front-runner Jim Murphy has pledged to scrap controversial laws aimed at sectarianism in football “right away” if he becomes first minister.
MSPs at Holyrood last night rejected a Labour move to repeal the legislation after it came in for criticism from football fans and judges.
The Scottish Government has insisted the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act is working. It was introduced two years ago after a series of ugly incidents surrounding the Old Firm, but failed to win the support of opposition parties.
Mr Murphy said: “If I am elected Scottish Labour Party leader and First Minister, I will scrap the Football Act right away.
“The law was an attempt to chase headlines rather than actually fix a complex problem. Sectarianism and intolerance goes far beyond 90 minutes on a Saturday or 140 characters in a tweet. Instead of fixing the problem, they have created a pointless culture of mistrust between football fans and the police.”
Labour’s outgoing deputy leader, Anas Sarwar, signalled earlier this year the party wanted to scrap the legislation.
The law gives police and prosecutors powers to tackle the singing of sectarian songs and other abuse at and around football matches, as well as threats posted on the internet or through the mail. It created two distinct offences, with punishments ranging up to a maximum of five years in prison and an unlimited fine.
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However, football fans, lawyers and civil liberty campaigners have branded the legislation unnecessary and confused, and cases have been called into question by sheriffs when they reached court. Dundee Sheriff Richard Davidson recently described the legislation as “mince” because it was so badly drafted.
At the time it was introduced, Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Scottish Greens said the bill was “railroaded” through by the SNP, using its Holyrood majority. A review is due to be published by Stirling University researchers next year.
Mr Murphy said: “The way to tackle intolerance and bigotry is every day in our classrooms and communities, not with gimmick legislation.
“The Football Act isn’t helping us towards the fair and tolerant Scotland we all want to live in. It has to go.”
Yesterday a Labour motion calling for the “flawed” legislation to be dumped was defeated by 68 votes to 50 after a debate at the Scottish Parliament.
Roseanna Cunningham, the community safety and legal affairs minister, said there were “welcome indications of success” as a result of the law and insisted: “It is working.”
She added: “This government remains completely committed to tackling sectarianism.
“The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act, in our view, does have a clear role to play in meeting the commitment that was made, and there are welcome indications of success, with decreases in offences of religious hatred and offending under the Act.”
• Tom Peterkin: Labour reeling from recent departures
Ms Cunningham also said that the SNP administration has undertaken the “biggest commitment ever made to anti-sectarianism by any government in Scotland” with £9 million to be invested in the next three years. Some 44 community projects are being funded, along with a “comprehensive research programme” into the problem.
She said: “This is a new approach where time is needed to allow the projects to deliver their initiatives, and evaluate these, and for research to be carried out and completed.
“I don’t believe anyone is under any illusions there are quick fixes here, and we need to allow all the pieces of work to complete before we can bring them all together next year.”
But Tory justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell claimed the act was “deeply flawed”.
“This is fundamentally bad legislation which was poorly drafted,” she said. “In 2011, it was then rail-roaded through by the SNP majority government in the face of opposition from Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.”
Alison McInnes, the Lib Dems’ justice spokeswoman, said attitudes towards equality issues such as racism and homophobia had been “transformed” in recent years. She said: “Sectarianism and the marginalisation and resentment it causes must be deemed just as shameful, but this will take time.”
And she said Lib Dems opposed the legislation because it was a “flawed, headline-grabbing response” to the issue.
But she said Labour plans for an outright repeal of the laws were neither “appropriate nor helpful”, and Lib Dems backed the government last night.
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BEIJING - Agence France-Presse
Employees stand at a natural gas processing plant, China?s largest gas producer, in Sulige, Inner Mongolia, May 29, 2013. REUTERS photo
China is set to overtake the United States as the world's largest net oil importer from October, according to US figures, due to a combination of rising Chinese demand and increased US production. Next year, China's net oil imports will exceed those of the United States on an annual basis and the gap between them will continue to widen, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.China is already the biggest energy user in the world and the second-largest oil consumer after the United States.The shift has been driven by steady growth in Chinese demand, increased oil production in the United States, and stagnant or weakening demand in the US market, the EIA said in a report.A graph on the EIA's website shows China's net imports steadily rising, with those of the US falling at a faster rate, and says the crossover point comes in two months' time.Growing petroleum production in the US has been largely driven by the increasing use of sometimes controversial hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking.The technique uses huge amounts of pressurised water mixed with chemicals to crack open rock and release oil and natural gas, making the exploitation of vast shale hydrocarbon reserves economically viable.It is changing the world's energy market but it has been banned in other countries such as France due to environmental concerns.US annual oil output is expected to rise 28 percent between 2011 and 2014 to nearly 13 million barrels per day, while Chinese production is forecast to grow by six percent over the period, and will stand at just a third of US production in 2014, the EIA said.Meanwhile, China's liquid fuel use will increase 13 percent over the period to more than 11 million barrels per day while US demand hovers close to 18.7 million barrels per day.That is below the United States' peak consumption level of 20.8 million barrels per day in 2005, the EIA added.China imported 26.11 million tonnes (186.5 million barrels) of crude oil last month and its exports were a mere 0.17 million tonnes, according to official Beijing figures.The Asian country's ascendence to the top of the world's net oil import rankings will have profound impact, an article carried by the China Business News said on Monday."China and the US will no longer be pure competitors in the energy sector -- China is likely to import energy in bulk from the US," wrote commentator Li Dongchao."The (rising) independence of US energy will support the rejuvenation of US manufacturing, which will renew competition with Chinese manufacturing," Li said. "Improving the safety and operational efficiency of the energy industry is a must for ensuring China's energy and economic security."In December 1963 The Irish Times carried a less than thrilling news story headed “Farmers study artificial hay-drying.” It probably seemed immensely boring at the time. Only in retrospect does it seem interesting, because of the location of the hay-drying class: a farm in Ballymun.
A month later the paper carried a photograph of the members of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association Ballymun guild. And a month after that it reported that residents in this semirural area to the north of the city were “agitating against the building of Corporation houses in the locality and complaining that the value of houses there is dropping in anticipation”.
They were quickly reassured that Dublin Corporation did not yet have any such plans. And then, just three weeks later, on April 20th, 1964, the paper reported that Dublin Corporation was in fact actively considering a plan to build 3,000 units of system-built housing, along the lines of similar schemes in Paris, Stockholm and Copenhagen.
For the anxious residents of Ballymun village the killer lines were in the last paragraph: “The land around the former agricultural college at Ballymun... has been tentatively chosen for the system-building experiments.”
As the plans for Ballymun became literally concrete, the language of the scheme had a confident, technocratic ring
“Experiments” is a telling choice of word: it smacks of scientific modernity. And indeed, over 1964 and 1965, as the plans for Ballymun ceased to be tentative and became literally concrete, the language of the scheme had a confident, technocratic ring. There was much talk of the Lowton-Cubitt system of construction, of prestressed concrete blocks and light steel frames and stressed skin timber floors.
For those who knew about such things it was deeply impressive that Sir William Holford, widely regarded as the leading technocrat of town planning in postwar Britain, and the father of the modern industrial estate, would be “associated with the project in an overall consultancy capacity”.
Best intentions: Ballymun was meant to be a showcase of modern living
Great leap forward
Maoist China had just completed its (in fact disastrous) Great Leap Forward into accelerated industrial modernity, and Ballymun’s transformation from hay-drying demonstrations to Lowton-Cubitt construction in a matter of months can be seen as part of Ireland’s imagined great leap forward.
The publication of TK Whitaker’s groundbreaking plan Economic Development and the accession of Seán Lemass as taoiseach had ignited a belated industrial revolution. Ireland was sick of being a rural idyll of underdevelopment and mass emigration. The desire to be modern was overwhelming. Hard as it is to reconcile with the later history of the place, Ballymun was part of the new optimism. Thousands of families would move not just from Dublin’s dark, disgraceful slums to bright, airy towers with cool lifts, a swimming pool and an ice rink but also from an era of hopelessness into a long-promised but long-delayed future.
Not everyone, it is true, was entirely taken with this optimistic vision. On February 8th, 1965, in one of his last Cruiskeen Lawn columns for The Irish Times, Myles na gCopaleen (aka Flann O’Brien/Brian O’Nolan) made a grim prophecy: “Another spasm of ‘planning’ has taken possession of the notorious Department of Local Government Board. Again faithfully following British improvisation, a ‘new town’ is going to be run up in a jiffy in the Ballymun area, and thousands of indigent town dwellers, who have harmed nobody, permanently exiled there. It will inevitably and quickly become a new concrete slum, like Crumlin and Ballyfermot, and workers drafted there can face a lifetime of poverty by having a substantial slice of their earnings earmarked for extortionate bus fares. Scarcity and malnutrition will be the lot of their families.”
Myles na gCopaleen’s pessimism
Myles’s pessimism must have seemed ridiculous even to many of his devoted readers. After all, the Cubitt group, developers of the system and members of the consortium that would build the scheme, conjured up a kind of rus-in-urbe Utopia: “Ballymun will set a new standard in European housing architecture because it will show that system-built architecture need not be regimented nor inhuman in scale.”
Those fortunate enough to be able to live in this “town planning showpiece” would find themselves in a “vast park with huge open landscaped spaces, natural woodland and few traffic dangers”.
There was a need to declare the scheme not merely a practical solution to Dublin’s housing crisis but also a beacon for all of Europe
This hubris was taken up by the ruling power, Fianna Fáil. Perhaps as a way of hiding the reality that Ballymun was essentially following an English model of urban planning for the masses, there was a need to declare the scheme not merely a practical solution to Dublin’s housing crisis but also a beacon for all of Europe.
Neil Blaney, the minister for local government, in formally launching the scheme in 1965 (perhaps aptly on April Fool’s day), declared it not only the greatest ever undertaken in Ireland but also “a model for ourselves and other countries”.
This ultraconfidence was carried even further in 1966, during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the 1916 rising, when the seven 15-storey Ballymun towers were named after the seven signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, implying that Ballymun was an achievement of which they would have been proud. When a delegation of young local government officials from Berlin visited Ireland in July 1966 they were taken to see Ballymun, obviously as a sign of what the new Ireland could achieve and their own city might wish to emulate.
Aiming high: Ballymun, seen in 1979, was meant to be a showcase of modern living. Photograph: Pat Langan
In all of this what was seldom mentioned were people. Myles na gCopaleen, even in his satirically exaggerated way, at least thought about how these “exiles” were going to afford bus fares. Nobody else seems to have thought through who these Ballymuners were going to be and how they might live and what they might need beyond their system-built showpiece flats.
Blayney thought about them enough to hope that they would not call their home Ballymun at all but would instead adopt the more upbeat-sounding Ardglas. But, asked about the facilities they would need, his reply was worryingly vague: “They hoped to have all the other amenities needed there available when homes were built or shortly afterwards.”
It was not the fault of the hopeful families that their promised land of woods and blooming landscapes, of ice rinks and cinemas and a light rail system, never materialised
Shortly afterwards meant, in some cases, never. It was not the fault of the hopeful families who began to move in to Ballymun 50 years ago – the scheme also included 19 eight-storey and 10 four-storey blocks – that their promised land of woods and blooming landscapes, of ice rinks and cinemas and a light rail system, never materialised. Or that the links between the supposed “new town” – actually a misnomer for a giant housing estate – and the rest of the city never developed sufficiently for Myles na gCopaleen’s prophecy of permanent exile to feel quite so ridiculous after all. Ballymun may never have been merely the “concrete slum” he predicted. But within less than 20 years it had become the reservation for many of the poorest and most transient people on Dublin’s housing list.
Blowing up Ballymun: McDermott Tower being demolished in 2005. Photograph: Alan Betson
Single mothers
By the mid 1980s traditional families were already reluctant to settle in Ballymun and the tower blocks were disproportionately occupied by single mothers and their children, by single men (many recently moved from institutional care) and by people who had been homeless. Few of them had access to the income, jobs, services and supports they needed. And because they were often politically disempowered the authorities did not feel pressure to maintain the blocks to a decent standard.
A key moment came in 1984, when Bank of Ireland announced that it was closing its Ballymun branch. Mainstream Ireland was withdrawing from Ballymun. The first of the towers was demolished in 2004; all had gone by 2015, just under half a century after their construction. (The area is still home to more than 22,000 people.)
Perhaps the warning was there in that early use of the word “experiments”. Ballymun was part of Ireland’s experiment with modernity, one that has never found a formula that works for the whole population. The people of Ballymun were unknowingly taking part in somebody else’s experiment with their lives. As with all experiments, the ones that don’t work are quickly discarded.Europe is facing its biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War. In the first half of 2015 alone, almost half a million people crossed into Europe by boat, a 175% increase from the whole of last year. The largest group are Syrians fleeing their country’s brutal civil war, but there are also others fleeing wars in Libya and Afghanistan, or poverty and humans rights abuses in Eritrea, Somalia, and other sub-Saharan African countries. Meanwhile, political instability in Libya has been exacerbating the crisis, allowing people smugglers to operate freely. What should Europe do?
What do our readers think? We had a comment sent in from Mike, arguing that European governments need to react decisively: “This is a humanitarian crisis. Winter is coming. Do we want to see children dying of cold on the streets of Europe?”
How would YOU solve the EU’s refugee crisis? We asked Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from all sides of the political spectrum to stake out their positions on this question, and it’s up to YOU to vote for the policies you favour. See what the different MEPs have to say, then vote at the bottom of this debate for the one you most agree with! Take part in the vote below and tell us who you support in the European Parliament!
Radical Left Martina Anderson (European Left), Member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs: GUE-NGL, the group [in the European Parliament] that I’m a member of, has produced guidelines for an alternative policy on migration. And we’ve based those guidelines on human rights and solidarity, because we reject without doubt the repressive approach to immigration. We believe that Europe has a historical duty to develop a more comprehensive and reasonable migration policy that guarantees human rights. (European Left), Member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs:
Social Democrats Claude Moraes (PES), Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs: First of all, we need emergency provisions, hotspots for reception of refugees. In the medium-to-long-term, we need a permanent relocation mechanism. This is essential, because the problem will not go away. Finally, we need to have some perspective, and understand where the EU is in global management of these crises in the future. We have not coped at all well with this crisis. We faced similar crises in the 1990s with the wars in the Balkans, Kurds, Sri Lankans, and so on. So, we need to think of measures that would make us more resilient in future. (PES), Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs:
Greens Judith Sargentini (Group of the Greens), Member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs: Well, we’re now doing short-term humanitarian aid, giving people that arrive in Europe shelter; but what we need to do for the long term is look at labour migration. Europe is an aging society, and we’re surrounded by countries with very young populations. That is actually a very attractive match. We need to stop thinking that we can’t cope with migrants, and we need to understand that we should actually invite them. (Group of the Greens), Member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs:
Liberal Democrats Philippe de Backer (ALDE), Member of the European Parliament: The refugee crisis will only be solved if the root causes are being solved, and that means the instability in countries like Syria, Libya, and others. So, I think that we as a European community really have to invest more to create peace in that region. That’s the only way to fundamentally solve the refugee crisis. Secondly, I think that we as Europe have to try to do our best to make sure that people fleeing from war or political refugees recieve safe harbour. We should welcome them here and, maybe until the situation has stabilised, give them the possibility to find a new life here. Thirdly, you need to have clear rules about who can enter and who cannot. And people who are not eligible for political asylum should be sent back. So, strong frontier protection is also important, and we need to find a common strategy to deal with economic migration. (ALDE), Member of the European Parliament:
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In practice, compilers limit template instantiation depth, so this is more of a theoretical problem than a practical one. But it is still a deep and significant result if you are ever planning on writing a C++ parser.RELIGIOUS leaders have used their Easter sermons and messages to condemn the rise of atheism, with Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen describing the philosophy as an "assault on God".
A day after Sydney Catholic Archbishop Cardinal George Pell criticised non-believers, Dr Jensen said in his Good Friday sermon at Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral that atheism was a form idolatry.
"As we can see by the sheer passion and virulence of the atheist - they seem to hate the Christian God - we are not dealing here with cool philosophy up against faith without a brain," Dr Jensen told worshippers.
"Atheism is every bit of a religious commitment as Christianity itself.
"It represents the latest version of the human assault on God, born out of resentment that we do not in fact rule the world and that God calls on us to submit our lives to him.
"It is a form of idolatry in which we worship ourselves."
Cardinal Pell of St Mary's Cathedral delivered a similar attack on atheism in his Easter message yesterday. He praised government organisations "paid for by the Christian majority" for helping make the Australian way of life the envy of the world, but noted that atheists sponsored no community services.
The new Catholic Bishop of Parramatta, in Sydney's west, Anthony Fisher, continued the attack in his Easter message.
"Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating: Nazism, Stalinism, Pol Pot-ery, mass murder, abortion and broken relationships - all promoted by state-imposed atheism," he said.
A spokesman for Dr Jensen denied it was a co-ordinated attack by the churchmen. But he said the comments were likely to have been spurred by the recent Rise of Atheism conference held in Melbourne, which attracted 2500 non-believers and featured renowned figurehead Richard Dawkins.
Dr Jensen went on to say in his sermon that religion can be an "even more dangerous" form of idolatry than atheism if incorrectly interpreted.
"Here, too, religion can simply be the power game under a different guise... Atheist or religious person - we all need to be reconciled to God and give him our lives," he added.The author's stash
On the first night of my return to smoking pot, after the kids are asleep, my husband tells me, “I think you’re good; you can probably stop now.” I look down and find I’ve blown through half the joint I’ve been nervously puffing at like a cigarette. I’m annoyed with him for micromanaging me because I am not at all stoned—and then, of course, I am in an instant waaaaaayyyyy toooooooo stoned and grateful for his kindness in a mute, fairly immobile way.
As I wonder (fuzzily, not entirely silently) at the extreme potency of the marijuana I have just smoked, I notice that the remote I’m holding is pointed at the Amazon on Demand screen, and it’s frankly terrifying to realize that inside the neon-bright little boxes—boxes that move, to my awe and horror—are hundreds of movies, and the whole thing is organized in a way that I cannot parse but that I know is based on my preferences. MACHINE, MY PREFERENCE IS TO HAVE ONE PERFECT MOVIE ON THIS TV. I don’t want to look at hundreds of titles, many of which are cartoons or shows my children like, which is sending me into a guilty, bad-mothering place. (NO, I DO NOT WANT TO WATCH DORA THE EXPLORER, AMAZON, YOU GUILT-TRIPPING ASSHOLE!)
“I’m kinda lost here,” I mumble to my husband. He thinks I’m joking. I toss the remote at him, hunch further into the couch, and wait for my magic movie to appear on the magic box. Mad Men! Over the next week, as I watch my regular shows stoned, I’ll come to understand how wooden and artificial most dialogue is, but Mad Men really holds up and deepens, you guys! I audibly groan during instances of sexism, my husband looks over at me, and I feel a little self-conscious because I think I am mouth breathing. The pauses are so pregnant on this show! About halfway through the episode, I look down at the Google doc I have open and realize there is no reason for me to be recapping and analyzing the show as I am, and also that I am not good at typing while stoned.
Oh, the non-crisis of my bourgeois existence! I’m a mother of two small children, comfortably inhabiting the sort of suburban life I once defined myself by rejecting. When you’re younger, you separate yourself from the imagined mainstream crowd by your taste in music, fashion, and humor—but most of that fades away when everybody’s kids are in school together, everybody goes to Whole Foods for gluten-free cereal, everybody’s too tired to wear anything but MomClothes™, and everybody’s music tastes have been washed away by the Frozen tsunami. Once you have children, many of the markers that signified your Totally Unique Being are lost to you, and it’s easy to find yourself wondering, as you look admiringly at your friends’ Honda Odysseys with their impressive capacity, how, or if, or why, you are who you are—then a child throws themselves into your arms and demands your full attention and love, and you are too grateful to ponder questions of existence.
Nostalgia is the most powerful and pervasive of thirtysomething habits, though, and lately I’ve found myself wondering what could make me feel transgressive again. There’s nothing subversive about drinking; it’s just a minor tweak on the same suburban-mom stereotype (“Mommy’s Time Out Pinot Grigio” is a real thing). I’ve weaned myself off the mild antianxiety meds and antidepressants I once took, and though I absolutely needed them at times, I wonder at their strength and influence. At the risk of sounding like a dirty hippie, wouldn’t the occasional toke be better than the scrips-and-wine relaxation method adopted by so many of my fellow once-hip surburbanites? And couldn’t weed—countercultural, Costco-incompatible weed--connect me to a younger, hipper, less stereotypically mommish version of myself?
My decision to adopt weed as my drug of choice wasn’t random. I used to be the kind of stoner who owned a pair of four-foot bongs (christened the Godfather and Apollonia) and smoked from them using a camping lighter, clearing bowls with the flourish that comes from spending long Southern California days practicing such skills. The year after college, which I spent in a Hollywood apartment with my boyfriend and a guy friend on a diet of In-N-Out, weed, and 2:00 AM burritos, was my habit’s peak, or nadir, depending on how you view that sort of lifestyle. After that, I took a break from pot. In 2001 I moved to New York, where I drank more, went on antidepressants, and smoked mostly at parties. My husband—who grew up in New York and thus was over his stoner period at a frighteningly young age—got a job in DC, and in the six years since we started our family my pot intake has been limited to the very occasional joint shared during rare trips without the kids.
So I knew weed; knew it in the same deeply nostalgic way that I knew the taste of Animal-Style at In-N-Out, more than a decade after leaving California. Except I didn’t know how to get any.
Not a good place to try to get weed, as it turns out. Photo via Flickr user Bearden
Before beginning my experimental return to stonerdom I figured it would be easy to score weed, but I underestimated the depths of my uncoolness. Between snack duty and kindergarten orientation, I don’t know many open smokers, or anyone who sells pot. Every day “buy some marijuana” remained on my to-do list next to “Costco run” made me more nervous that I wouldn’t be able to find any, which I know is not good. Preliminary paranoia is not cool.
Employees at my local Whole Foods smoke, as I know from marijuana-centric conversations among shelf stockers I’ve interrupted. Maybe during one of these interactions, or at check-out, after we’ve established a connection—HAHAHAHA WE BOTH HATE YOUR CORPORATE OVERLORDS BUT MY FEELINGS ARE COMPLEX BECAUSE I’M SUPPORTING THEM LET’S NOT GET INTO IT—I could, very subtly, ask, WHERECANIGETSOMEWEED? Foolproof plan, right?
My lowest point comes in the Kinko’s parking lot, when I spot a dreadlocked black guy in a Bob Marley T-shirt and think, Hey! I should ask that guy! Follow-up thought: What is wrong with me? Why has the pursuit of drugs brought out my basest assumptions? This man should sell me a bag of expensive oregano and then arrest me for criminal stupidity and racism.
I consider asking the dad next door who I’m friends with, but it’s tricky, because in our corner of DC suburbia there’s a complicated tangle of cladestine vices: Some of the dads smoke pot semi-openly but the moms just… don’t. We are the primary caregivers, charged with keeping constant vigilance over our broods using problem-solving skills and speedy reflexes to manage crises. These responsibilities don’t make it easy to develop a weed habit.
Clearly, there’s some sexist shit at play here. At some point, our circle of parents came to an unspoken understanding about who does the smoking and who does the caregiving. Moms can’t get stoned and stare into fire pits, because they’re making sure children don’t run into the fire; they can’t get stoned and vibe out on some music, because they’re putting the babies to bed. And since I’ve been more than a little judgmental about the dads I know who get stoned and chill while their wives do the parenting, going to these same dads for a weed connect feels a little hypocritical. But I finally text my friend and awkwardly ask if her husband, THE pot-smoking dad, can hook me up.
He graciously offers me a joint, gratis, but I’ve come to realize that back in my stoner period I rarely bought my own stash—so in an entirely symbolic effort to correct my earlier etiquette failures, I insist on buying an eighth. I’m an adult, and I buy my own weed!
Little boxes on a hillside, little boxes full of parents secretly getting high... Photo via Flickr user Frank Maurer
For a few days, until I get a simple faux-cigarette one-hitter, I struggle to smoke enough to get a little high, but not so much that I get blotto. This is a delicate balance. With the benefit of decades of experience, I can gauge how much alcohol will take the edge off or get me buzzed or give me a hangover. I don’t have the same control when it comes to smoking pot. While drinking wine, I can answer work and school emails, take care of household issues, plan my son’s medical visits, and talk normally with those around me. Being stoned, on the other hand, closes off certain parts of modern life to me. I cannot deal with much of the internet, smartphones, the goddamn Roku machine. With the amount and quality of pot I am smoking, I can look at Twitter for no more than five minutes at a time, intently watch Mad Men or Gravity, laugh at grotesque cakes on Pinterest, fall into obsessive music holes, mutter things about Mad Men/music/horrible cakes/Twitter to my husband, and eat avocados whole. That’s pretty much it.
One afternoon, when I have an uninterrupted block of three hours to myself, I take a few hits, put on some Harry Nilsson, sit in a rocking chair in my sunny living room and pretend I’m a lady of the Laurel Canyon, circa the year of my birth. Then I do pretty well on the Slate News Quiz. Why am I taking the Slate News Quiz? Because I am a grown-ass woman who likes doing news quizzes, and indulging in substances I have not enjoyed during the day for over a decade will not make me a decade younger, or a decade different.
Clearly I still know how to smoke pot and how to be stoned, but it doesn’t make me any less momlike. If anything, I feel more deeply entrenched in a particularly middle-aged furrow of weird old music, cultural criticism, and NPR. Smoking pot may change your experience of the things you like, but it doesn't change you. I’m not suddenly able to relate to Miley Cyrus and her 4/20 Bangerz 4 Lyfe thing with some of the Youngs, because I am not, nor was I ever, someone who would relate to Miley Cyrus. Even at the height of my stonerdom, I rejected the dumb, deeply embarrassing aspects of weed culture—drum circles, pot leaf icons, that whole murder-jester pipe aesthetic—so why would I engage with that shit now that my age has liberated me from it? In hindsight, now that I’m actually high, it seems bizarre that I would seek out pot in a quest to be less defined by the cliches of adult life. If I wanted to meaningfully challenge the codes and boundaries of my bourgeois suburban life, developing a weed habit is maybe not the best way to go about that.
I am coming down from this afternoon of epiphany, Harry Nilsson, and News Quiz crushing when my five-year-old comes home. This day marks the one time I have smoked pot when either of my kids have been awake and in the same zip code as I am, and while I’m not stoned anymore, I still feel nervous. Does he sense this? Is that why he looks up from his Legos, fixes his huge blue eyes on me, and suddenly asks me to CHOOSE BETWEEN HIM AND HIS SISTER?
The Sophie’s Choice question, for the first time ever, on an afternoon of illicit activity, is a lot to take in, and I react like I’ve been hit by a very cute, very crazy truck. Finally, I reply with the expected script: I love you both, I could never choose. He keeps pushing: If you had to choose between me and her, who would it be? I become more insistent—I will never have to choose, it would be impossible. You and your sister are like parts of my body, my limbs! I couldn’t choose between parts of my body! He will not let it go: Well then, if you had to choose your right arm or your left arm, which would you choose? Oof. Bravo, sir.
Any other day, this conversation would have been approached carefully, lightly, with more attention paid to the reassurance and love he was asking for. But it felt unbearably fraught and intense in the wake of the pot, and served as a very definite admonition from the universe to absolutely never, ever smoke pot anytime my children are conscious and in the same county, ever.
The last night of my experiment before we go on vacation, I find the sweet spot: I inhale just the right amount from my one-hitter and decide to fix myself some Costco chicken salad left over from my son’s pre-K graduation. The tastiness of the food makes me do a little dance, which might have made me self-conscious as a younger person. But I’m in my home, surrounded by people I love, and who love me even in my most pathetic moments, and I’m an adult lady who can dance in her house and squeal about the gloriousness of adding grapes to mayonnaise-based prepared foods without fear. My husband and I are about to watch some MasterChef Junior, which is just right, and I will make lots of hilarious, perfectly-timed jokes that will amuse us both to no end, and I know there are avocados left for later, because I am an adult, and I bought them.
Jessica Roake lives and writes in the DC suburbs.Unicode-processing issues in Perl and how to cope with it
Perl 5.8+ has comprehensive support for Unicode and a wide range of different text encodings. But still many people experience problems when processing multi-language text. Here I explain the most common problems and offer solutions.
21 Nov 2013. Some inaccuracies in the text of the article and in the test scripts were corrected.
This article is translated to Serbo-Croatian language by Anja Skrba from Webhostinggeeks.com.
An older version of this article is available. It is not as well structured, but provides some additional perl version 5.6.1 unicode-related details.
hire me to fix your code. You can read this piece and dive into all the technical details and idiosyncrasies of perl and unicode. Or you canto fix your code.
A bunch of perldoc manpages outline and explain the Perl’s unicode support. perluniintro, perlunicode, Encode module, binmode() function. And the list is not complete. The major problem with this documentation is its volume. Most programmers don’t even have to read it all, because to start working with Unicode you just need to know some basic facts and rules.
I have experienced several kinds of trouble with Unicode in Perl, in several projects. The two main problems I’ve seen are:
UTF-8 data getting double-encoded or other-encoding data getting mangled
the “Wide character in print” warning
These two problems are closely related and often solved by similar moves.
Reading or at least browsing through the related manpages is still a good way to understand and solve your Unicode problems. If you don’t have time for that now, read on.
The problem showcase: the example
Imagine two simple variables with Unicode text in it. And you print those variables to standard output. What may be easier?..
#!/usr/bin/perl my $ustring1 = "Hello \x{263A}!
"; my $ustring2 = <DATA>; print "$ustring1$ustring2"; __DATA__ Hello ☺!
source
Both variables here contain the same data: string "Hello " followed by Unicode character WHITE SMILING FACE U+263A, an exclamation mark and a new-line character. The __DATA__ part ( $ustring2 ) is UTF-8 encoded.
But when we print it, the first one comes out fine and the second one comes garbled. This is because Perl knows that the first string is a Unicode string and is internally stored in UTF-8. But it doesn’t know the encoding of the second. When it builds a bigger string for printing, it re-encodes the second into UTF-8, wrongly.
In addition, it prints a warning: Wide character in print at unitest1.pl line 6, <DATA> line 1. We’ll look at it later, after we fix our output.
You could apparently fix things by avoiding concatenation:
#!/usr/bin/perl my $ustring1 = "Hello \x{263A}!
"; my $ustring2 = <DATA>; print $ustring1, $ustring2; __DATA__ Hello ☺!
source
But this is not a solution. Sometimes you simply can’t avoid concatenation; it is such a basic operation. In addition, it is error-prone and not future-proof.
Why the problem happens
First, some basic facts.
There is a distinction between bytes and characters. Characters are Unicode characters. One character may be represented by several bytes when stored, printed or sent over network. How exactly a character is converted into bytes depends on the encoding used. UTF-8 is just one of the ways to do represent Unicode characters.
Perl has a “utf8” flag for every scalar value, which may be “on” or “off”. The “On” state of the flag tells perl to treat the value as a string of Unicode characters. Otherwise, it is just a bunch of bytes.
If you take a string with utf8 flag off and concatenate it with a string that has utf8 flag on, perl converts the first one to Unicode.
This may sound okay and obvious. But then you think: How? Perl will need to know the encoding of the string data before converting it. And perl will try to guess it. And this is the usual source of problems.
The algorithm perl uses when guessing is documented (uses some defaults and maybe checks your locale), but my firm suggestion is: never let perl do that. Otherwise, there is a BIG chance that you’ll get double-encoded UTF-8 strings, or otherwise mangled data.
The solution: always make data encoding explicit, both for your input and output.
Solution #1: Convert string to Unicode
One solution could be to tell perl that the $ustring2 contains Unicode data in UTF-8 encoding. There is a couple of ways to do that; the orthodox way is through Encode’s decode_utf8() function:
#!/usr/bin/perl use Encode; my $ustring1 = "Hello \x{263A}!
"; my $ustring2 = <DATA>; $ustring2 = decode_utf8( $ustring2 ); print "$ustring1$ustring2"; __DATA__ Hello ☺!
source
In this simple case both ways would do the job, but may get quite tedious, if your inputs are plentiful. And it still prints the “Wide character” warning.
But this is what you should always do for the international data you get from other Perl modules, like from databases.
You should not forget though, that not every sequence of bytes is valid UTF-8. So the decode_utf8() operation may fail. See Encode perldoc for the error handling details.
(Another way to do let perl accept the UTF-8 data as such is with a pack “U0C*”, unpack “C*” hack. But you probably shouldn’t do that.)
If you get data in another encoding (not UTF-8), convert it to Unicode explicitly. Again, Encode module, decode() function:
require Encode; my $ustring = Encode::decode( 'iso-8859-1', $input );
Another example: UTF-8 data from CGI
In ACIS we produce HTML pages in UTF-8. We expect the HTML form input to be UTF-8 as well. To manipulate it, we tell perl about the encoding:
require Encode; require CGI; my $query = CGI ->new; my $form_input = {}; foreach my $name ( $query ->param ) { my @val = $query ->param( $name ); foreach ( @val ) { $_ = Encode::decode_utf8( $_ ); } $name = Encode::decode_utf8( $name ); if ( scalar @val == 1 ) { $form_input ->{$name} = $val[0]; } else { $form_input ->{$name} = \@val; # save value as an array ref } }
This builds a ready- and safe-to-use hash of input parameters.
Solution #2: Specify IO encoding layers for your filehandles
Starting with version 5.8 in Perl a filehandle can have an encoding specified for it. Perl then will convert all input from the file automatically into its internal Unicode encoding. It will mark the values read from it accordingly with the utf8 flag. Equally, perl can convert output to a specific encoding for a filehandle. Additionally, perl checks that the data you output is valid for the filehandle’s encoding.
So, if you read data from a file or another input stream, and you expect UTF-8 data there, warn perl:
if ( open( FILE, "<:utf8", $fname ) ) {... }
or, in case of our simple test,
#!/usr/bin/perl my $ustring1 = "Hello \x{263A}!
"; binmode DATA, ":utf8"; my $ustring2 = <DATA>; print "$ustring1$ustring2"; __DATA__ Hello ☺!
source
This should print two equal lines, but it would still make the annoying warning. That’s because we still print the unicode-containing value to a file handle that is not prepared for that: the STDOUT. (And it happens implicitly, since print prints there by default.) Jump there to see the fix for the warning right now.
Similarly, if you open a file as:
open FILE, "<:encoding(iso-8859-7)", $filename;
it’s content will be assumed to be in iso-8859-7 encoding. Perl will use that to interprete file’s data correctly, i.e. to convert it to the internal UTF-8.
Solution #3: Global Unicode setting in Perl
(Here and below, the ISO-8859-7 encoding is just an example. Any of the perl-supported encodings may be used.)
And there is yet another way to approach your coding/encoding problems. It is to command perl to treat all your program’s input and output as UTF-8 by default. -C is a perl switch which let’s you do that. Just put -CS on the perl command line.
Alternatively, use PERL_UNICODE environment variable. It has to be set in the environment where you execute perl, for instance:
god@world:~$ PERL_UNICODE=S perl script.pl
Would command perl to assume UTF-8 in all input and output filehandles in your script and used modules, by default. (Unfortunately and contrary to my expectations this does not have an impact on the special DATA filehandle. So this is not a solution to our problem showcase script.)
You can also specify UTF-8-ness for just your stdin or just stdout or just stderr. Read a section on -C in perlrun for full details.
Wide character in print warning
The warning happens when you output a Unicode string to a non-unicode filehandle. What is a "non-unicode filehandle?", you ask. That’s the one with no unicode-compatible IO layer on it (see Solution #2 section above.)
The right way to fix this is to specify the output encoding explicitly, with the binmode() function or in your open() call. For example, open your file this way:
open FILE, ">:utf8", $filename;
To print UTF-8 to standard output (or standard error), as in our case, we do:
#!/usr/bin/perl my $ustring1 = "Hello \x{263A}!
"; binmode DATA, ":utf8"; my $ustring2 = <DATA>; binmode STDOUT, ":utf8"; print "$ustring1$ustring2"; __DATA__ Hello ☺!
source
Now that should finally print two equal lines (correctly) and produce no warning!
The wrong way to avoid the warning is to turn off the utf8 flag on your to-be-printed data. Then the characters will turn into bytes, and perl will push them to a bytes-filehandle smoothly. But you don’t need that, really.
On the other hand, if you open a file as:
open FILE, ">:encoding(iso-8859-7)", $filename;
the stuff you print will be output in iso-8859-7 encoding, transcoded automatically. ISO-8859-7 is not a Unicode-compatible charset, so you won’t be able to output Unicode characters on it without a warning.
The right strategy: summary
If you can, use a Unicode encoding (such as UTF-8) to store and process your data. Always make sure perl knows which encoding your data comes in and come out. Make sure all your Unicode-containing scalars, have the utf8 flag on. Then you can safely concatenate strings. Then you can use Unicode-related regular expressions, which gives you great powers for international (multi-language) text processing.
To achieve that, you may need to know all the ways data gets into your program. As soon as you get some input, mark it as Unicode or convert it to Unicode and sleep well.
Sometimes data comes into your program already in Unicode and you shouldn’t worry. For instance, XML parsers return you string values with the utf8 flag “on”. (Unless you do something weird, like getting it in original form from the parser, which you shouldn’t do anyway.) In the above example we explicitly include a unicode character into a string ( $ustring1 ) and perl knows its encoding.
But when you read data from input streams, from a database or from environment variables (like parameters in CGI), you need to tell perl about its encoding.
Use PERL_UNICODE environment variable to force UTF-8 IO layers on your input and/or output filehandles.
Further reading
hire me to do your perl & unicode coding. Do you still want to do it yourself? You canto do your perl & unicode coding.
Man pages (perldocs):Other:
Comments are welcome.Ryan Tannehill's struggles epitomized the Miami Dolphins' collapse in the final two weeks of the season.
Coaching Tracker Who will join ex-
Who will join ex- Browns coach Rob Chudzinski on the firing line and who's safe? We track the latest news. More...
As we discussed on the "Around The League Podcast," Tannehill missed numerous throws and appeared to regress with the season on the line.
Part of the issue might have been the second-year quarterback's waning faith in his offensive coordinator.
NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported Monday that Tannehill lost confidence in Mike Sherman, according to people who spoke to the quarterback.
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said after Sunday's 20-7 loss the team is going to "look at everything" when it comes to offseason changes. Even if Ross brings back coach Joe Philbin and general manager Jeff Ireland, he could insist on other changes -- including moving on from Sherman.
Tannehill has shown big-time potential this season, but his last two games in particular have been terrible. He had a 43 percent completion rate, averaged 143 yards (4.05 yards per completion) and tossed just one touchdown pass to three interceptions as the Dolphins crumbled with the playoffs in reach.
When asked Monday if Sherman would be back next season, Philbin "punted," according to The Miami Herald's Adam Beasley.
Sherman has been the center of fans' ire much of the season. He's been questioned on everything from his penchant for abandoning the running game to Tannehill's stunted progress. The latter might cost him his job.
The latest "Around The League Podcast" recapped all of Week 17's wild action.(CNN) How close are authorities to pinpointing what caused a Russian passenger jet to break up in midair and crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula?
That depends whom you ask.
The airline says technical faults or human errors couldn't have caused Metrojet Flight 9268 to crash.
An Egyptian soldier prays as emergency workers prepare to unload bodies of victims at a military airport north of Suez, Egypt, on October 31.
An Egyptian soldier prays as emergency workers prepare to unload bodies of victims at a military airport north of Suez, Egypt, on October 31.
Journalists and spectators wait for ambulances to arrive at the Zeinhom morgue in Cairo on October 31.
Journalists and spectators wait for ambulances to arrive at the Zeinhom morgue in Cairo on October 31.
Employees with the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations wait in Moscow for their flight to Egypt on October 31.
Employees with the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations wait in Moscow for their flight to Egypt on October 31.
People light candles and leave flowers at the Russian Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on October 31.
People light candles and leave flowers at the Russian Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on October 31.
Villagers watch an ambulance as it drives to unload bodies on October 31.
Villagers watch an ambulance as it drives to unload bodies on October 31.
The tail of the jet sits in a field on October 31.
The tail of the jet sits in a field on October 31.
An item of clothing lies at the site where the plane crashed on October 31.
An item of clothing lies at the site where the plane crashed on October 31.
Ismail, center, and other officials visit the site of the plane crash on October 31.
Ismail, center, and other officials visit the site of the plane crash on October 31.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, third from right, visits the site of the plane crash with military and government officials on October 31.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, third from right, visits the site of the plane crash with military and government officials on October 31.
Egyptian paramedics load the bodies of victims into a military plane at a military air base by the Suez Canal on Saturday, October 31.
Egyptian paramedics load the bodies of victims into a military plane at a military air base by the Suez Canal on Saturday, October 31.
People place flowers and messages in front of the Russian Embassy in Cairo on November 1.
People place flowers and messages in front of the Russian Embassy in Cairo on November 1.
Candles, toys, flowers and portraits are left at Pulkovo International Airport outside St. Petersburg on November 1.
Candles, toys, flowers and portraits are left at Pulkovo International Airport outside St. Petersburg on November 1.
Debris from the airliner is seen on November 1.
Debris from the airliner is seen on November 1.
More debris is shown on November 1. The crash site is in a remote area of a region plagued by a violent Islamic insurgency.
More debris is shown on November 1. The crash site is in a remote area of a region plagued by a violent Islamic insurgency.
Debris belonging to the Russian airliner is shown at the site of the crash on November 1.
Debris belonging to the Russian airliner is shown at the site of the crash on November 1.
Egyptian army soldiers guard the luggage and other belongings of passengers piled up at the site of the crash on November 1.
Egyptian army soldiers guard the luggage and other belongings of passengers piled up at the site of the crash on November 1.
A piece of the engine sits on the ground at the crash site on November 1.
A piece of the engine sits on the ground at the crash site on November 1.
Egyptian military personnel stand near the tail of the jet in Hassana on Sunday, November 1.
Egyptian military personnel stand near the tail of the jet in Hassana on Sunday, November 1.
Russian emergency personnel collect personal belongings of victims at the crash site in Hassana, Egypt, on November 2.
Russian emergency personnel collect personal belongings of victims at the crash site in Hassana, Egypt, on November 2.
People visit a makeshift memorial at the airport in St. Petersburg on November 3.
People visit a makeshift memorial at the airport in St. Petersburg on November 3.
The wreckage of Flight 9268 is seen in this image provided on Tuesday, November 3.
The wreckage of Flight 9268 is seen in this image provided on Tuesday, November 3.
The militant group ISIS published this image of what it claims is the bomb that brought down Metrojet Flight 9268 on Saturday, October 31. The photograph shows a soft-drink can and two components that appear to be a detonator and a switch. Flight 9268 crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula en route to the Russian city of St. Petersburg. All 224 people on board were killed.
But Russian officials say it's too soon to tell what made the passenger jet plunge to the ground Saturday, killing all 224 people on board
Experts agree it's too early to know for certain, and officials have downplayed an apparent claim by Islamic militants that they brought down the Airbus A321-200, saying technical failure is the most likely reason for the crash.
Here's what we know so far:
THE FLIGHT
Flight 9268 was on its way from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg early Saturday when it dropped off radar about 23 minutes into the flight, Egyptian officials say.
Air traffic controllers apparently didn't receive any distress calls.
"There was nothing abnormal before the plane crash," Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamel said Saturday. "It suddenly disappeared from the radar."
The website Flightradar24, which tracks aircraft around the world, said it had received data from the Russian plane suggesting sharp changes in altitude and a dramatic decrease in ground speed before the signal was lost.
THE CRASH
A U.S. satellite that was over Sinai at the time of the crash detected a heat flash, according to a U.S. official directly familiar with the latest information in the investigation. U.S. intelligence and military officials are analyzing the data to determine whether the flash occurred in midair or on the ground and what that can tell them about what happened to the plane, the official said.
Analysts say heat flashes could be tied to a range of possibilities: a missile firing, a bomb blast, a malfunctioning engine exploding, a structural problem causing a fire on the plane or wreckage hitting the ground.
"The number of heat signatures is crucial," said CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien. "If, in fact, only one was detected, that in some respects might steer one away from a missile launch and onto some idea of an explosion onboard the aircraft."
Alexander Smirnov, a Metrojet official, told reporters in Moscow on Monday the airline had ruled out technical problems and human error. Protection systems on the plane would have prevented it from crashing, he said, even if there were major errors in the pilot's control equipment.
Photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt Photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt The militant group ISIS published this image of what it claims is the bomb that brought down Metrojet Flight 9268 on Saturday, October 31. The photograph shows a soft-drink can and two components that appear to be a detonator and a switch. Flight 9268 crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula en route to the Russian city of St. Petersburg. All 224 people on board were killed. Hide Caption 1 of 25 Photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt The wreckage of Flight 9268 is seen in this image provided on Tuesday, November 3. Hide Caption 2 of 25 Photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt People visit a makeshift memorial at the airport in St. Petersburg on November 3. Hide Caption 3 of 25 Photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt Trucks in St. Petersburg carry victims' bodies on Monday, November 2. Hide Caption 4 of 25 Photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt Russian emergency personnel collect personal belongings of victims at the crash site in Hassana, Egypt, on November 2. Hide Caption 5 of 25 Photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt Egyptian military personnel stand near the tail of the jet in Hassana on Sunday, November 1. Hide Caption 6 of 25 Photos: Russian plane crashes in |
’t see themselves as an army of occupation, and view the public as an undifferentiated mass of menace.
11:40 am on October 24, 2013
The Best of William Norman GriggDavid Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
On June 29, 1992, as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor began reading the decision for Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 25-year old Andrea Miller sat in the audience stunned. She’d braced herself for the likelihood that the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade. Court watchers had speculated that O’Connor would cast the decisive vote to uphold the statutory provisions regulating abortion as laid out in the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, which included parental consent for minors, spousal consent for married women, and 24-hour waiting periods.
Miller had started as an assistant at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City; she had requested to work under Kathryn Kolbert, co-counsel for the Reproductive Freedom Project from the Philadelphia office. Born to a college-aged mother six years before Roe, Miller says she grew up keenly aware of her mother’s financial hardships and thwarted dreams. In the fall of 1991, Miller helped the attorneys as they wrote Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania’s brief in Casey, which boiled down to one simple question: Is Roe v. Wade still the law of the land?
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“We conclude that the central holding of Roe should be reaffirmed,” O’Connor read that June morning in 1992. Miller, by then the head of communications for the newly formed Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, was awed. Here was the first woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court asserting women’s right to abortion. “Oh my God, did we just win?” Miller remembers thinking. “How it that possible?”
But O’Connor kept reading. In “reaffirming” Roe, the court had also mostly upheld four of the five restrictions put in place by the Abortion Control Act, only invalidating the spousal notification law. Abortion remained legal, but the judges introduced two caveats. One was that the states had a compelling interest in protecting unborn life from the “outset of pregnancy”—a stark departure from Roe, which held that states had no such interest until after the first trimester. The other was that states would be able regulate abortion unless their laws “unduly burden” a woman’s right to choose abortion.
Miller, who is now the president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, remembers her mind spinning. What was an “undue burden”? How could the Pennsylvania restrictions stand if Roe stood too? In the Supreme Court’s crowded vestibule, Miller huddled with other advocates from pro-choice organizations, scrambling to understand: Should the decision be framed as a win or a loss? Guards waved them toward the exits. Outside, reporters filled the stone steps, awaiting a reaction. For months the clinics’ attorneys had been insistent that the American public needed to understand exactly what was at stake. It was an election year; they wanted to rouse the mainstream pro-choice public out of complacency. In their courtroom arguments, they’d aimed simple language at the media and voters: Keep Roe on the books. But now they had a murky legal decision that upheld Roe in name but not in content.
The assembled advocates came to a consensus: “The justices have blown a hole in Roe big enough to drive a Mack truck through,” as Kolbert later put it. Minutes later, Kolbert stood surrounded by reporters by the Supreme Court steps and spoke into a bouquet of microphones. “Let me be clear about what the court has done,” she said. “The right to choose abortion is no longer a fundamental constitutional right. … We are at a point where states have been permitted to place roadblocks in the path of women, some roadblocks which in fact mean that low-income women, poor women, rural women are unable to get to the clinic door.”
One-quarter of Texas women whose nearest clinic closed after HB2 now live at least 139 miles from an abortion provider.
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The current eight-member incarnation of the Supreme Court will soon hand down a decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. The case challenges the Texas law, HB2, that among other things requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles and to perform abortions in clinics that meet all the building requirements of ambulatory surgical centers. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, among other medical groups, filed an amicus brief calling HB2’s restrictions “devoid of any medical or scientific purpose” and “unnecessary” because most abortions are simple enough to be done in a doctor’s office; a medication abortion, for example, is as simple as taking two pills. Nonetheless, HB2’s requirements have effectively shuttered more than half of Texas’ remaining abortion clinics: According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, in 2011, Texas had 40 abortion clinics, but after HB2, there are 19. (If, in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, the Supreme Court splits 4–4 on Whole Woman’s Health, the decision will uphold the Texas law without establishing precedent on its constitutionality.) During oral arguments on March 2, conservative Justice Samuel Alito—who had ruled on Planned Parenthood v. Casey as a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge back in 1991—suggested that there wasn’t any evidence that HB2 itself was responsible for closing Texas’ clinics, with liberal Justice Elena Kagan in sharp disagreement. “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed,” Kagan remarked. “You take the law out of effect, they reopen.”
Many headlines have declared that if the court upholds Texas’ restrictions in Whole Woman’s Health, it will presage the end of Roe. But the question of whether Roe will be overturned hasn’t been the salient one for 24 years—not since Casey threw out Roe’s clear-cut trimester framework and adopted the cloudy and subjective concept of “undue burden.”
* * *
Robin Marchant/Getty Images
At first, both anti-abortion and pro-choice camps lambasted the Casey decision. In her initial statement to reporters, Kolbert said that it was the first time in her life that she agreed with Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had opposed Roe and who joined Scalia’s Casey dissent, which stated that the undue burden standard was “inherently manipulable.” Casey gave abortion rights advocates the burden of proving that newly introduced abortion restrictions created a “substantial obstacle” for women seeking abortions. In the decades since the Casey decision, much of the media coverage of abortion rights in America has either skimmed over the undue burden standard or described it as a moderate compromise that O’Connor brokered with the other justices for feminist purposes. In the best-seller The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin writes that the undue burden standard is O’Connor’s “triumph,” because she “had invented that test and over time persuaded a majority of her colleagues to agree with her. She single-handedly remade the law in the most controversial area of Supreme Court jurisprudence. … No other woman in United States history, and very few men, made such an enormous impact on their country.”
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That reading obscures the impact of dozens of anti-abortion attorneys—senators, governors, judges, legislators, lawyers for the Department of Justice and the Catholic Church, most of them conservative men—who patiently, over decades, readied the court to permit obstacles between women and abortion. There was nothing “single-handed” about the Casey decision. In fact, O’Connor originally advocated for an early iteration of the “undue burden” standard after President Ronald Reagan’s anti-abortion Solicitor General Rex Lee proposed the idea, during what his assistant called “the first frontal assault on Roe ever launched by the federal government.”
The consequences of Casey have been dire for many women seeking abortions. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 9 out of 10 abortions are performed in the first trimester; Casey gave the states a compelling interest in all of them, and in doing so, gave anti-abortion campaigns unprecedented momentum. Just since 2010, nearly 300 state restrictions have passed nationwide, and since 2011, 162 clinics have closed. State legislatures across the country have adopted TRAP laws (the acronym stands for “targeted regulation of abortion providers”) that mandate abortion clinics follow rules well outside medical guidelines. According to the Guttmacher Institute, five states require clinics to provide medically inaccurate information about a purported link between breast cancer and abortion. Ten states mandate the width of clinic corridors. Texas is one of 22 states that require physicians to perform abortions in facilities comparable to ambulatory surgical centers that cost roughly $1 million to build.
It is now not uncommon for American women seeking abortion to have to travel across state lines, and reproductive rights advocates say low-income women shoulder the greatest burdens. A study published this month in American Journal of Public Health looked at the implications of HB2 for women in Texas whose nearest clinic closed after the law took effect. Researchers found that before HB2 became law, on average, those women lived 17 miles from a clinic; after HB2, that average became 70 miles. One-quarter of those women now live at least 139 miles from their nearest clinic. Because of added travel and waits, roughly a third of women surveyed said they paid at least $100 in extra costs—covering gas or child care or lodging—and 36 percent said obtaining their abortion was difficult.
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photo by Greg Westfall/Flickr.
Yet it’s no wonder the public doesn’t fully grasp Casey’s influence, despite the problems the decision has helped create for women seeking access to reproductive health care. Lower courts have interpreted the decision in myriad and sometimes conflicting ways. Because of the subjectivity of what counts as a “substantial obstacle,” lower court judges have used Casey to justify differing opinions about waiting periods, admitting privileges, and more. Whole Woman’s Health marks the first time the court has had to grapple with Casey, and how the justices define “undue burden” will have a ripple effect on abortion access for years to come. But the challenge before them—to determine just how many obstacles Texas women can face before their burdens are undue—is the result of anti-abortion advocates’ work within the government, patiently, over decades, to dismantle Roe v. Wade.
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* * *
The card that would give the anti-abortion movement its winning hand in Casey was tucked into a sleeve many years before. The story begins in earnest in Akron, Ohio, in the late 1970s, with a local entrepreneur, Ed George, owner of a steakhouse-cum–wedding hall where a before-she-was-famous Tina Turner once performed. One day, George called up his city councilman, Ray Kapper, to complain that the abortion clinic across the street was bad for his business.
“Ray, you’ve got to do something, pass something to close that place down. It’s terrible to see those girls going in and out every day,” Kapper recalls George saying.
Following Roe, patients traveled to the clinic from across Ohio and neighboring states. Another clinic not far from downtown, Akron Center for Reproductive Health, shared an office building with a real estate agency. Public school teachers invited the center’s staffers into classrooms to show high school students flip charts of anatomy and explain the basics of ovulation, menstruation, and pregnancy; they also spoke at church groups. The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective had just published Our Bodies, Ourselves. Women were entering the workforce in unprecedented numbers. “It was really a time of dynamic change,” says Bonnie Bolitho, who was then the clinic’s co-director. Often, Bolitho says, a mother accompanying her daughter would say that she was glad her daughter wasn’t forced into a “back alley” abortion as she had been. Bolitho told women and girls, “You don’t have to have an unplanned pregnancy. You don’t have to get married at 17 and have children early in life. … You can exercise control over your reproductive health.”
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Meanwhile, anti-abortion advocates were drafting models of the laws that the court is considering now, some 40 years later. In 1977, Akron’s chapter of National Right to Life, an anti-abortion organization, asked the City Council to consider abortion regulations they’d co-written with Alan Segedy, a lawyer for the group, and attorneys from Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion legal organization based in Chicago. (Ann Marie Segedy, Alan Segedy’s wife, co-led Greater Akron Right to Life.) Kapper, a Catholic Democrat who was ambivalent about abortion, remembered George’s consternation about the abortion clinic across the street. Kapper wanted to be mayor. In October 1977, he agreed to sponsor the regulations, thinking he’d curry favor with voters.
Kapper says now that he didn’t appreciate the significance of his mayoral campaign strategy—how novel and precedent-setting it might be for a local government to create obstacles for a woman seeking a first-trimester abortion in the post-Roe world. One attorney described the multipart ordinance as “a Christmas tree,” with everything possible hanging off it: a parental consent rule, a mandatory waiting period, and “informed consent” counseling. The attorneys designed it to be a national model. After Kapper proposed the law, experts from cities all over the U.S descended on Akron for four public hearings held over several weeks. Tracy Thomas, associate dean at University of Akron School of Law, later recounted how hundreds of divided locals watched John Willke of National Right to Life, a hero of the anti-abortion movement, present a slideshow of fetal life. (It’s hard to imagine now, but disturbing audiences with images of fetuses was then a cutting-edge tactic.) Gynecologists slated to appear at the hearings were so angered by the anti-abortion advocacy that they walked out without testifying. Shouting erupted in the hallway outside the hearing room.
Viewers watching an anti-abortion representative from Akron on the Today show might have been impressed with what seemed to be the anti-abortion movement’s grassroots organizing skills. But its advocacy wasn’t as homegrown as it appeared. In 1966, the Catholic Church had formed a political arm, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, that deployed lobbyists in state houses. The bishops founded National Right to Life in order to deflect the idea that Catholic leadership alone was driving its anti-abortion stance. “The idea was to create the appearance of widespread Catholic grassroots opposition to abortion reform so that it didn’t look like Catholic opposition was a top-down effort,” Patricia Miller writes in her book Good Catholics.
As an extension of the church, Miller explains, National Right to Life immediately had what fledgling, grassroots organizations don’t: a deep reserve of cash and a built-in audience of millions. Bishops hired political consultants who had helped Reagan become governor of California. Their representatives flew around the country testifying against bills relegalizing abortion and teaching volunteers how to speak to legislators. (Meanwhile, according to Miller, Catholics for a Free Choice, a burgeoning pro-choice organization, couldn’t afford to make long-distance phone calls.) By the late ’70s, National Right to Life had some 11 million members and roughly 3,000 local chapters.
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photo by Nicolas Henderson/Flickr.
At the same time in Chicago, a handful of attorneys founded the Americans United for Life Legal Defense Fund, which they conceived of as an ACLU of the anti-abortion movement. The organization’s long-term influence on national abortion policy cannot be overstated. Co-founder John Gorby says the group based its arguments on the Bill of Rights, not religious teaching, and that each of his colleagues agreed that a fertilized egg should be considered as a “constitutional person”; he tells me that he believes women decide to terminate their pregnancies “just like a slave owner would have control over his slaves.” Women who have abortions, Gorby says, are “probably motivated more by self-interest” than “a greater good”; he is dismayed that women have “that kind of power and control over other people.” In 1980, attorneys from Americans United for Life helped successfully defend the Hyde Amendment, which bars Medicaid funding for most abortions, before the Supreme Court. “A woman’s freedom of choice,” the court decided, did not include “a constitutional entitlement to the financial resources to avail herself of the full range of protected choices.” (“A right without access is no right at all,” said Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, a Republican who opposed the Hyde Amendment.)
Anti-abortion strategists of the time focused on laws that involved parents and husbands, Gorby explains, because “you can simply say that throughout the common law, fathers and spouses have had a role in these decisions, and it’s unimaginable that the scope of Roe v. Wade would reverse those traditional common law rights that existed in time immemorial.” Gorby says that AUL wanted judges to contend with tricky questions. If a 15-year-old is pregnant, can she have an abortion without her parents’ permission? Do parents’ rights concerning their minor child become irrelevant if the child is pregnant? Does a man have fewer rights over the fate of the unborn than his pregnant wife?
In these cases, Gorby contends, a judge evaluating a spousal or parental notification law who doesn’t want to limit parental rights must limit the right to an abortion. Anti-abortion lawyers designed laws that would force judges to wrestle with these questions and gambled that judges would decide to limit abortion rights. The long-term plan: to poke so many holes in Roe that abortion rights would eventually deflate.
“You can’t turn around and say, ‘Judge, all we want to do is stop abortions.’ He's going to strike down that statute,” Gorby says. “But you can argue that these are very reasonable regulations in the name of maternal health, to protect women and so forth, and that is the purpose of it. … We were willing to make those arguments.”
AUL and its allies predicted that most Americans would see the abortion regulations as discrete, common-sense provisions. Kapper says he saw them in that light too; he admits that he never considered the slippery slope of legal precedent. He recalls being taken aback when feminists from around the country began calling him at home to say, “You’re telling me what I should do with my body!” He told them he believed in abortion rights for adult women. The ordinance he sponsored was eventually adopted by 20 states.
Reagan needed to appease the religious leaders who’d helped elect him. Opposing abortion became a prerequisite of any Reagan appointee.
Local clinics and the ACLU sued the city of Akron, arguing that Roe did not allow local governments to put obstacles in the path of women seeking first-trimester abortions. A district court judge threw out most of the ordinance but upheld its requirements for a 24-hour waiting period, for doctors to explain risks of abortion, and for second-trimester abortions to be performed in hospitals. Kapper told a reporter he wanted the city to accept the decision, saying the controversy “became an emotional thing I would not like to see again.”
The city chose to appeal. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out everything but the parental consent rule and the requirement that second-trimester abortions needed to be performed in hospitals. Then the city appealed to the Supreme Court—and that caught the attention of attorneys working for the Reagan administration.
By the early 1980s, Republicans had only recently seized on anti-abortion positions to mobilize voters. In 1967, as governor, Reagan had signed California’s law to relegalize abortion; in 1969, Nixon initiated the expansion of funds for federal family planning counseling. But during his 1972 re-election campaign, Nixon began using Catholic bishops’ “sanctity of human life” rhetoric to secure Catholic voters, as historian Daniel Williams, author of Defenders of the Unborn, explains. During Reagan’s 1980 presidential bid, conservative strategist Paul Weyrich brilliantly reframed anti-abortion sentiments and policies as “pro-family,” sealing Reagan’s campaign victory by consolidating anti-abortion voting blocs, enamoring evangelicals as well as Catholics.
Department of Justice
Reagan needed to appease the religious leaders who’d helped elect him, so opposing abortion became a prerequisite of any Reagan appointee. Rex Lee, his solicitor general, was a Mormon from a Utah political dynasty and a former dean of Brigham Young University’s law school; he had also written a whole book against the Equal Rights Amendment. When Lee heard about the Akron case, he made a then-unorthodox request: He wanted to argue for the Akron restrictions on behalf of the federal government. Prior to Reagan, the federal government didn’t often choose sides in divisive Supreme Court cases, but the administration gave Lee the green light.
After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, AUL’s Gorby traveled from Illinois to Akron to advise the city’s lawyers. He urged them to resist fantasies of heroically overturning Roe and instead argue that Roe allowed for some obstacles—an approach that would advance the long-term anti-abortion strategy. Gorby didn’t have to worry: The Department of Justice also summoned the Akron lawyers to Washington to suggest the same strategy.
Meanwhile, a new and huge question loomed for both camps preparing to argue before the Supreme Court. In 1981, Reagan had appointed Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice. At O’Connor’s confirmation hearings, anti-abortion groups testified against her. Asked pointed questions about her stance, O’Connor said she felt “an abhorrence of abortion” but that she wouldn’t directly comment on questions that could come before the court. A former Arizona state senator, O’Connor had served on a superior court for four years and on the Arizona Supreme Court of Appeals for just two before being promoted to the Supreme Court. She had virtually no experience with constitutional law, and no one knew how she’d vote. Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health was her first abortion case.
On the morning of Nov. 30, 1982, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Akron. First to speak was the city of Akron’s lawyer, Alan Segedy, who argued, “The city of Akron submits that the major thrust of this legislation is not burdensome on the choice of the pregnant woman, but is rather choice-enhancing.” Segedy made arguments similar to those made today by proponents of abortion restrictions: that informed consent procedures and other requirements help women reflect better on their decisions. Next up was Rex Lee, who told the court that local legislatures such as the Akron City Council were better equipped than courts to handle politically sensitive issues such as abortion.
This was one of the Reagan administration’s key ideas. It was also likely to appeal to O’Connor, who had signaled as a legislator and judge that she believed in putting fraught decisions in the hands of the states. But Lee’s suggestion was nervy; it undermined the justices’ authority.
“Some [states] will adopt laws diametrically opposed to others,” Lee said, with clairvoyance few in the audience could have understood.
AFP/Getty Images
Justice Harry Blackmun, who authored Roe, interrupted him. “Mr. Solicitor General, are you asking that Roe v. Wade be overruled?” Blackmun asked.
“I am not, Mr. Justice Blackmun,” Lee said.
“Why not?” Blackmun asked.
“That is not one of the issues presented in this case,” Lee replied.
Blackmun said it seemed like Lee was asking the court to overturn Roe. The audience gave out a collective gasp. The New York Times reported that Blackmun glared at Lee.
Under Lee’s plan, local governments could do anything short of making abortion totally illegal. (His definition of undue burden was more extreme than the court would adopt in Casey.) Lee was proposing something radical. The crowd understood what was happening because Blackmun’s response made it obvious.
In Webster, abortion foes didn’t have a majority precedent, but they had a dissent from the first woman on the Supreme Court.
Across the room, Stephan Landsman, the clinic’s lawyer, knew he could relax. Rehnquist and Justice Byron White had dissented in Roe—it was assumed they’d vote against the clinics. It seemed unlikely, though, that the other justices would go for Lee’s proposal.
A couple of months later, on Jan. 22, the 10th anniversary of Roe, and with the Akron decision still not handed down, a busload of National Organization for Women protesters from New Jersey arrived outside Lee’s house. Lee recounted in the American Bar Association Journal: “They marched around for a while chanting, ‘Keep your laws off our bodies!’ My son went outside and yelled back, ‘Keep your bodies off our lawn!’ Anyway, I’ve arrived. I’ve been picketed at my home.” Lee said that as solicitor general he could only occasionally advocate for a pointedly political position. He’d chosen to spend some of his ideological capital on Akron.
In June, the court struck down Akron’s ordinance by a 6–3 vote. O’Connor, however, delivered a dissent no one quite anticipated. O’Connor borrowed Lee’s thesis, writing that courts should evaluate local abortion laws by asking whether they create an “undue burden” for women seeking abortions. She defined an undue burden as “absolute obstacles or severe limitations.” She wrote, “In my view, this ‘unduly burdensome’ standard should be applied to the challenged regulations throughout the entire pregnancy without reference to the particular ‘stage’ of pregnancy involved.” That meant O’Connor was willing to allow states to place a wide range of obstacles between women and first-trimester abortions—and effectively nullify Roe’s ruling that women had a constitutional right to abortion before viability.
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photo by Charles Henry/Flickr.
Abortion foes didn’t have the majority precedent they wanted, but they had a dissent from a supposed moderate and the first woman on the Supreme Court. “In a sense [Lee] gave O’Connor the tools that enabled her to write her dissent, which had a huge impact,” says Clarke Forsythe, current senior legal counsel at AUL. “It was earth-shattering at the time.”
* * *
Akron galvanized the anti-abortion movement. During the mid-1980s, AUL mapped out a long-term legal strategy that hinged on passing laws that would place seemingly surmountable obstacles in the path of women seeking abortions. Pennsylvania and Missouri led the anti-abortion charge during this period, aided by the Catholic Church’s firm grip on local politics in those states. In 1986, in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Supreme Court struck down Pennsylvania abortion restrictions that required informed consent, the dissemination of printed materials, and extra provisions requiring a second physician to assist with abortions after viability. Once again, O’Connor dissented, arguing that the laws were constitutional and that they didn’t “unduly burden” women.
Legislators were taught to call fetuses “the unborn.” Clinics would be called “abortion mills.”
Meanwhile, in Missouri, anti-abortion activist Samuel Lee (no relation to Rex) pored over O’Connor’s Akron dissent before helping to write a law that restricted public facilities from providing abortions and required physicians to test fetuses for viability at an earlier stage than Roe, as Cynthia Gorney describes in her book Articles of Faith. By the time the court heard arguments over Missouri’s laws in 1989, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, Reagan had appointed the conservative Scalia and Justice Anthony Kennedy, tilting the court in favor of restricting abortion. In Webster, the court allowed Missouri to create obstacles for both abortion providers and women by requiring physicians to test fetal viability at 20 weeks and restricting public funds for public facilities or employees that performed or counseled for abortion. It marked the first time that Rehnquist, who opposed Roe, would write the majority opinion in an abortion case. O’Connor didn’t need to write a dissent.
Webster was a watershed moment. Casey would be bigger. The long-term anti-abortion strategy was working. In his first dissent in an abortion case since Roe, Blackmun acknowledged what was happening: “The signs are evident and very ominous, and a chill wind blows,” he wrote.
That same year, AUL began flying state legislators to Chicago, putting them up in a Sofitel for an all-expenses-paid annual conference. The National Right to Life Committee held a conference and drafted eight sample pieces of legislation. In 1990, AUL spent $100,000 on travel and accommodation for 125 legislators representing 42 states, including Pennsylvania, who learned to “sell” anti-abortion ideas. Legislators were taught to call fetuses “the unborn.” Clinics would be called “abortion mills.”
* * *
Michael Casey
A couple of years before the Supreme Court handed down the decision that bears his name, Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey met with one of his staffers and his wife, who’d had an abortion. Morgan Plant, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist, spent considerable effort arranging the meeting. Casey was a Catholic Democrat who believed, as he later wrote, that “abortion is the ultimate violence.” This encounter was meant to help him see why a woman might feel that having an abortion was the best choice for her and her family. In Casey’s office, Plant recalls, the couple described how their first child had spina bifida, a birth defect that can cause paralysis and seizures. During the woman’s second pregnancy, they’d received a Down syndrome diagnosis. As she told the governor how painful it had been for them to decide that they wouldn’t be able to care adequately for two disabled children, she began to cry, but “Casey was stone-faced and unresponsive,” Plant recalls. Leaving his office, Plant remembers thinking, “No matter what we’d done, we would not be able to reach him.”
Casey, the son of a coal miner–turned-lawyer, had a strong base among Democrats with conservative social values living in Rust Belt towns not unlike Akron. (Casey’s adviser James Carville is often quoted as saying that Pennsylvania is essentially Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.) The Catholic Church wielded enormous political power in Pennsylvania. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a block from the state Capitol, legislators, judges, and sometimes Casey himself streamed into the so-called Red Mass, a service held especially for government officials. Like its national office, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference encouraged priests to sermonize against lawmakers who didn’t toe the anti-contraception and anti-abortion line. The bishops’ lawyers also helped draft anti-abortion legislation. In closed-door sessions sometimes held in the church’s offices, legislators met with lawyers from Ball & Murren, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference’s law firm. (Later, attorneys from the same firm would provide the conference legal advice on its “secret archive” of documents that incriminated clergy in sexually abusing children.) AUL and National Right to Life provided advice on the abortion bills as well.
In 1989, emboldened by the Webster decision, the Pennsylvania legislature passed—and Casey signed—a bill with provisions very similar to those the court had struck down in previous years. The new law included a 24-hour waiting period, dissemination of materials on fetal development, state-designated counseling, permission from a parent for a minor, and notification of a husband for a married woman. The ACLU and Women’s Law Project challenged the law on behalf of local clinics.
Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey was a Catholic Democrat who believed that “abortion is the ultimate violence.”
At least on paper, Roe was still the law of the land. The onus was therefore on the government to show that its laws regulating first-trimester abortions advanced the state’s interest in maternal health. When preparing for trial, the legal team was able to build the strongest case against the requirement that a married woman needed to notify her husband before having an abortion; new research had demonstrated that domestic violence often begins or worsens when a woman is pregnant. They spent less time on other requirements such as the mandatory waiting period. Linda Wharton, formerly of the Women’s Law Project and co-lead counsel with Kolbert in Casey, says it can be difficult to show privileged judges how seemingly minor obstacles can become insurmountable for poor, disenfranchised women who can’t necessarily pay for extra drives or child care, or take more time off work.* “They’re affluent, they’re white, they really can’t get out of that brain-set,” Wharton says.
Nonetheless, the district court sided with the clinics and threw out the restrictions. The state appealed—and that was where Alito, then a 3rd Circuit judge, and his colleagues came in. Reagan had made it a priority to appoint anti-abortion judges; meanwhile, anti-abortion attorneys had been helping draft legislation those judges would permit. Those two wings of the same strategy finally coalesced when the 3rd Circuit panel handed the anti-abortion movement a remarkable decision. In weighing whether to allow Pennsylvania’s laws, the 3rd Circuit judges didn’t base their decision primarily on Roe—instead, they looked to Webster. After all, in Webster the court had sanctioned obstacles that Roe wouldn’t have allowed; in their view, Roe wasn’t really the prevailing law anymore. “In sum, Justice O’Connor’s undue burden standard is the law of the land, and we will apply that standard to all provisions of the Pennsylvania Act at issue in this appeal,” they concluded. (Alito also wrote that he considered spousal notification requirements constitutional because women with abusive husbands could get a waiver and because the evidence presented didn’t indicate to him that such requirements create more abuse.)
In less than 10 years, the bedrock of abortion law had been altered. The 3rd Circuit decision exemplified the savvy, patience, and influence of anti-abortion attorneys and their allies in the church and government. The judges’ use of the undue burden standard not only vindicated AUL’s long-term strategy; it completed its first stage. Judges were justifying obstacles to abortion by pointing to other obstacles.
With that backdrop, the clinics’ advocates braced for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. The 3rd Circuit used the definition from O’Connor’s Akron dissent and said only “absolute obstacles or severe limitations” were undue burdens, which would have allowed states to make abortion all but illegal. Casey stopped short of that standard, which allowed the pro-choice camp its sigh of relief. That relief redoubled years later, when Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel unearthed Rehnquist’s opinion overturning Roe—nixed at the last minute when Kennedy changed his mind.
But that Casey could be spun as even a partial pro-choice win demonstrates just how badly things were going for the movement to preserve abortion rights. Consider how much had changed: Back in 1982, Blackmun was astonished when government lawyers defended Akron’s abortion regulations. A decade later, the Supreme Court decision upholding similar laws was touted as a feminist victory.
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt’s outcome depends on two main questions: first, whether the justices agree with Texas that its laws protect women’s health; and second, how burdensome the justices consider the obstacles that HB2 creates for Texan women seeking abortions. During oral arguments, Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller pointed to a clinic in New Mexico as evidence that Texans near the state line could find access to abortion even if HB2 closes clinics in their home state. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that New Mexico does not require the very provisions Texas argues are necessary to protect women’s health.
“So if your argument is right,” Ginsburg said, “then New Mexico is not an available way out for Texas, because Texas says: ‘To protect our women, we need these things.’ But send them off to New Mexico … and that’s perfectly all right.”
Ginsburg’s comments brought into the open what anti-abortion advocates freely admit everywhere but in the courtroom: that a primary purpose of their laws is to restrict women’s access to abortion, not to protect their health. That moment also gestured at an argument that abortion-rights advocates stress again and again: that financial and logistical obstacles to abortion disproportionately affect poor and working women. Wharton says that the judges tasked with evaluating abortion restrictions are by definition removed from the reality of those women’s lives. Because the undue burden standard is so subjective, she says, its fair application relies on judges being able to put themselves in the shoes of those women for whom 100 miles, a tank of gas, lodging in a distant or out-of-state town, extra child care, and missed hours at work add up to a “substantial obstacle.”
The justices may decide that these obstacles are a woman’s problem to overcome, not a problem of the law. After all, in 1980 the Supreme Court decided that poverty, not the Hyde Amendment, was what prevents poor woman from obtaining an abortion. It was John Gorby who had helped come up with that line of reasoning, which AUL used to clinch the government’s case. During one of my conversations with Gorby, I cited a Center for Reproductive Rights report about women on Medicaid who continued unwanted pregnancies because they couldn’t afford to obtain abortions. “It seems to me,” he replied, “that if she wanted it badly enough, that probably there’s some way she could have gotten the funding to do it. Don’t you think so?”
This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.
Correction, March 28, 2016: Due to a production error, a photo caption originally misspelled Abilene, Texas. (Return.)
Update, March 28, 2016: This article has been updated to include that Linda Wharton was co-lead counsel in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. (Return.)Location: Sun Life Stadium – Miami Gardens, FL [Capacity: 76,854]
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No. 9/12 FLORIDA GATORS No. 24 MIAMI HURRICANES Head Coach: Will Muschamp Head Coach: Al Golden Record: 1-0 Record: 1-0 Conference: Southeastern Conference: Atlantic Coast Roster | Schedule Roster | Schedule
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» Miami leads the all-time series against Florida 28-26, though the Gators actually have a 14-13 advantage going head-to-head with the Hurricanes in Miami, FL.
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» The Gators and Canes played annually from 1944-1987 but did not square off at all in the 1990s. On |
successful tournament with Turkey, finishing in fourth place. Şahin is the youngest player to have played and scored for Turkey. Notably, he scored during his debut which was a match against Germany, the country of his birth.
Career statistics [ edit ]
Club [ edit ]
As of 10 November 2018.
International [ edit ]
Şahin playing a pass for Turkey in a friendly game against Austria in 2016.
As of 19 June 2016.[47]
Turkey national team Year Apps Goals 2005 1 1 2006 9 0 2007 1 0 2008 4 0 2009 5 0 2010 5 0 2011 1 0 2012 11 1 2013 7 0 2014 3 0 2015 0 0 2016 4 0 Total 51 2
International goals [ edit ]
Scores and results table. Turkey's goal tally first:
Honours [ edit ]
Club [ edit ]
Feyenoord
Borussia Dortmund
Real Madrid
International [ edit ]
Turkey Youth
Individual [ edit ]Wew lads, what a win that was in Oakland today! As usual, the Raiders fought hard in the second half against tall odds and yet again the Chargers completely squandered a great opportunity to pick up a victory. We'll take any win we can get in our quest to dethrone the Broncos from the head of the AFC West.
So who are today's winners and losers? Let's find out.
WINNERS
1) Derek Carr
Carr had a rough first half, and was unable to get the Raiders into the end zone. However, he came alive in the second half and finished the game with 317 yards and two touchdown passes as well as a two-point conversion pass. "Christian Stabler" is one of the best comeback leaders in football today and will probably go down in history as one of the best of all time. There's certainly no quarterback I'd rather have if my team were trailing in the second half.
2) Joey Bosa
Welcome to the NFL, rook. Now explain to me again why the Chargers didn't want to pay you? What a bunch of buffoons they are. Bosa was unquestionably the best player on the San Diego defense and looks like he'll be a force to be reckoned with for years to come. He showed the same toughness and athleticism that was on display at Ohio Steak, showing little sign of any rust from his long layoff.
3) Amari Cooper
Touchdown Raiders! Cooper caught his first touchdown of the season today on a long pass where he burned the poor corner attempting to cover him. The Raiders were absolutely forcing the ball to Cooper today, but it sure paid off in the end for them and for me, an Amari Cooper fantasy owner. Hopefully this will jump-start Cooper's season, because we're going to need more of this.
4) Cardiologists in the Bay Area
If the Raiders are going to keep doing this, we're all going to need open-heart surgery. Health care premiums are going to go through the roof.
LOSERS
1) Philip Rivers
In a normal case, I'd say that Rivers was let down by the team around him, and to an extent that is true, but Rivers threw two interceptions that killed promising drives and left a lot of points on the table. Desperation and having nothing to lose will breed a cavalier attitude, and sometimes bad things happen. They did today.
2) Melvin Gordon
It's almost sad to see, after Gordon had such a great game and showed off his skills and speed, he fumbled (again) on a key late-game drive and cost the Chargers the game. It's just another example of a team with a ton of talent but is extremely error-prone.
3) Mike McCoy
He's a loser not really because of any bad decisions he made, but because he's going to be blamed for this loss when he really didn't do anything wrong. This game and the Broncos game were supposed to determine McCoy's future and there's a strong chance he will drop them both, as the Broncos are sure to play with intensity after today's defeat at the hands of the Falcons.
4) People who want the Chargers in San Diego
Chargers fans have to have given up hope after this game. There's very little chance the upcoming stadium vote goes well for them. The odds were bad before, but who would vote to give away a bunch of money to a team that does nothing but rip defeat from the jaws of victory? So long, suckers.Labour's Rosena Allin-Khan has been elected as MP for Tooting.
Dr Allin-Khan increased Labour's majority to 6,357 over the Conservatives, up from the 2,842 secured by her predecessor Sadiq Khan in the general election last year.
In a sombre statement following her victory at Wandsworth Town Hall, Dr Allin-Khan paid tribute to Jo Cox, who was killed in her Batley and Spen constituency on Thursday.
Jo's death reminds us that our democracy is precious but fragile. We must never forget to cherish it. Thousands of people voted today and we are all here in recognition of our democratic values."
My thoughts and prayers are with Jo's husband and her children. She was a proud and passionate campaigner who will be desperately missed.
The vote in Tooting was held to find a replacement for the London Mayor who stood down after defeating Conservative Zac Goldsmith in the City Hall contest in May.
Labour councillor and junior doctor Dr Allin-Khan was born and raised in the area. She works as an emergency doctor at St George's Hospital and is also deputy leader of Wandsworth Labour group.Select a date Select month July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 Select a category Agriculture Bihar Votes For Its (and India’s) Future BUDGET 2014 Budget 2015: Modi’s Moment of Reckoning Budget 2016: The stories behind the numbers Chart of the Day Climate Change Cover Story Currency Chaos Development Education Elections 2014 Employment Fact Check Governance Newsletter Health homepage video Hunger India’s Great Challenge: Health & Sanitation IndiaSpend In The News IndiaSpend Interviews Industry Investigations Central State Latest Headlines Latest Reports Making Sense of Breaking News Modi’s Message: India’s States Reply Modi’s Report Card Mumbai Special Mumbai Special: The Revival Agenda Opinion – Videos Opinions Pollution Poverty Prime Time: India’s Grand Challenges Resources Central State Sectors Agriculture Defence Economy & Policy Education Health Infrastructure Snapshots States Central India Chattisgarh Madhya Pradesh EAST Bihar Jharkhand Orissa West Bengal NORTH Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir New Delhi Punjab Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand NORTH EAST Arunachal Pradesh Assam Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Sikkim Tripura SOUTH Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Kerala Tamil Nadu WEST Goa Gujarat Maharashtra Story In A Minute The Air We #Breathe The Road To Delhi: Elections 2015 The Transition: 2015-2016 Uncategorized Viznomics: A Quick Glance At Big Issues Welfare Women Women@Work Search with Google
The March 2016 report titled Preventing disease through healthy environments analysed the impact of environmental hazards and risks of climate change on global health across 194 countries.
These deaths–avoidable if governments and citizens adopted sustainable environmental practices–accounted for 30% of all deaths in India that year. In comparison, 25% and 23% deaths, in Pakistan and Bangladesh, respectively, were attributable to the environment, according to the Global Health Observatory (GHO) data. As many as 23% of global deaths (12.6 million) and 26% of deaths among children under five that year were due to modifiable environmental factors, the report said.
Of the 2.9 million deaths in India in 2012, 1.7 million were caused by non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and cancer.
Globally, 31% of cardiovascular diseases are caused by household and ambient air pollution, second hand tobacco smoke and prevalent chemicals in the environment. Of the 49 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost due to cancer globally, 20% were due to air pollution, mismanagement of chemicals, ultraviolet radiation etc, according to GHO data. The DALY is a measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the sum of years of lives lost due to dying early and years lost due to disability.
As many as 57% of diarrhoeal diseases are caused by poor water, sanitation, hygiene and agricultural practices, due to climate change, according to the WHO report.
In seven years, natural disasters killed more than 15,000 Indians, damaged 6.7 mn homes
Changes in climate not only cause diseases, but also cause extreme temperatures, increasing the likelihood of weather-related natural disasters such as storms, floods and droughts. Since April 2010, water- and earth-based natural calamities caused 15,287 deaths in India, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of government data (here and here). Besides the loss of life, livelihoods were also destroyed with 6.7 million houses damaged and 360,000 cattle heads lost.
Source: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation Page 254- 256; Table 3.8.2, Lok Sabha
NOTE: *Provisional; Natural calamities include cyclonic storms, heavy rains, floods, landslides, etc.
Between 2012-13 and 2013-14, there was a nearly five-fold increase in the number of lives lost due to natural disasters.
Of the 5,845 lives lost in 2013, 61% were due to the 2013 Uttarakhand floods. Two main events led to the devastation in the Kedarnath area, according to this 2015 report by the National Institute for Disaster Management. On June 16, 2013, torrential downpour led to active soil erosion near the Kedarnath region. As a result, huge volumes of water studded with debris hit the town, causing massive destruction to 10,625 livelihoods, the report said. This debris collection was caused mainly by the “accelerated depreciation of the environment due to the construction of roads, buildings, hydro-electricity projects, sand and stone collection from river channels, unchecked deforestation etc”.
The second event, which occurred the next day, was caused by the breach of the Chobari Lake, releasing massive flood waters causing more devastating damage in the area.
The Bihar floods in 2016 claimed 243 lives which was the national highest that year–despite receiving 14% lesser rainfall than expected. “India’s poor water management policy seems to be at fault,” according to this August 2016 report by Scroll. “The country’s dependence on large dams, built without environmental checks and balances has upset the Gangetic water system enough to have caused this widespread, unusual flooding.”
Source: Lok Sabha
NOTE: Data for Chandigarh, Delhi, Goa, Manipur, Mizoram, Puducherry, Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshyadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli are not available; Natural calamities include cyclonic storms, heavy rains, floods, landslides, etc. Data as on February 22, 2017
As many as 117 countries and territories (54%) were hit by disasters in 2015, according to this October 2016 report by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), a Brussels-based non-profit and a WHO collaborating centre as part of the Global Program for Emergency Preparedness and Response.
There was a 14% increase in the number of reported natural disasters in 2015 (376) compared to 2014 (330). The number of climatological disasters (45)–which include droughts, wildfires, extreme temperatures–was the highest since 2005, according to the CRED report.
Update: The story has been updated to say that changes in climate increase the likelihood of weather-related natural disasters.
(Abraham is an intern with IndiaSpend.)
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“Liked this story? Indiaspend.org is a non-profit, and we depend on readers like you to drive our public-interest journalism efforts. Donate Rs 500; Rs 1,000, Rs 2,000.”Jim Miller barely made mention of it when it happened or even since then, but during his UFC on FOX 3 main event match with Nate Diaz in May, he suffered what turned out to be a fairly significant injury. During the May 5 bout, Miller tore an extensor muscle in his foot. The soft tissue aids in flexing the foot upwards along with extending the big toe.
The injury left Miller in crutches and a walking boot, and now, nearly three months later, he will slowly begin his journey back to the octagon. Miller has just been cleared to return to light workouts this week, his manager Mike Constantino told MMA Fighting.
Constantino said that Miller would get back into his gym routine slowly, starting with pad work and light jiu-jitsu before seeing how the muscle responds. If all goes according to plan and Miller is cleared to handle the stresses of a 6-to-8 week training camp, Constantino is hoping to see him back in the cage around November or December.
"I would like to get him back in before the end of the year," he said. "He’s just easing his way back into it all. He had significant time off, so the first step is just to get him back in the gym consistently and then we’ll try to set something up."
Miller has long been regarded as one of the toughest men on the UFC's lightweight roster, once boasting a seven-fight win streak. He's also been one of its most durable, fighting 13 times since his debut with the promotion less than four years ago.
Prior to his defeat at the hands of Diaz, all of his losses had come to either onetime UFC champions (Frankie Edgar and Ben Henderson) or No. 1 contenders (Gray Maynard). After Diaz defeated him in May, UFC president Dana White said Diaz would be the top contender and challenge for the belt after Henderson and Edgar rematch on August 11.
Miller holds a 21-4 overall record, with 10 wins in 13 career matches in the UFC's octagon.The anti-union agenda ushered in by Tea Party Republicans shifted from the Midwest to the Northeast this week, as New Hampshire passed a bill that would go much further than Wisconsin, Ohio or other states. It would make New Hampshire the 23rd right-to-work-for-less state in the country, essentially banning union activity and collective bargaining in the private sector.
The latest battle front over limitations on unions has opened in New Hampshire, where a law is expected to be adopted that would prohibit unions from collecting mandatory fees and disallow collective bargaining agreements that require employees to join a labor union […] “I thought it was simply a freedom-of-choice issue,” said State Senator Raymond White, a Republican who supported the bill. “At the end of the day it’s simply a bill about does a person have to pay union dues?”
At the end of the day, it’s most certainly not that simple. First of all, collective bargaining agreements do not require employees to join a labor union. CBAs can require workers to pay fees to unions to represent them, but the worker does not have to join the union. The goal here is to cripple unions even if the overwhelming majority of workers at a particular workplace want to join one. When given the choice upon entering a job to have or not have dues taken out of your paycheck, the average worker is likely to opt for the latter. Especially when the union is obligated to advocate on your behalf either way, which would be the effect of the law. This creates a massive free-rider problem, because it allows workers to get the benefits of collective bargaining without having to contribute to the apparatus that secures it. This is unsustainable, and it leads to collapse. That’s how it’s worked in every state where it’s been instituted.
This bill has already passed the New Hampshire House in a different form. The Governor is a Democrat, John Lynch, and he has vowed to veto the bill. However, it passed the Senate 16-8, just enough for an override. And it passed the House in large numbers as well.
New Hampshire isn’t a heavy union state, with only 11% of residents belonging to a union. So this is more about the union influence in politics than their influence in the workplace, it seems.
The local AFL-CIO and other labor groups have planned protests across the state, as the battle shifts to beating the veto override vote. The head of the AFL-CIO in New Hampshire called it a “street fight.”
Stay tuned.Theresa May has condemned the National Trust for omitting the word “Easter” from its annual children’s egg hunt, saying she was furious both as the daughter of a vicar and as a National Trust member.
Church leaders criticised the National Trust for “airbrushing” Christianity out of its chocolate egg hunt, after a rebrand led to the renaming of the “Easter Egg Trail” as the “Great British Egg Hunt”.
In a surprisingly robust response, the prime minister said it was wrong to have scrapped any mention of the Christian festival.
“I’m not just a vicar’s daughter, I’m a member of the National Trust as well,” she told ITV during a visit to Amman, Jordan. “I think the stance they have taken is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t know what they are thinking about frankly.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The National Trust’s egg hunt is sponsored by Cadbury. Photograph: Cadbury
Cadbury, which sponsors the event, told the Telegraph it had also wanted the event to appeal to non-Christians, saying: “We invite people from all faiths and none to enjoy our seasonal treats.”
However, the prime minister said the National Trust had not understood the importance of the festival. “Easter’s very important. It’s important to me,” she said. “It’s a very important festival for the Christian faith for millions across the world. So I think what the National Trust is doing is frankly just ridiculous.”
The archbishop of York said the decision to omit “Easter” from the egg hunt was “tantamount to spitting on the grave of [John] Cadbury” – the chocolate company’s founder.
The National Trust said: “It’s nonsense to suggest the National Trust is downplaying the significance of Easter. Nothing could be further from the truth. We host a huge programme of events, activities and walks to bring families together to celebrate this very special time of year. A casual glance at our website will see dozens of references to Easter throughout.”
The trust said Cadbury had been running its Easter egg hunts for 10 years. It added: “As part of its wider marketing activity at Easter, Cadbury will always lead on the branding and wording for its campaigns.”
Cadbury said: “It is simply not true to claim that Easter does not feature in our marketing communications or on our products. It is clear to see that within our communications we visibly state the word Easter. It is included a number of times across promotional materials, including our website easter.cadbury.co.uk and even embossed on many of the eggs themselves.
“Our Easter egg packaging also carries the word Easter and these products are only available at this special time of year. Our Easter partnership with the National Trust is also synonymous with Easter, and we make it clear throughout materials that it is an egg hunt, for families, at Easter.
“We want to reassure consumers of our commitment to Easter, which is very prominent within our activity. We will continue to use ‘Easter’ prominently in our commercial campaigns as we do now and in the future.”
Eggs and bunnies are sacred, not just tasty| Letters Read more
The row comes as the Church of England is increasingly concerned about the marginalisation of religion in the public sphere.
In 2015, a 60-second Christmas advert that showed people saying the Lord’s prayer as they went about daily business was banned by leading cinemas in the UK on the grounds that it may carry “the risk of upsetting, or offending, audiences”.
Last month, the C of E condemned a European court of justice ruling that allowed employers to ban workers from wearing religious symbols or clothing at work.
Arun Arora, the C of E’s director of communications, said: “In a pluralistic society, the church – along with everyone else – should have a stall in the marketplace for its ideas.”Frank Seravalli TSN Senior Hockey Reporter Follow|Archive
PITTSBURGH — Antti Raanta couldn’t wait until he turned 18 - and not only because that’s the legal drinking age in his native Finland.
It’s the age of majority when goaltenders can decide to play with a “cat eye” style mask, which has oversized eye openings to increase the field of vision for pucks.
“You can see so much better from that,” Raanta explained.
Raanta’s Rangers counterpart, Henrik Lundqvist, returned to the ice on Friday afternoon at Consol Energy Center to test his vision some 40 hours after teammate Marc Staal’s blade gouged his eye through the same style mask.
The freak occurrence raised questions about goaltender protection since that style of mask is banned for use and sale in Canada. But NHL goaltenders, who do not answer to regulatory body Hockey Canada, have made the “cat eye” mask the near unanimous choice.
Lundqvist appeared to come through largely unscathed.
Rangers coach Alain Vigneault labeled him as a “game-time decision” for Saturday’s Game 2, after he was forced to pull himself from Game 1 because of trouble seeing.
Lundqvist sat at the podium on Friday, perfectly styled and coiffed as usual, with a purple mark on his left eyelid as the only visible damage. He visited a specialist on Thursday in Pittsburgh and reported there was no internal harm.
“Today I felt pretty good,” Lundqvist said. “It’s more the swelling around the eye to make it uncomfortable. But practice was good, the vision was good. It’s more about the swelling around the eye that affects it, but I’m very pleased with the way it felt.”
Lundqvist said there were “20 to 30 seconds” where he had “some really bad thoughts” going through his head. He couldn’t see as he writhed on the ice in pain.
“It was such a weird feeling because it was extremely painful but at the same time you go numb a little bit, so you don’t know what’s going on,” Lundqvist explained. “Before you open your eyes, you don’t really know what the reaction will be and that was the scary part for 20 or 30 seconds, not knowing. I wasn’t sure. It was just such a hard hit that I was shock at the same time that it happened. But then you open your eyes and slowly things start to feel a little more normal.”
Both Lundqvist and Raanta said they couldn’t remember many similar incidents. But they have occurred with increasing frequency over the years. Penguins netminder Marc-Andre Fleury sustained a cut below his eye when he was poked by teammate Ben Lovejoy in November.
Lightning goalie Ben Bishop said he felt like his “eye was falling out” when he was gruesomely clipped in San Jose in December. Former Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro had his cornea scratched by Sidney Crosby years ago.
“Accidents happen,” Lundqvist said. “I feel still as a goalie, you’re pretty well protected, so I don’t see it as an issue. Obviously within a year here, I’ve experienced two freak accidents (a throat injury in Feb. 2015), but I still feel like the equipment is good and there is nothing really to change.”
Raanta knocked on his wooden stall in the Rangers’ dressing room.
“It was pure bad luck,” Raanta said. “I think the stick can fit just enough.”
Rangers defenceman Keith Yandle said he probably couldn’t squeezed his blade through the enlarged cage opening if he tried during a game.
“Unless the mask comes up or something, it’s so rare to see that,” Yandle said. “Your stick needs to go through on a perfect angle.”
Lundqvist said he wore a different mask when he played in Sweden but switched in the NHL.
“It makes a big difference, it opens it up for your vision and your eyes,” Lundqvist said. “It’s a good thing that you have that ‘cat look’ as they call it. I don’t want to change that.”
And that is the exact reason few changes to the mask structure have been made over the years. The NHL Players’ Association works in a 50-50 partnership with the NHL on goaltending equipment matters, including the mask standard.
“Cat eyes were discussed at length, as it is the preferred cage of NHL goalies,” NHL director of goaltending equipment Kay Whitmore said Friday. “More injuries occurred from bending or broken cages than from stick penetration, so the standard dealt with strength and material composition of the cat eye to ensure it was of the highest quality. The type of injury Henrik incurred happens quite infrequently. Other certified non-cat eye cages are readily available for any (NHL) goalie if they want it.”
The "cat eye" style mask, left, has become the near unanimous choice for NHL goaltenders. (Images courtesy of Otny Enterprise Ltd., manufacturer of NHL cages.)
Health Canada wrote in a 2009 letter to Hockey Canada that the “wider cat-eye design on some goaltender masks” does not meet the country’s health standards because it does not provide adequate protection against pucks or sticks, according to In-Goal Magazine. They are not available for sale in Canada and not permitted for use in minor hockey.
Every current NHL goaltender is believed to use the cat eye style. John Vanbiesbrouck, Dominik Hasek, Kelly Hrudey and Don Beaupre are just a few of the netminders over the years to buck the trend.
A few years back, manufacturers reinforced the middle of the cage with a second bar, which only slightly reduced the eye hole. It still allows for a stick blade to fit through.
“This is a one in a million injury. It’s a big story because it’s Henrik Lundqvist,” TSN analyst and former NHL goaltender Jamie McLennan said. “But there really haven’t been many injuries over the years. I think if you could slightly shrink the eyes so a stick couldn’t fit in there, guys would be fine with it. It’s only a small adjustment.”
Contact Frank Seravalli on Twitter: @frank_seravalliis designed for a stand-alone installation, but you will still need certain original Dune II files to play.
The Classic edition fixes as many glitches and bugs in Super Dune 2 as possible, while keeping the original feel and all features of the modification intact.
which
new menu graphics
new animated Mentat screens
new briefings and Mentat information
new campaigns with various missions
scenario, AI and other fixes
main menu title screen
side selection screen
"Do you want to join side X?" dialogue
faction profile/introduction text
new player ranking system that uses the actual rank names from the book, instead of all those "desert mongooses" and the like
fully animated Fremen and Sardaukar Mentat screens ("recycled" images from Cryo's Dune)
new planet/herald images for all new sides
a fully playable Demo campaign
modified tech trees and new units
a more powerful AI
new briefings and Mentat descriptions (in progress)
eleased by Westwood Studios in 2001. Dune
In August 1998, Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts for $122.5 million in cash. At the time, Westwood had 5% to 6% of the PC game market.In response to EA's buyout, many long-time Westwood employees quit and left Westwood Studios. Because of this and EA's newly imposed demands, games being developed by Westwood Studios at the time were rushed and left unfinished upon their release.All the subsequent games developed by Westwood were also heavily subjected to increased control by Electronic Arts, with some of them being cancelled. Westwood Studios (along with EA Pacific) was liquidated by EA, and all willing staff were assimilated into EA Los Angeles
REMAKES
Dune II – The Maker aims to be a clone of the good old Dune II by Westwoord Studios. Main goals are to give it the same look and feel as dune 2, using a bit enhanced graphics (not too much!). It should be playable on multiple platforms (though main platform is Windows), and be enhanced in several ways. Currently the project’s latest stable version is DEMO 4. Since then major rewrites and refactorings are taking place, which will eventually lead to a new version. Dune II – The Maker is open source
DUNE IV, in comparison with DUNE III, has lots of improvements, such as: high resolution, advanced game control, improved artificial intelligence and many other features. Game package also contains video and MP3-music.
From the very first missions you'll have to find the way to survive on planet Arrakis (Dune), learn how to mine resources (the basic wealth of this planet is spice), build bases (cities) and army. It gets worse and worse as it goes on... Don't expect it to be a piece of cake, as your opponent won't leave you and your base alone for a minute (well, probably you'll be given a one-minute-break). There are missions where a couple of alliances will unite against you and in others everyone's going to struggle against everyone (what an excellent show!). Some missions are time-limited, some need player to show his quick wit and dexterity to accomplish the mission. This time the opponent (AI) has grown wiser and will be searching for the weak sides of your defense. Forget about the times when player could with impunity attack opponent's harvesters. Those old fine days when player presumed to forget carelessly about own harvesters have sunk into oblivion. The opponent won't forgive it, do not underestimate him.
a Dune II "imitation" written in Java. Single player
Lead one of three interplanetary houses, Atreides, Harkonnen or Ordos, in an attempt to harvest the largest amount of spice from the sand dunes. Exchange your spice stockpiles for credits through refinement and build an army capable of thwarting attempts of the other houses to stop your harvesting!
Dune Legacy is an effort by a handful of developers to revitalize the first-ever real-time strategy game with updated high-resolution graphics, currently aimed at recreating Dune II as close to the original as possible. The original game was the basis for the hugely successful Command and Conquer series, and the gameplay has been replicated an extended to a wide variety of storylines and series. There are currently two different branches of Dune Legacy.
(previously known as Dune 2: The Sleeper Has Awakened) by Drackbolt: a Dune II remake with various improvements, originally focused on multi player but now also featuring the single player aspect as well.
OpenDUNE is an open source re-creation of the popular game “Dune II”, originally made by Westwood Studios, and released by Virgin Entertainment.
It attempts to re-create the original game and apply modern technology to it to allow it to be run natively on most operating systems.
Dune II clone with hi-res graphics. ( Not Updated )
This title is playable in your Browser and is a high quality version of OpenDune in a web implementation
Good afternoon gamers, hope everyone is having a good day so far! Got a nice treat for you today it's a bit of history on Dune 2 and some damn fine remakes, be prepared for a big read so sit back and enjoy this nostalgic trip. I'm sure many of us remember Dune II, one of the greatest RTS games of our time, an all time classic and also developed by one of the greatest developers Westwood which was destroyed by EA. Dune II or the proper title Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (retitled Dune II: Battle for Arrakis was released for DOS in 92 and Amiga in 93. It also appeared on consoles with the game being released on the Genesis/Megadrive in 93.This game also established the format that would be followed for years to come. Striking a balance between complexity and innovation, it was a huge success and laid the foundation for such games as Command and Conquer, Warcraft and *hold your breath* STARCRAFT! But what about the story?Emperor Frederick IV of House Corrino is desperate for the harvesting of a resource called "Spice" which is also known as melange which is only found on one planet, Arrakis. The reason for this is he has to pay off a massive debt incurred on internecine wars with family members. The offer goes out to all the current houses, that whoever delivers the most spice will have sole governorship of the entire planet. However because of this, it turns into an all out war between all the houses which are (Atreides, Harkonnen, and Ordos)Each house has a biography at the start so you can get the feel of the type of house you will be a part of, for me it was always the Harkonnen simply because they were so damn Evil! You play as a military commander from a House of his choice and thus In the first few missions the objectives are to establish successfully a base on an unoccupied territory of Arrakis, to harvest spice and to defeat intruders. As the game progresses you end up taking over other territories via a huge world map, each colour donating what house has what area of control. When the player dominates Arrakis on the world map, the two other enemy factions ally against their common enemyNext up is also the most important, gameplay. As you may have read already, Dune II is an RTS title based on the planet Arrakis. You start with a small base depending on the mission at hand and your objective is usually to harvest as much Spice as you can and attack other bases. The viewpoint in the main game screen is usually surrounded by a Fog Of War which in this game is complete darkness, as the units explore the map, the darkness is removed. Unlike later games such as Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the fog of war is lifted forever with initial exploration, it does not become dark once more when units leave the area.You also start the game with a Harvester which when used,travels to the nearest spice zone, (donated by orange shading) gathers the spice and then heads back to the spice refinery and the credits increase. This gameplay style also appeared in other Westwood titles including Command and Conquer in which you harvest Tiberium. But be careful as in this game, there are not only other enemy units from other houses but massive Sand Worms, these giant beasts native to the planet will come up from the sands and devour anything currently trundling across the landscape. They cannot come up through rocks, so quickly get your units to safe ground! While we are on the subject of SandWorms can any anyone else reading this article name a similar creature which appears in what movie?The Dune II interface is also the basis for later real-time strategy games, being the first to use the mouse for unit control, but is inconvenient when compared, for example, to Command & Conquer. Dune II did not have unit grouping or context sensitive cursors, as they were not used in RTS games until C&C and unlike later games, clicking on a piece of land or enemy will not result in movement or attack actions. To do so requires clicking on the "Move" or "Attack" buttons (or pressing of a hotkey), and then selecting the target. I wasn't keen on this method but preferred the C&C style of mouse actionsRegarding the construction of buildings, The player can only build on rocky terrain, but must build concrete foundations before hand to avoid the decay of the structures due to the harsh weather conditions. Although even when you do this, structures will still gradually decay over time regardless of the presence of those concrete slabs due to the weather conditions. It probably only needs a lick of paint ;)Completing higher missions gives you the ability and authorization to use improved technology and higher-order weaponry unique to each House. House Harkonnen may be able to construct their Devastator tanks but cannot build the similarly impressive Atreides Sonic Tank. The Ordos can use the Deviator - a specialized tank firing a nerve gas that switches the allegiance of targeted units to Ordos for a limited period of time. Think of it as a brainwashing gas device!The three Houses also are restricted in their production capabilities—House Ordos cannot build Atreides-style trikes, instead making the faster "Raider" trikes, while House Harkonnen constructs heavier but more expensive quad bikes. Also another neat idea is, if you capture another houses building you can use the weaponry of that house, so if you want special units not available in your house go and take over a factory.The best and final ability in the game is the building of the House Palace from where super weapons may be unleashed on opponents in the final closing chapters of the game. |
you’re seeking out pods and pin scars in Yosemite or tackling the blissful parallels of Indian Creek, we’ve compiled tricks of the trade that will open up a whole new world of crack climbing.
Hands
Easy: Fingerlocks
The cake of finger cracks; put your fingers straight in and drop them down, slotting them in the crack so they sink in to the second or third knuckles. Your knuckles act like nuts, wedging into constrictions. It takes very little muscle engagement, and you feel like you could hang on forever. Pin scars and pods provide wider spots directly above constrictions, which are excellent. Try thumb-up and thumb-down fingerlocks because your pinky and ring fingers might slot perfectly where your pointer and middle fingers are too large.
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Hard: Ratchet
For cracks too wide for a fingerlock, stick as much of your hand as possible in the crack with pinky up, elbow out, and thumb tucked under your fingers. Pull your elbow down and in toward your ribs. This ratcheting motion will create torque that cams your fingers into the crack. These are useless if your hands are too low, so keep them face level or higher.
Hardest : Ringlocks
Fissures that are slightly small for a ratchet should fit a ringlock well. Place your pointer and middle fingers on the top portion of your thumb and insert that into the crack, pinky up and elbow out. Bring your elbow down and in, which will cam your fingers in place. Similar to the ratchet, these need to be at your face or higher to be effective. Good idea: Tape your fingers or your whole hand because these can be quite painful.
Feet
Easy: Face Holds
Look for bumps, edges, or dishes on the face outside the crack. Scout for them at all times, as they are the easiest to use. It’s like sport climbing, so remember your fancy footwork: step-throughs, back-stepping, etc. Finger-crack master Jean-Pierre Ouellet says, “The tiniest bumps will be good enough to get to the next jam.”
Hard: Toe Jams
This is the same idea as foot jamming in a hand crack: With your knee sticking out to the side, raise your foot almost level with the knee you’re standing on, stick as much of your toes/foot in the crack as you can. Then cam your toes in by bringing your leg back in line with your body. You’ll probably only get the tip of your toe in, so really twisting and trusting will help it. Don’t keep your feet too low, which will make it difficult to make the next move.
Hardest: Crack Smears
Point your foot straight at the crack, so your big toe lines up with the middle of the fissure. Bend your toes upward. You’re essentially smearing on the edges of the crack. Any flared spots or irregularities in the crack will make the best footholds. Soft, sensitive shoes that fit tightly are best, like thin-toed slippers.
Fine-tune Your crack technique
With Jean-Pierre “Peewee” Ouellet
>>Everyone’s hand, finger, and foot sizes are different. A perfect ringlock for you might be a fingerlock for someone else. Single pitches might require any or all of these techniques, so be open to trying each of them to find a Goldilocks fit.
>>Don’t place gear above your head; place it by your waist. It will be easier to clip, and it won’t take up valuable real estate where your fingers might need to go.
>>Relax those hands. Don’t over-grip. The jams won’t be as painful, and you won’t get as pumped.
>>Jamming thumb-down all the time is a rookie mistake. Sometimes thumb-up will give you that extra reach you need to get to the next jam.
>>Shuffling your hands, where one stays lower than the other, might be easier than alternating the high hand. This works well when you keep the lower hand thumb-up around chest level and the higher hand thumb-down.
>>Don’t be afraid to “cheat” by pushing your thumb against the edge of the crack, which will secure a rattly jam.
>>Keep your elbows in toward your rib cage at all times, no matter what type of finger jam you’re trying to do.
>>On straight-in cracks, try to oppose hands and feet in your movement sequence. This means that if you lead with your left hand, you need to lead with your right foot.
>>If the crack leans left, lead with your left hand (thumb-down) and follow with the right hand (thumb-up). Vice versa for a right-leaning crack.Kabang has one of the more gruesome dog faces you'll ever see.
The canine, a native of Zamboanga City in the Philippines, has only half a snout. Her tongue lolls impossibly out of her skull. Watching her attempt to eat a mound of rice is heartbreaking.
But, according to Manila's GMA News, donors from around the world have pitched in enough cash ($20,000) to fly Kabang to the states for reconstructive facial surgery.
The center where she'll be treated, the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at University of California - Davis, is adept at cutting-edge dog jaw replacement. An American dog whose jaw was recently replaced by the center appears to be strutting around as if nothing ever happened.
As the Philippine Inquirer explains, Kabang is something of a hero. The top half of her snout was ripped off by the wheels of a motorbike, which she reportedly intercepted to save two young girls.
Just another inspiring tale of an uninsured street dog from the Philippines receiving expensive, state-of-the-art health care in America.About
The ability to rapidly recognize and respond to both global and local health threats remains a critical public health priority. The ever-growing digital world represents an unprecedented opportunity to harvest for new solutions and tools to face these emergencies. This digital means of disease detection has been made possible by the growing influence of Internet technology, which has significantly changed the landscape of public health surveillance and epidemic intelligence gathering.
Disease and outbreak data is now disseminated not only through formal online announcements by government agencies, but also through other informal digital channels such as social networking sites, blogs, chat rooms, Web searches, local news media, crowdsourcing platforms.
These informal data streams have been credited with decreasing the time between an outbreak and formal recognition of an outbreak, allowing for an expedited response to the public health threat.
The very recent addition of data from smart wearable body sensors for health self-assessment allows also to collect health-related data from the general public on a broader perspective not necessarily disease-related.Biggest brewery in Czech Republic shares its heritage with the world
hello
Workers in the cellar of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery pour visitors a glass of unfiltered and unpasteurized beer right from the barrel. Courtesy of Katherine Rodeghier
Copper brew kettles in the Pilsner Urquell Brewery are now just for show. More modern brew kettles are used today, but the recipe and ingredients go back to the 19th century. Courtesy of Katherine Rodeghier
The Pilsner Urquell Brewery in Pilsen makes almost all of the signature brew shipped to 50 countries. It also makes the Czech Republic's top selling beer, Gambrinus. Courtesy of Katherine Rodeghier
What a sad day it must have been for beer lovers in Bohemia. A crowd watched 36 barrels of beer -- bad beer -- ceremoniously dumped in the street outside the Town Hall.
From this low point in 1838, brewers in Pilsen rallied, upped their brewery game and gave their town's name to a new kind of brew now enjoyed across the globe.
The first batch of pilsner, the model for what more than two-thirds of the world calls beer, came from this town 50 miles southwest of Prague. Beer lovers make pilgrimages here to tour the Czech Republic's largest brewery, Pilsner Urquell, where they descend into damp cellars to drink unfiltered, unpasteurized lager straight from the barrel. At Pilsen's Brewery Museum they fill up on the history of beer making. Some even venture to the suburbs for a full-body experience, soaking in a beer bath at a beer spa.
Digging into the roots of brew
The story of beer in Pilsen -- Plzen in Czech -- goes back to its founding in 1295 by King Wenceslaus II who granted 260 citizens the right to brew beer in their homes. When a batch finished, a bell summoned townspeople to drink. Quality varied wildly. Medieval brewers had odd notions about what makes good beer. Some added duck excrement to the brew, others the bones of executed criminals.
Such bits of trivia await visitors to Pilsen's Brewery Museum housed in a 15th-century brewing house nestled against remnants of the city's medieval ramparts. Hops and barley grow in a garden. Inside, exhibits tell the story of beer starting in 4000 B.C. Mesopotamia, show the brewing process in medieval times and take visitors past a re-creation of an 18th-century pub where angst-ridden novelist Franz Kafka would one day stare glumly into a mug.
Hops grow in a small garden outside Pilsen's Brewery Museum built along the ruins of the Czech Republic town's medieval ramparts. - Courtesy of Katherine Rodeghier
The museum also recalls the 1838 incident when Pilsen's town councilors determined much of the local brew posed a health risk and tossed it. A group of brewers pooled resources to build a commercial brewery and hired well-known Bavarian brew master Josef Groll. His first batch came out in October 1842, a light, bottom-fermented lager that came to be known as pilsner, a style of beer that today accounts for 70 percent of all consumed on earth.
In the museum's cozy 1930s-style Na Parkanu Taproom patrons wash down traditional Czech fare with a rare glass of cloudy, unfiltered Pilsner Urquell or the finished clear amber draft.
Soaking up beer
They also find the beers on tap at the biggest beer hall in Bohemia, the 550-capacity Na Spilce on the grounds of the Pilsner Urquell brewery nearby.
The modern brewery uses the same recipes and ingredients as Pilsen's 1842 incarnation, but has grown to slake the thirsts of beer lovers in 50 countries. With the exception of its brewery in Russia serving the local market, all Pilsner Urquell distributed around the world comes from this brewery complex 15 minutes from Pilsen's city center. The brewery makes four other brands, including Gambrinus, top seller in the Czech Republic.
Visitors board a tour bus to travel between buildings in the Pilsner Urquell Brewery, the largest brewery in the Czech Republic. - Courtesy of Katherine Rodeghier
Tours begin in the visitor center where the story of the first pilsner unfolds. In the courtyard a circa 1900 railcar that made regular beer runs to Vienna stands permanently parked near a horse-drawn wagon that, for the sake of tradition, still delivers beer to Pilsen pubs.
Twelve copper kettles gleam in the brew house where a film explains the process of triple mashing -- most beers are mashed once or twice -- and lagering, aging the beer for 30 days. After a look at the original 1842 brew kettle, buried to keep from enemy hands during World War I and II, visitors head down to the brewery's 5.6 miles of cellars. In temperatures hovering at 39 degrees, oak barrels made by Pilsner Urquell's own coopers hold lager that has yet to be filtered and pasteurized. Spigots turn and anyone of legal age gets a taste.
Guests at the Purkmistr spa outside Pilsen, Czech Republic, can bathe in beer in a wooden tub while drinking from a keg alongside. - Courtesy of Katherine Rodeghier
Twenty minutes outside Pilsen, guests immerse themselves in beer at Purkmistr, a rural farmhouse containing a microbrewery, rustic restaurant, 32-room hotel, bowling alley and spa. In addition to facilities for traditional body treatments, the spa has one double and four single wooden bathtubs for soaking. Its classic beer bath consists of the brewery's own beer combined with wort, yeast and other ingredients. A keg stands within reach for those who want to imbibe while they bathe.
• • •
Pilsen, Czech Republic
Pilsen Tourism: pilsen.eu/en/tourist/
Czech Tourism: czechtourism.com/home/
Pilsner Urquell Brewery tours and Pilsen's Brewery Museum: prazdrojvisit.cz/en/
Purkmistr beer spa, hotel and brewery: purkmistr.cz/en_index.php
• Information for this article was gathered on a research trip sponsored by Czech Tourism.With an eye on the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Japan Sumo Association, in coordination with a government initiative, is taking steps to make this ancient sport more accessible to foreign visitors and the disabled.
At a recent event in Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan sumo venue featuring wrestlers from the elite makuuchi division, many of the rituals and details of matches were explained in English through simultaneous interpretation.
Information about sumo wrestlers was also provided, along with other trivia about the activity — a service not usually offered to Japanese spectators — and there are plans to make simultaneous interpretation available in other languages in the future.
“It is my first time to watch sumo wrestling and I feel so special and excited,” a 23-year-old German woman who gave her name as Mona said, adding that she got a glimpse into Japan’s traditional culture as well.
Lin Chin-yeh, 27, a graduate student in Tokyo from Taiwan, attended the event with a friend after obtaining the information from his university.
“Now we know more about sumo and its rules,” Lin said.
Michio Kawasaki, 67, who had stopped attending live sumo after losing his sight and hearing decades ago, was glad to attend the event, which was tailored exclusively for nearly 2,300 foreign and disabled guests. He is a director at a Tokyo group for people with hearing and visual impairments.
The JSA, which is taking measures to create a barrier-free environment for people with disabilities, handed out brochures in Braille and had sign language interpreters on hand to explain the proceedings. Monitors with Japanese subtitles were also set up.
Wrestlers performed the ritualized dohyo-iri ring entering ceremony before staging exhibition matches. A hairdresser who molds and shapes wrestlers’ trademark topknots even showed off his techniques.
The event was conducted as a trial research project for the government’s policy for promoting Japanese culture in the buildup to the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Although Kawasaki was unable to see the tournament, two interpreters at his side allowed him to follow the action by, for instance, giving him a tap to signify that a wrestler had beaten his opponent by throwing him down.
When a bout came to a standstill with both wrestlers gripping each other’s belts and neither giving an inch, an interpreter would grab Kawasaki’s belt.
“I haven’t been here for a long time. … I really had a great time today,” Kawasaki said through an interpreter.
“We believe that experiencing sumo up close and understanding the sport will build momentum through culture toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics,” said JSA Chairman Hakkaku.
During the event, grand champions Harumafuji and Kakuryu performed a rarely seen sandan-gamae three-level ceremonial pose, representing a strong spirit, attack and defense — the first time the traditional sumo formation has been performed in 21 years. The ritual is only carried out on special occasions.
“We want to let people around the world know about Japan’s culture and see how we cherish history and tradition,” said Harumafuji.
Kakuryu said: “With the attention turned to Japan because of the Tokyo Olympics, we want people to watch sumo, and by all means, we want to do our utmost in this effort.”This isn’t as much of a review as it is a “state of the game”. I’ll divide the post up into bugs I’ve encountered that annoy me and enhancements I’d like to see.
BUGS
I’ve encountered a few that are still hanging around even as of 1.13. One in particular has had me nearly throwing my controller at the TV in frustration …
Bases – Rooms “Wandering”: It’s most noticeable in Freighter bases. When you build a room using multiple “cuboid” rooms, they can, over time it seems, drift in position so much that gaps appear in the walls and floors, and even drift so far as to make new internal walls appear where there shouldn’t be any. This “drift” exists for things within the room (or attached to the walls) and can make things like Galactic Trade Terminals or Containers impossible to reach to even delete and rebuild.
There’s a “Math Bug” in the Galactic Map, where the linear distance between you and another system that’s directly between you and the Galactic Center (one of the goals to get to) only gets you 1/4 of that distance closer to the Center. In other words, if I pick a system that’s directly between my current system and the Galactic Center and it’s 1600 Light Years away from me, it only gets me 400 Light Years closer to the Center. That math needs work. It becomes somewhat obvious that a figure was changed somewhere to make take longer to get to the Center, but that figure doesn’t seem to apply to everywhere it should.
While it’s a lot better in 1.13, there was a bug with freighter/container inventories where attempts to move something out of a container/freighter inventory for a “new” freighter would cause Exosuit technology to move to the ship inventory – and it still exists (it’s rarer, but it’s there). Currently it’s safest when claiming a new freighter to allow the save to occur immediately after purchase, but then close the game completely and restart.
Subject to monetary abuse, there’s a duplication bug with Galactic Trade Terminals, which supposedly require 500 Emril, 6 Voltaic Cells, and 10 Circuit Boards (and 1 CB requiring 1 Copper Wire and 1 Non-Ferrous Plate). If you have 1 CW and 1 NFP in your ship inventory (along with 500 Emril and 6 VCs), and no other CBs anywhere else, you’ll be able to build a GTT – which you can then disassemble and have 10 CBs (as well as the 6 VCs and 500 Emril). Store the CBs in a container, build a new GTT with 1 CW and 1 NFP, and you can sell the other 10 CBs for a hefty profit.
“Falling Out Of Your Ship”: Blurring the line between bug and enhancement, some ships have the tendency to drop you from just high enough to take damage when you exit, even if you’ve managed to park on the peak of the slightest hill. You’re ejected from your ship rather forcefully when you land; I think you should have some way to take a look at the what’s below your ship before you’re unceremoniously dropped out of it, either by not being ejected right away, or always starting on top of your ship, so that you can peer off of it and ready yourself for the need to jetpack to the ground, no matter how far down it might be.
ENHANCEMENTS
Some of these enhancements are seemingly minor things, but even those “minor” things I think are desperately needed. There are often complaints about how the “slots” in a ship don’t bear resemblance to the size of the ship; that’s not a big deal to me, but I understand the desire for at least some physics to apply. There are also rumors that ground vehicles are on the way; I don’t so much need them, but I would like:
Ship building: Both with the ships you fly and freighters, I’d like the option to change the look a little without having to track down a whole new ship. I don’t need a new chassis; just a slightly different nose and a fin on the back. Or maybe a color change.
Ship buying: It’s bugged me for a while that there are two ways to get a new ship: find it crashed or buy it. Finding it crashed is an experience in random number generation, which brings about its own frustrations – you are either stuck with whatever that ship looks like, or you just move on. But buying a ship has issues; I always feel like the pricing of the new ship does not appropriately reflect my trade in. That could use adjustment.
Freighter “Flying”: Right now you can call your freighter to you from where ever it last was. I kind of understand the idea and mechanics; you should always have access to your freighter, but then you shouldn’t be able to abuse its ability to pretty much go anywhere for your own travel. Still, right now they’re just big bases/warehouses in space that you can magically make appear at no cost to you, even if you’ve traveled through a Black Hole (which should really be called Worm Hole, but that’s nitpicky). I’m not sure exactly how or what, but there probably should be a little more to Freighters than there is now.
Base building: I would like the option to move certain key portions of the base, such as the Terminus. Every base starts as a room on the ground; I would like the ability to move the Terminus to another room (or make it something that you have to construct) and get rid of the basic room or change it with something else. Especially since I’ve started doing the “floating base” thing.
Base building: I would like the option to move certain key portions of the base, such as the Terminus. Every base starts as a room on the ground; I would like the ability to move the Terminus to another room (or make it something that you have to construct) and get rid of the basic room or change it with something else. Especially since I’ve started doing the “floating base” thing. More “missions”: Bases and Specialists brought more to do for me other than just flying to the center. Farming is getting me the money I need to buy bigger freighters (but then, I like the way my current one works and would love to be able to just buy the additional slots like I did for my Exosuit). And, there’s a hint of the ability to add missions since you can defend a freighter from attack and land on it for a reward.
Better maps and navigation: If I find a waypoint of some sort, such as a Shelter or Outpost, I should be able to highlight it somehow in order to fly back to it while on a planet. Ditto for systems in the Galactic Map; if I’ve been there, I should be able to highlight it and have a path show up between me and that point. More frustrating to this point is that the list of waypoints for a given planet only show you the six most recent ones, and there’s no way to scroll that list to older waypoints.
Related to that, on the Galactic Map, paths that show up (for next “Atlas Interface” or “path to the center”) shouldn’t be “lowest common denominator” paths. They assume that I don’t have any warp drive upgrades. When I do have upgrades, the pathing should use both the distance I can travel and the type of stars I can travel to in the calculation of the path from where I’m at to where I want to go.
Constructing items in your inventory needs an overhaul. It’s not “horribly” broken except in the manner that it’s difficult to page between potential recipes; where it requires cursor movement and a button press could be mapped to other buttons to navigate more quickly. However, the inventory management system overall could use a hefty overhaul, which might make the item construction easier to manage.
Dark Isn’t Dark Enough: At night with no other celestial body in the sky, you can still make your way around the planet without a light (even though you have one you can turn on). I understand sometimes that the nebulae in the sky or even some of the plants or crystals nearby can give off significant light, but I think the game would be significantly enhanced if nighttime or other situations actually required a flashlight or headlights from your ship. I should have trouble seeing things at night.
SUMMARY
Overall I still find it a fun, relaxing game; while I sometimes only land on one planet in a system before moving on, I do occasionally find reason to hang out on the planet for a while. I’m slowly farming my way via my Coryzagen and Mordite farm on the Heisenberg III to 150M units or so, so that I can buy my way through three more freighters to get more inventory slots there … or buy a nice blue, dome canopied fighter with a fin on the back to replace Blueberry Dream. I like it when pirates show up, and even like finding the occasional aggressive sentinel planet to hang out on to collect the materials to sell. And starting all over again but in SURVIVAL mode has been exciting (and does require the occasional “reload from previous save”).
But, the game has a few bugs, and could use some enhancement.With just three weeks left of school, everybody in Room 205 lines up. They march downstairs to a basement computer lab to take the highest stakes test of the year, in a pale yellow, cinderblock room. The kids’ scores will help determine Ms. Hathorne’s rating as a teacher and Penn’s rating as a school. Nearly all the kids are carrying their class planners, which have a whole reference section inside, with multiplication tables, shapes, money and decimals. Ms. Hathorne had instructed the kids to bring them, which is weird, since no reference materials are allowed during testing. When I wandered back, testing was wrapping up and Ms. Hathorne asks me to wait. As they were lining up to go, planners in hand, little Kelsey came up to me quietly and whispered right into my microphone: “They don’t like you.” These things I saw — teachers looking at the test ahead of time, kids using reference materials during a test — they’re wrong. Of course they’re wrong. They’re also the only things I’ve said in this story that would ever make a news headline. You can probably imagine that news story, too. The principal on the hot seat. The teacher. All the fingers pointed.
But now, imagine all the things I’ve told you about that would never get a headline.
That would never get attention. All you wouldn’t know about Penn. You wouldn’t know that the fourth graders learned the word ripe from a dictionary. You wouldn’t know about the killing of Chelsee’s cousin or about Kelsey missing breakfast and lunch. That’s not news. You wouldn’t learn that no one in Room 205 gets time with a social worker. A week after Room 205’s big test I ran into Ms. Hathorne in the hallway. She brought up what I had seen with the class planners, saying she had struggled over what was right. “I’m sorry I did [it]. It didn’t help the scores,” she says. “My kids have always achieved. This is the first time that I’ve ever put myself in a situation like this, so that makes people wonder, ‘Has she been credible for the last 20 years?’ “I know Penn is so close to being closed,” she continues. “And I think I let my emotions get in my way... So much is dependent on achievement, in terms of whether your school doors stay open, whether people maintain jobs...There’s so many things in a school like this that should be in place, in terms of helping children to be successful.” I tell Ms. Hathorne that is the whole point of me being here — to see what Penn is up against.
“Don’t nobody care,” she says. "That's the bottom line, Ms. Linda. Nobody cares."
Maybe you’re thinking that the whole problem here is not poverty. It’s Penn. Maybe you’re thinking that a good school could overcome all this. Just down 16th Street is a charter high school. Many Penn students come here after eighth grade.
The halls of North Lawndale College Prep
(AP Photo/Paul Beaty)Apple officially has purchased audio equipment and service company Beats for $3.2 billion. As part of the deal, streaming service Beats Music would also join the company's iTunes division. Both services were competitors until now, but it would be interesting to see if Apple is going to merge them together.
The piece of news comes hours after initial reports surfaced that the deal would happen in the coming days.
The deal is confirmed by one of the founders of the company Dr. Dre and actor Tyrese Gibson, who announced the news on actor's Instagram page. By far, this is Apple's largest acquisition recently and the company is hoping it will help its iTunes service regain ground.
According to a report by Nielsen SoundScan album and individual track sales were down 13% and 11%, respectively, so there's certainly room for improvement.
Interestingly, the deal makes rapper Dr. Dre the first billionaire hip-hop artist.
Source | ViaCurious about Dell’s ever-expanding range of Linux pre-loaded laptops?
So was popular Linux personality Bryan Lunduke, who recently took an hour out to talk to Dell’s Senior Architect in the office of CTO — try saying that with a mouthful of doughnut — Barton George.
What did he learn?
Well, for one, Dell says it has ‘no plans’ to start shipping its Linux-powered developer laptops with anything other than Ubuntu.
Speaking to Bryan Lunduke, Barton George says the company is going to keep its ‘resources focused on Ubuntu’ when it comes to their developer laptop range.
Dell also sell a range of servers certified for Ubuntu, as well as other Linux distributions, including SUSE, RHEL, Oracle Linux.
But when it comes to their lucrative Linux laptop lineup, which has grown from a single notebook to span a wide range of top-tier workstations, there appears to be no desire to switch away from what’s proving a successful and, it turns out, very lucrative, combination.
Dell Has Sold ‘Tens of Millions’ of Dollars’ Worth of Linux Laptops
(tweet this)
“We have no plans in the foreseeable future to ship other distros [than Ubuntu] on our hardware,” Barton George told Lunduke when the host asked if such plans are on the table. Barton reasons that ‘to try and spread our [small team] across more distros would do more harm than it would good.’
But that doesn’t mean that Dell’s developer laptops, don’t play nice with other Linux distributions.
As long as the company ‘continues to be good community members and [push] our fixes and driver upstream’, Barton says, other distributions should be able to run without major issue.
‘We’ve Sold Tens of Millions of Dollars’ Worth of Ubuntu Laptops’
A wider set of devices are to follow the recently announced Dell Precision 3520 Ubuntu laptop,
“We’ve got the [Dell Precision] 3520, which is a more economic version of the 5520, and then you’ve got the two big ones coming up: we’ve got the 7720 and 7520 and those are really über-powerful. We’re also introducing an all-in-one desktop, the Dell Precision 5720.”
You may be wondering why we’re now seeing so many Ubuntu laptops and PCs being sold direct from Dell. The answer is simple: because they sell.
How well they sell is a little less clear. Although Lunduke pressed, Barton George wouldn’t put an exact figure on how many Linux laptops Dell has sold to date, but he did offer an insight: “All PR will let me say is that from an initial investment of $40,000 it has returned, over the four years, tens of millions [of dollars]. That’s as specific as I can get.”
Dell is succeeding with this. Where do you go from here?
“Linux as an OS is here to stay — that’s a no-brainer — the part that i’ve been focusing on is the higher end, targeted at developers. I want to see it grow,” Barton says.
“This has always been targeted at, what Dell would consider, a niche market, but one that I’ve I’ve always argued is extremely influential.”
But if you’re hoping to see Dell’s Linux developer laptops being sold in regular stores, don’t. Barton says there may have been a time where it was on the cards, but that it’s passed.
See the Dell Developer Lineup
Thanks Stephen C.
Headline amended on Jan 19 to better clarify that figures pertain solely to the Project Sputnik laptopsBiggest workers’ struggle for many years
Poland’s coal mining sector was shaken by 2 major strike actions in less than a month. Two out of the three biggest mining companies, representing a workforce of around 80 000 out of 100 000 working in underground coal mines, have been hit by strikes. A dynamic strike in Kompania Węglowa lasted for 10 days (7-17 january), and the strike in Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa, a major European coke producer, is ongoing. Black coal accounts for over 50% of energy produced in Poland. The sector itself is mostly based in the Upper Silesia region. Miners constitute a mass, concentrated section of workers with a strategic position in the economy’s functioning, which could give the lead to the struggles of the rest of working class.
On 28 of January, an unlimitated strike started in Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW), a company that employs about 26 000 miners in 4 mines. The coal extraction completely stopped. The spark that lit the fire was the disciplinary firing of 9 union members from the Budryk mine due to their earlier solidarity protest with the miners’ strikes in Kompania Weglowa. This attack on trade union rights was launched during the strike ballot, with the purpose of intimidating the staff, but it only increased their determination. As a result, over 98% of miners voted for the strike, and even decided to bring it forward.
In early January, the board of JSW spoke of a collective agreement, wich would allow them to freeze the miners’ pensions and to cut part of their conditions. The miners demanded the withdrawal of this plan and the reversal of the dismissal of the trade unionists. They also demanded the dismissal of the board of JSW, the same conditions for the workers in all the the mines (the workers of some mines currently have lower salaries) as well as the liquidation of the subsidiary company JSW Szkolenie i Górnictwo (which is in practice a temporary employment agency) and the direct employment of all workers by JSW with no intermediary.
Union members comment that the mood is combative, the miners raise their demands for an escalation of protests and occupation of workplaces. The board of JSW first described the strike as illegal and threatened more dismissals. However, already on Friday 30 January, under the pressure of the determination of miners, they started to retreat and promised to reverse the decision to dismiss trade unionists.
JSW is 55% owned by the state, and the rest is in the hands of private shareholders. After this partial privatisation, the income of the President of the company increased by 400 %.
Strike in Kompania Węglowa - a rotten compromise
This is already the second longest miners’ protest this year. On 7 January, Polish prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz, announced a plan of ‘reform’ of Kompania Węglowa, a mining company that employs about 50 000 people, the biggest in Poland. The plan advocated the liquidation of 4 mines, the sale of one to another company and the creation of a new company for the 9 others. That meant the sacking of about 5 000 workers and the transfer of 6,000 more to other mines. The new company would have to work ‘on the market principles’, that is, with the withdrawal of much of the salary subsidies, the introduction of a 6-day working week and other attacks on workers’ rights.
On the same day in the Brzeszcze mine, one of those to be liquidated, a rally was held where the workers decided to launch a protest. Over a hundred miners did not return to the surface, and were joined by more afterwards. The strike spread on the next day to all the 14 mines of Kompania Węglowa, and more than 2,000 miners took part in the underground protests.
Protests were held on the surface as well. The coal processing workers and administative employees (mainly women) started to occupy their workplaces. Women working in the mining industry played an exceptionally active role in the organization of support rallies and blockading of roads. From 8 January, rallies and road blocades in towns where the mines are threatened were held almost every day. In Brzeszcze (a town of only around 11,000 inhabitants) up to 3,000 attended the protests. In other mining towns 10,000 demonstrated. The inhabitants of the region realized that the closing of mines means massive unemployment and impoverishment. This strike showed a solidarity among miners, other mining workers and local society which had not been seen for years.
Alternatywa Socjalistyczna (CWI in Poland) calls on everyone to support the miners’ strike. Together with other left and feminist organisations and the trade union, Inicjatywa Pracownicza, we joined the solidarity pickets on 14 Januray in Warsaw. We have also produced leaflets which were distributed in work places in different Polish cities with the following demands:
• No to the government’s plan of ‘reforms’ in the mining sector
• Preparation of a regional general strike and building of support for a general strike in the whole country
• Nationalisation of the mines, and the system of coal and energy distribution under workers control
• Audit of the debt of mines, and the profits of energy companies. For democratic control over energy prices
• Democratic and sustainable economic planning, intensification of research in clean combustion technologies and coal gasification. For a socialist plan of production allowing sustainable strategies to increase renewable energy sources and reduce emissions of CO2, while maintaining the strategic role of national coal
Many workers throughout the country understood the strategic meaning of this battle and showed solidarity with the miners. The unions of chemistry and energy workers and nurses expressed their support for the strike, and the railworkers participated in the demonstation and helped the blockading of tracks on |
Analysis Unit." She and her husband, Chris, have been the guardians of Kate's teenage niece, Meg, since Meg was a baby following her parents' deaths in the September 11, 2001, attacks. Kate and Chris discover they are expecting a baby in the middle of season 10, coinciding with the actress's real-life pregnancy. At the end of season 10 she decides to take a year off and raise her baby.[34] As of season 13, she has not returned, but producer Erica Messer has stated the door was open should Hewitt choose to return to the show.
Dr. Tara Lewis (Aisha Tyler), forensic psychologist and supervisory special agent (seasons 12–present; recurring season 11)
Lewis is a psychologist with an eye on forensic psychology and its application toward the criminal-justice system. Her dream was to study psychopaths up close and personal—and her psychology background, combined with her experience in the FBI, brought her face to face with monsters. Her job was to stare them down and interview them, to determine if they were fit to stand trial. In the process, she made herself find the humanity inside these broken men (and, sometimes, women) in order to learn if there was a conscience behind their brutal crimes. Lewis replaced both JJ (A.J. Cook) and Kate (Jennifer Love Hewitt) while they were on maternity leave in the 11th season.
Luke Alvez (Adam Rodriguez), fugitive task force agent and supervisory special agent (seasons 12–present)
Alvez is a member of the FBI fugitive task force that partners with the BAU to catch the serial killers that escaped in the season 11 finale.[20] In the season 12 premiere, he works with the BAU to catch the "Crimson King", one of the escapees that attacked Alvez's old partner. The team discovers the real killer is "Mr. Scratch", who taunts the team by turning over the real "Crimson King", who was tortured to the point he no longer remembers who he was. After that, Alvez decides to join the BAU full time and was Hotch's last hire. Alvez has a Belgian Tervuren dog named Roxy (whom Garcia thought at first was his human girlfriend) and served in Iraq as an Army Ranger prior to joining the FBI.
Walker is a supervisory special agent with the BAU. Walker was a member of the Behavioral Analysis Program. He was contacted by Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) about joining the BAU to assist in the manhunt for Peter Lewis, a k a "Mr. Scratch." Walker is an experienced profiler with about 20 years under his belt and a member of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Program before his transfer to the BAU. He is married to a woman named Monica and has two children with her, Maya and Eli. He met Emily Prentiss, then the chief of Interpol's London office, during his line of work. He was also mentored by David Rossi (Joe Mantegna). Stephen's first case concerned a terrorist cell in Belgium, and three agents were sent undercover to infiltrate it. However, Stephen's profile was wrong, and this resulted in the deaths of the undercover agents. He eventually moved on from the trauma and improved as he went along in his career. He and other BAP agents, including his longtime friend Sam Bower, were sent undercover to investigate corruption in the Russian government. Walker's skills include being fluent in Russian and playing the trombone. In the season 13 premiere, it is revealed he had died in the car crash Mr. Scratch had arranged as a trap for the team at the end of season 12.
Simmons is a special operations agent and formerly worked with the IRT. Simmons has a wife, Kristy, (Kelly Frye) and has a total of four children, including two boys (Jake and David) and twin daughters, all of them under the age of 3. He was a former member of a special ops unit, and his experience with the unit allowed him to hone his profiling skills.
Recurring characters [ edit ]
Erin Strauss (portrayed by Jayne Atkinson; seasons 2–3, 5–9; 23 episodes), an assistant director and the BAU Unit Chief's direct superior. While her FBI experience was primarily in administration, SSA Derek Morgan remarked on her masterly marksmanship, after observing her at a firing range. In early episodes, Strauss appeared only concerned with herself and appearances within the Bureau, going so far as to force SSA Jennifer Jareau to accept a promotion to the Pentagon in the episode "JJ" (season 6). Further character development revealed her alcohol abuse. After being confronted by Morgan and Hotchner, Strauss accepts help and achieves sobriety. In the season 8 finale, the Replicator breaks into Strauss's hotel room in New York, drugs her, and forces her—at gunpoint—to drink alcohol from her room's minibar. Hotchner finds her on a bench near the hotel, where Strauss dies in his arms. Her death is avenged when Rossi traps the Replicator in an exploding house. Fittingly, Strauss's sobriety helps defeat the Replicator as Rossi uses her sobriety chip to escape the Replicator's trap and taunts him with it. After attending her funeral, the members of the BAU gather in a still-emotional Rossi's backyard, reminisce, and toast her memory. Showrunner Erica Messer chose to kill Strauss off because she felt that the character had come full circle since she was first introduced. [36]
Haley Hotchner (portrayed by Meredith Monroe; seasons 1–3, 5, 9; 14 episodes) is Agent Aaron Hotchner's wife and the mother of his only son, Jack Hotchner, born in late 2005. The couple's marriage was troubled, as clues were revealed in season 3 that she may have been having an affair and walked out on him. She later appeared with divorce papers, and he accepted reluctantly so as not to cause any trouble for his son with the divorce. In the episode "100" (season 5), Haley and Jack were captured by a killer known as "The Reaper"; though Jack was saved, Haley was shot and died before Aaron could save her. Aaron later beat The Reaper to death. In the episode "Route 66", Hotch collapses from internal bleeding and dreams about Haley. She tells him that he should stop blaming himself for her death and to make sure Jack knows that he can talk about his mother's death. Haley leaves Hotch by telling him that he and Beth have a good relationship and he shouldn't mess it up by not telling her how he feels.
Jessica Brooks (portrayed by Molly Baker; seasons 1, 3, 5, 9–11), is Agent Aaron Hotchner's sister-in-law, Jack's aunt, and Haley's sister.
Jordan Todd (portrayed by Meta Golding; season 4; 8 episodes) is SSA Jennifer Jareau's handpicked replacement to serve as the BAU's media director during Jennifer's maternity leave, from late 2008 through early 2009. Jordan had formerly served in the FBI counterterrorism division, but follows Jennifer for only day of shadowing before Jennifer goes into labor. Jordan seemed to get along well with most of the team, even flirting platonically with SSA Derek Morgan. She is especially close with SSA David Rossi, who is seen to counsel her while they are on cases. However, Jordan has clashed several times with Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner. She eventually leaves when she decides she can't handle the stress that comes with her job.
Diana Reid (portrayed by Jane Lynch; seasons 1–2, 4, 12; 8 episodes) is the mother of BAU team member Dr. Spencer Reid. Like her son, she has a high IQ. She was once a university professor of literature, but suffers from schizophrenia and is hospitalized in a Las Vegas sanitarium, where Spencer committed her when he was 18. Her husband, William Reid, left prior to her diagnosis, because of his inability to cope with her illness, and he could not deal with protecting her after she witnessed a murder. She is functional when on her medication, but frequently lapses into regression to her university career. Diana spent much time reading aloud to Spencer while he was growing up, and he continues to write her a letter every day. She is proud of her son but disapproves of the FBI, as it is a government-run organization; she refers to his colleagues as "fascists." She seems to be showing signs of improvement in later episodes, when Reid states that she went on a supervised field trip to the Grand Canyon without feeling the need to notify Reid. However, she did not forget him, as Reid later receives a postcard and a gift from her.
William LaMontagne Jr. (portrayed by Josh Stewart; season 2–5, 7–9, 11–present) is SSA Jennifer Jareau's husband and the father of Jennifer's sons, Henry and Michael. Will and Jennifer met while she was working a case in his hometown. As of early season 4, Will had moved to Virginia and is a stay-at-home dad for Henry until he became a detective for the Metropolitan Police Department (Washington D.C.) as shown in the season 7 finale ("Run"). It is also stated that the couple had made a deal that in a life-threatening situation, they would do everything so that one of them could live to look after Henry. Jennifer accepted his marriage proposal and they were married officially; however, when their son was born, they exchanged rings with insets of Henry's birthstone, citrine. He is seen briefly in the 100th episode getting medicine for Henry with Jennifer, as well as the episode "The Slave of Duty" (season 5), accompanying Jennifer and the team at Haley Hotchner's funeral. In the season 7 finale, Will works alongside JJ to stop the bank robbers and is eventually taken hostage. Afterward, they agree to get married and unknowingly attend a surprise wedding ceremony thrown by Rossi and Will.
Kevin Lynch (portrayed by Nicholas Brendon; season 3–10) first appears in the episode "Penelope" (season 3), in which he is required to search Penelope Garcia's computer to learn who shot her. Kevin sends the team live video alerting that the unsub (unknown subject) is in the BAU headquarters. He is intensely impressed by Penelope's computer skills, and the feeling is mutual. At the end of the episode, Penelope is introduced to Kevin, and the two become romantically involved. In the episode "I Love You, Tommy Brown" (season 7), Kevin proposes to Penelope, but she turns him down, saying that "things are going too fast", and ultimately the couple break up.
Mateo Cruz (portrayed by Esai Morales; season 9–10) takes over from the late Erin Strauss as the new BAU section chief in season 9. He has a past working relationship with JJ. It was revealed in "200" that the two had worked on a task force together in the Middle East. He was the only person to know of her pregnancy and miscarriage during her time on the task force. In the same episode, they are both kidnapped by Tivon Askari (Faran Tahir), who was a traitor within the task force. They are both physically and mentally tortured into giving the access codes given to them during the mission. He is shocked to discover that Michael Hastings (Tahmoh Penikett), one of the men with whom they had worked on the task force, was the mastermind behind the plan and threatened to rape JJ to give him the access codes. He gives in and is later stabbed by Askari, who is quickly killed by Hotch. Cruz is taken to the hospital following the incident and is believed to be alive. [37] Several episodes later, he reappears in the season 9 finale, "Angels" and "Demons", when he asks the team to investigate a case brought to him by his friend Peter Coleman, the sheriff of Briscoe County, Texas. They first arrive to investigate a series of murders involving prostitutes, but as they investigate, the team soon finds that they are caught in a ring of corrupt deputies—ironically the only officer not involved being Sheriff Coleman—and find their lives in danger. After a fatal shootout with the corrupt, drug-peddling Preacher Mills (Brett Cullen), Sheriff Coleman is killed, Morgan is wounded, and Reid is critically wounded and hospitalized as a result. Distraught by this turn of events, Cruz travels to Texas with Garcia to help the team investigate and apprehend the ring leader, Deputy Owen McGregor (Michael Trucco). He is not seen again until late in season 10 (episode 19, "Beyond Borders") when he needs the BAU to help the FBI's international team, led by Jack Garrett (Gary Sinise), to catch an unsub who has kidnapped a family while on vacation in Barbados. The case is especially critical because this unsub has eluded both the domestic and international BAU teams by killing a family in Aruba, then in Florida one year later. This episode was the backdoor pilot for the upcoming spinoff, titled Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. [38] [39]
Several episodes later, he reappears in the season 9 finale, "Angels" and "Demons", when he asks the team to investigate a case brought to him by his friend Peter Coleman, the sheriff of Briscoe County, Texas. They first arrive to investigate a series of murders involving prostitutes, but as they investigate, the team soon finds that they are caught in a ring of corrupt deputies—ironically the only officer not involved being Sheriff Coleman—and find their lives in danger. After a fatal shootout with the corrupt, drug-peddling Preacher Mills (Brett Cullen), Sheriff Coleman is killed, Morgan is wounded, and Reid is critically wounded and hospitalized as a result. Distraught by this turn of events, Cruz travels to Texas with Garcia to help the team investigate and apprehend the ring leader, Deputy Owen McGregor (Michael Trucco). He is not seen again until late in season 10 (episode 19, "Beyond Borders") when he needs the BAU to help the FBI's international team, led by Jack Garrett (Gary Sinise), to catch an unsub who has kidnapped a family while on vacation in Barbados. The case is especially critical because this unsub has eluded both the domestic and international BAU teams by killing a family in Aruba, then in Florida one year later. This episode was the backdoor pilot for the upcoming spinoff, titled. Dr. Savannah Hayes (portrayed by Rochelle Aytes; season 9–11; 10 episodes) Savannah Morgan (née Hayes) is Derek Morgan's wife. She works as a doctor at Bethesda General Hospital. Savannah first appeared in Season 9's "The Return", and it is presumed Morgan and Savannah started dating prior to Season 9, and first met after she approached him when he was depressed over a case that ended badly. Before they started dating they used to be neighbors. She was introduced to the show because Shemar Moore, the actor who portrays Morgan, had requested that his character should get a romantic partner.
Joy Struthers (portrayed by Amber Stevens; season 10–11, 14) is Rossi's daughter from his short-lived second marriage to French diplomat Hayden Montgomery. When they divorced, Hayden didn't tell him she was pregnant, and Joy thought her father was her mother's second husband, who finally told her the truth before dying from cancer. In the episode "Fate" (10x09), Joy seeks Rossi out and they're getting to know each other. Joy is a reporter and true-crime writer and is married. She has a 2-year-old son called Kai.
Episodes [ edit ]
As of February 6, 2019, 314 episodes of Criminal Minds have aired.
Season Episodes Originally aired Nielsen ratings[40][41] First aired Last aired Rank Rating 1 22 September 22, 2005 ( ) May 10, 2006 ( 2006-05-10 ) 27 8.2 2 23 September 20, 2006 ( ) May 15, 2007 ( 2007-05-15 ) 18 8.8 3 20 September 26, 2007 ( ) May 21, 2008 ( 2008-05-21 ) 18 8.2 4 26 September 24, 2008 ( ) May 20, 2009 ( 2009-05-20 ) 11 9.4 5 23 September 23, 2009 ( ) May 26, 2010 ( 2010-05-26 ) 14 8.5 6 24 September 22, 2010 ( ) May 18, 2011 ( 2011-05-18 ) 10 8.7 7 24 September 21, 2011 ( ) May 16, 2012 ( 2012-05-16 ) 13 8.6 8 24 September 26, 2012 ( ) May 22, 2013 ( 2013-05-22 ) 16 8.0 9 24 September 25, 2013 ( ) May 14, 2014 ( 2014-05-14 ) 13 8.2 10 23 October 1, 2014 ( ) May 6, 2015 ( 2015-05-06 ) 8 9.0 11 22 September 30, 2015 ( ) May 4, 2016 ( 2016-05-04 ) 13 7.8 12 22 September 28, 2016 ( ) May 10, 2017 ( 2017-05-10 ) 17 6.9 13 22 September 27, 2017 ( ) April 18, 2018 ( 2018-04-18 ) 25 6.0 14 15 October 3, 2018 ( ) February 6, 2019 ( 2019-02-06 ) TBA TBA
Reception [ edit ]
The first season of Criminal Minds received mixed reviews from critics.[42] It has a Metacritic score of 42 based on 21 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[42]
Dorothy Rabinowitz said, in her review for The Wall Street Journal, "From the evidence of the first few episodes, Criminal Minds may be a hit, and deservedly" and gave particular praise to Gubler and Patinkin's performance.[43] Ned Martel in The New York Times was less positive, saying, "The problem with "Criminal Minds" is its many confusing maladies, applied to too many characters." The reviewer felt that "as a result, the cast seems like a spilled trunk of broken toys, with which the audience—and perhaps the creators—may quickly become bored."[44] The Chicago Tribune reviewer, Sid Smith, felt that the show "may well be worth a look", though he too criticized the "confusing plots and characters."[45] Writing in PopMatters, Marco Lanzagorta criticized the show after its premiere, saying it "confuses critical thinking with supernatural abilities" and that its characters conform to stereotypes.[46] In the Los Angeles Times, Mary McNamara gave a similar review, and praised Patinkin and Gubler's performances.[47]
Broadcast and ratings [ edit ]
In 2016, a study by The New York Times of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that "like several of the other police procedurals", Criminal Minds "is more popular in rural areas, particularly in the southeastern half of the country. It hits peak popularity in Alabama and rural Tennessee and is least popular in Santa Barbara, Calif."[48]
Season Timeslot (ET) Episodes First aired Last aired TV season Rank Avg. viewers
(millions) Date Viewers
(millions) Date Viewers
(millions) 1 Wednesday 9:00 pm 22 September 22, 2005 ( ) 19.57[49] May 10, 2006 ( 2006-05-10 ) 12.67[50] 2005–06 28 12.63[51] 2 23 September 20, 2006 ( ) 15.65[52] May 16, 2007 ( 2007-05-16 ) 13.21[53] 2006–07 24 14.05[54] 3 20 September 26, 2007 ( ) 12.66[55] May 21, 2008 ( 2008-05-21 ) 13.15[56] 2007–08 24 12.78[57] 4 26 September 24, 2008 ( ) 17.01[58] May 20, 2009 ( 2009-05-20 ) 13.99[59] 2008–09 11 14.95[60] 5 23 September 23, 2009 ( ) 15.85[61] May 26, 2010 ( 2010-05-26 ) 12.97[62] 2009–10 16 13.70[63] 6 24 September 22, 2010 ( ) 14.13[64] May 18, 2011 ( 2011-05-18 ) 12.84[65] 2010–11 10 14.11[66] 7 24 September 21, 2011 ( ) 14.14[67] May 16, 2012 ( 2012-05-16 ) 13.68[68] 2011–12 15 13.20[69] 8 24 September 26, 2012 ( ) 11.73[70] May 22, 2013 ( 2013-05-22 ) 11.01[71] 2012–13 20 12.15[72] 9 24 September 25, 2013 ( ) 11.27[73] May 14, 2014 ( 2014-05-14 ) 12.03[74] 2013–14 12 12.66[75] 10 23 October 1, 2014 ( ) 11.74[76] May 6, 2015 ( 2015-05-06 ) 9.61[77] 2014–15 11 14.11[78] 11 22 September 30, 2015 ( ) 10.08[79] May 4, 2016 ( 2016-05-04 ) 8.84[80] 2015–16 16 12.20[81] 12 22 September 28, 2016 ( ) 8.92[82] May 10, 2017 ( 2017-05-10 ) 8.12[83] 2016–17 20 10.86[84] 13 Wednesday 10:00 pm 22 September 27, 2017 ( ) 7.00[85] April 18, 2018 ( 2018-04-18 ) 5.39[86] 2017–18 29 9.58[87] 14 15 October 3, 2018 ( ) 4.45[88] February 6, 2019 ( 2019-02-06 ) 4.72[89] 2018–19 TBD TBD
The series is in syndication on the A&E Network and Ion Television,[90] as well as on We TV and Sundance TV. Early seasons of the show have also begun airing on Rewind Networks's HITS TV channel in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.[91]
Criminal Minds is typically ranks in the top-ten in Digital video recorder (DVR) playback, drawing in a range of 2 to 3 million viewers, according to Nielsen prime DVR lift data.[92] For the week of October 10, 2010, the show peaked at sixth in DVR playback, gaining 2.40 million viewers, while also ranking seventh in demo playback (1.0 demo).[93]
Franchise [ edit ]
Criminal Minds has produced two spin-offs: Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, as well as a video game.
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior [ edit ]
The Season 5 episode, "The Fight", introduced a second BAU team and launched a new series called Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. The spin-off series debuted February 16, 2011, on CBS[94] but was canceled after a short 13-episode season owing to low ratings.[95] On September 6, 2011, CBS DVD released The Complete Series on a four-disc set. It was packaged as "The DVD Edition".
The cast features Forest Whitaker as the lead role of Sam Cooper; including Janeane Garofalo, Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, Matt Ryan, Richard Schiff, and Kirsten Vangsness, who reprises her role as Penelope Garcia from the original series.
Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders [ edit ]
A proposed new series in the Criminal Minds franchise to be named Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders was announced in January 2015. Former CSI: NY star Gary Sinise (who is also a producer on the show) and Anna Gunn were cast in the lead roles of Jack Garrett and Lily Lambert, though the latter departed after the backdoor pilot.[96] Tyler James Williams has been cast as Russ "Monty" Montgomery and Daniel Henney as Matt Simmons, with Alana de la Garza as Clara Seger and Annie Funke as Mae Jarvis further being cast as series regulars.[97]
The series follows the FBI agents of the International Response Team (IRT) helping American citizens who find themselves in trouble abroad.[38][98] CBS aired a backdoor pilot on April 8, 2015 in the Criminal Minds slot, with a crossover episode titled "Beyond Borders".[38][39] The second spin-off series debuted March 16, 2016, on CBS. On May 16, 2016, CBS renewed the series for a second season.[100] On May 14, 2017, CBS canceled the series after two seasons due to low ratings.[101]
크리미널 마인드 (Criminal Minds Korea) [ edit ]
In 2017, tvN launched their own Korean version of Criminal Minds. The episodes are based on the original American version after its third season. On the cast is Lee Joon-gi as Kim Hyun-joon (Derek Morgan), Moon Chae Won as Ha Sun-woo (Emily Prentiss), Son Hyun-joo as Kang Ki-hyung (Aaron Hotchner), Yoo Sun as Nana Hwang (Penelope Garcia), Lee Sun-bin as Yoo Min-young (Jennifer Jareau), and Go Yoon as Lee Han (Spencer Reid). The episodes are 1 hour long.[citation needed]
Video game [ edit ]
CBS announced in October 2009 that Legacy Interactive would develop a video game based on the show. The game would require players to examine crime scenes for clues to help solve murder mysteries. The interactive puzzle game was released in 2012, but the show's cast was not involved with the project so it did not feature any of their voices.[102][103][104]
The second game, developed by FTX Games was released on October 29, 2018 on Android & iOS devices.[105]
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Awards and nominations for Criminal Minds Year Award Category Nominee(s) Result 2006 People's Choice Awards Favorite New Television Drama Criminal Minds Nominated Hollywood Post Alliance Outstanding Editing – Television Jimmy Giritlian Nominated ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top TV Series Marc Fantini, Steffan Fantini, Scott Gordon Won 2007 Top TV Series Marc Fantini, Steffan Fantini, Scott Gordon Won 2008 Motion Picture Sound Editors Best Sound Editing – Music for Short Form Television Lisa A. Arpino
For episode "True Night" Nominated BMI Film & TV Awards BMI TV Music Award Mark Mancina Won Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Stunt Coordination Tom Elliott
For episode "Tabula Rasa" Nominated 2009 BMI Film & TV Awards BMI TV Music Award Mark Mancina Won Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Stunt Coordination Tom Elliott
For episode "Normal" Nominated 2010 Hollywood Music In Media Awards (HMMA) Best Score in a TV Show Marc Fantini, Steffan Fantini, Scott Gordon Won ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Television Series Steffan Fantini Won 2011 People's Choice Awards Favorite TV Crime Drama Criminal Minds Nominated Image Awards Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series Janine Sherman Barrois
For episode "Remembrance of Things Past" Nominated ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Television Series Steffan Fantini Won 2012 People's Choice Awards Favorite TV Crime Drama Criminal Minds Nominated Image Awards Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series Janine Sherman Barrois
For episode "The Bittersweet Science" Nominated ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Television Series Steffan Fantini Won Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Stunt Coordination Tom Elliott
For episode "The Bittersweet Science" Nominated 2013 People's Choice Awards Favorite TV Crime Drama Criminal Minds Nominated MovieGuide Awards Faith and Freedom Award Criminal Minds
For episode "The Fallen" Nominated Image Awards Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series Janine Sherman Barrois
For episode "The Pact" Nominated BMI Film & TV Awards BMI TV Music Award Mark Mancina Won ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Television Series Marc Fantini, Steffan Fantini, Scott Gordon Won 2014 People's Choice Awards Favorite TV Crime Drama Criminal Minds Nominated Image Awards Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series Janine Sherman Barrois
For episode "Strange Fruit" Won Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series Shemar Moore Nominated Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series Rob Hardy
For episode "Carbon Copy" Nominated 2015 People's Choice Awards Favorite TV Crime Drama Criminal Minds Nominated Favorite TV Crime Drama Actor Shemar Moore Nominated Prism Awards Drama Episode – Mental Health Criminal Minds
For episode "The Edge of Winter" Nominated Monte-Carlo TV Festival International TV Audience Award – Best Drama TV Series Touchstone Television, The Mark Gordon Company Nominated Image Awards Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series Shemar Moore Won Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series Hanelle Culpepper
For episode "The Edge of Winter" Nominated 2016 People's Choice Awards Favorite TV Crime Drama Criminal Minds Nominated Favorite TV Crime Drama Actor Shemar Moore Nominated 2017 People's Choice Awards Favorite TV Crime Drama Criminal Minds Won
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]I have to admit, I’m a big fan of Minecraft for a while now, and I love the way the creators, Markus and Jens, are very open about working on this game. When Minecraft 1.3 came out it had a new way of saving the huge and worlds. If you take a quick look at the wiki you’ll notice that there’s a lot of information for developers to work with the Minecraft data format. I was very curious about what I could do with the level data. A few weeks ago I created a small tool in Java that works with the level format, and learned quite a lot about the way Minecraft stores the world.
But since I love to work with ActionScript, I was wondering if I could do something with the level files in Flash or Air. I thought that with the ByteArray and BitmapData class available, I should be able to do fun things. So I started working on a simple map renderer. As far as I know, Flash doesn’t support reading directories, so I Air was my platform of choise.
I ported the JNBT library to ActionScript to read the binary format of the ‘chunks’ (16 x 16 x 128 blocks) that Minecraft uses to store the world in. The rest of the code is rather quick and dirty. Pretty much everything was hardcoded into a few loops to render the blocks to individual BitmapData objects. This is the result:
If you want to give it a spin, you can download the.air file here!
Edit: I got a few requests for the sourcecode. So with no further ado: here it is! You’ll need to compile ‘MapRendererMain‘ as an Air application. Included is my ActionScript port of the JNBT library, found in org.asnbt. You can use this library to read and write NBT files. The most important classes besides the JNBT library are the ‘SimpleRegionFile’ class and the ‘RegionBitmapData’ class. Feel free to fool around and let me know what you think!
Edit 2: There was an update to the world format a few weeks ago, making this tool useless. Only MCRegion worlds are supported. the AS3 NBT classes still work though!LAS VEGAS — Mike Krzyzewski has five national championships and 970 victories — the most in NCAA history.
But he says that if it weren’t for Kobe Bryant, he wouldn’t be able to add two Olympic gold medals (and possibly a third next month) to his resume.
“In London, he was also an integral part of what we were doing and a key guy,” Krzyzewski said at USA Basketball training camp on Tuesday. “But if we lose in Beijing, you’re not interviewing me right now. So I recognize that.”
That run at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 holds particular meaning for Krzyzewski, who recalled how the legendary Laker saved his team in the gold medal game against Spain.
In the fourth quarter, Bryant turned a one-possession game into a 118-107 victory by orchestrating one of the many clutch performances in his career. He scored 13 points with two assists in the final period, leading the “Redeem Team” to gold after the 2004 team came home from Athens with only bronze to show.
“With less than nine minutes to go, we’re up by two against Spain — there’s a lot of pressure on him,” Krzyzewski said. “He comes out and he was the Mamba.”
Krzyzewski implies that he might not have stayed on as the national team’s head coach if Bryant and Dwyane Wade hadn’t pushed the Americans to victory in China. After all, gold is the only medal that matters to the country that is not only the birthplace of basketball, but has won five of the last six Olympic titles dating back to the Dream Team in 1992.
Now, while preparing for his final Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Krzyzewski is able to look back on what Bryant brought to the program during his five years in red, white and blue.
Krzyzewski places Bryant on a list of current superstars who play the game with extraordinary intelligence that separates them from their competition. This common thread, he says, runs through the likes of Bryant, LeBron James, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving.
But Bryant’s influence didn’t stop now that Team USA is preparing for its first Olympics without him since that collapse back in 2004.
Krzyzewski credits his fellow two-time gold medalist with helping establish the group of stars that have continued to represent the country at the Olympics and FIBA World Cup.
“He was the alpha dog during ’08,” Krzyzewski said. “And we had a lot of other aspiring alpha dogs: LeBron, Carmelo and those guys. So how do you get that era and this era together? They did.
“And then in London, you start adding (Kevin Durant) and (Russell) Westbrook. Now you have three eras of alpha dogs, and they got it together. But Kobe set an example for that. He’s smart. Really smart and good. I love him.”I must admit: I didn’t fully understand the concept of WolframAlpha when the “computational knowledge engine” was first announced. After using it a few times, I still don’t. That’s not the matter here, though. They’ve announced that they’ll be heading to the Android market with their very own app that should put all of that computational decision making power right in the palm of your hands.
The Wolfram|Alpha App for Android is specifically designed for Android 1.6 and above, with specialized keyboards for math, charts and graphics adapted for the variety of Android screens, support for native voice input, and location awareness
For those that have found some use out of the service, you can look forward to downloading it October 6th when they’ll undoubtedly be publishing it to the Android market. The app will cost $1.99 [EuroDroid]The ambitious team behind Star Citizen has been working on a series of "bespoke" flight sticks for their spacefaring game for some time now, and one of those models finally has a release window. The peripheral, which could be one of the best new HOTAS concepts in a decade, may also have one serious flaw.
Polygon has learned that the $350 set won't feature mechanical keys.
Last week during its anniversary livestream, Roberts Space Industries let on that one of its custom flight sticks would be available for preorder in December. Made in partnership with U.K.-based manufacturer Saitek, the Mad Catz-branded device will feature a modular design. The throttle and stick will have integrated trackballs, and it will be compatible with a matching ten-keyless keyboard and a separate keypad with an interactive, OLED display.
"The idea," Carl Jones, Roberts Space Industries' chief operating officer and head of business development, said earlier this year, "is that you can split it apart and combine it with other devices." With it, players will be able to fly with a joystick and keyboard, a joystick and throttle, two joysticks, or any combination of custom-made, Star Citizen branded accessories.
Polygon reached out to the Star Citizen team for more information and found out that the system, called the Atom, will be based in part on the Mad Catz STRIKE 7. Instead of Cherry mechanical switches seen on many high-end keyboards, the Atom will feature a "specially engineered membrane which mimics the tactile feel generated by the mechanical keys... without the resultant excessive noise."
The Atom will be sold |
on the book You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!, written by Peggy Ramundo and Kate Kelly in 1993, she started putting the pieces together.
"Many of my clients were saying stuff about disorganization, but the women were also much more ashamed about it," Solden told me. "We started looking at the gender differences—not even so much in how they manifested, but how women felt about them, due to these culturally idealized roles. We had a feminist kind of perspective. It was really about what happens to women when they can't meet those expectations."
Expectations include, but are not limited to, remembering to make dinner, keeping track of the kids' homework, removing wet laundry from the machine before a week (or more) passes. Many women felt crushed when they couldn't perform these seemingly basic tasks, surrounding them in a cumbersome, unshakeable fog of shame. But because the idea that women could have ADHD wasn't mainstream, they had no framework to understand why they couldn't sit still during their kid's five-minute talent show set.
Despite increasing awareness that women can have the disorder, the shame part has stuck around. Solden still encounters clients who are paralyzed by the embarrassment of not meeting these "deeply embedded expectations" of how a woman should be.
OK, you're distracted, but it is a pretty color, so enjoy that.
"At the end of the day, if you're just dealing with ADD, that's great," Solden said. "But most women—because they weren't diagnosed as children, because they didn't have hyperactivity or were smart—grew up absorbing a lot of wounds and shame. These women are often twice exceptional. They have incredible strengths and are really smart and creative, but they have these struggles that nobody understands, including them."
Terry Matlen, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist who was diagnosed with ADHD in her 50s, told me that this sense of hopelessness and regret can linger, especially for women diagnosed much later in life.
"Many women I work with talk about the sorrow that they feel," Matlen told me. "The sadness of the lost years, knowing what was lost. The most bothersome thing for me is getting emails all the time from women all over the world, saying: They say I have depression. They say I have anxiety. I'm not getting any better."
In 1995 Solden wrote Women with Attention Deficit Disorder, a work largely acknowledged within "the tribe" of adult ADD professionals as pioneering for recognizing the centrality of gender role expectations on a woman's self-esteem. Many women came to the festival because of that book; many of them recognized themselves in the "slob" or "space cadet" identities that Solden attempts to dismantle, piece by piece, in her work.
When Matlen began researching adult ADHD in the 1990s, she recognized her own idiosyncratic behavior in those pages.
"I have two college degrees—why can I do that, but I can't figure out how to get to a grocery store?" Matlen said. "Stuff that seems so easy, like remembering to get my kids' papers back to school, I couldn't do. People don't always get me."
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In 2013, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that 6.4 million children between the ages of 4 and 17 had received an ADHD diagnosis at some point in their lives, up 16 percent since 2007. This is, understandably, terrifying, and has colored the coverage of ADHD in the media, where the current line is that kids (read: boys) are being over-diagnosed and over-medicated. Early clinical studies in the 1970s focused on hyperactive white boys, which shaped the diagnostic criteria we still use today, making it very difficult for girls—let alone women—to get diagnosed if they don't behave like hyperactive white boys. So as the serious conversation surrounding misdiagnoses and stimulant abuse dominates the public perception of ADHD, there's an estimated four million girls and women who are not receiving the treatment they desperately need because no one realizes they have the disorder. (A 2009 study from the University of Queensland found that girls displaying ADHD symptoms are less likely to be referred for mental health services than boys.) Even those who manage to get diagnoses can't always escape the embarrassment of having a condition that doesn't look the way people expect it to. You always have to explain yourself. Or, if that's too exhausting, hide.
Photo by the author
ADHD symptoms can appear later in girls than they do in boys, which challenges the common perception that the disorder is a kid thing. The symptoms are also different—think less running around a classroom throwing Cheez-Its and more having a nervous breakdown because you lost your passport somewhere in your laundry basket, which is really just a trash bag at the bottom of your closet. A 2005 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology notes that girls' ADHD symptoms are "less overt" than the disruptive behaviors typically seen among males, which further blocks girls and women from getting diagnoses. The lack of treatment is the scariest part; according to the American Psychological Association, girls with ADHD are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide or injure themselves as young adults than girls who do not have ADHD.
In her keynote speech at the Better Together Festival, Dr. Ellen Littman, who wrote Understanding Girls with ADHD in 1999, recalled once hearing men refer to girls as "ADD wannabes" at a conference.
"Rather than allow the point to be dismissed, I argued vociferously," Littman said. "For any of you old enough to remember the 'Point/Counterpoint' skit on Saturday Night Live, we were one step away from 'Jane, you ignorant slut.'"
Read more: The Lonely Fight Against Post-Partum Depression
In a hangout session called "Powerful Ways to Be Present," a life coach named Regina Carey was demonstrating how to use your body to derail destructive thoughts. A woman lay on a hammock behind her, nodding, and other women stood or sat in lawn chairs around the tent—some coloring on pieces of paper, some drinking beer, some standing up and sitting down on loop. Carey, who has a face so kind and expressive you'd join her cult if she had one, wore a black sweater covered in a collage of text: "Even if you are emotionally distracted, do you find that there are times when your power of concentration is laser-beam intense?" "Are you usually eager to try something new?" "My room may be a mess. But it's an organized mess. I know where everything is." "ADHD."
Women with ADHD tend to berate themselves internally, and constantly. As most are diagnosed years after their symptoms first manifest, they've grown accustomed to blaming themselves for their inability to "get it together" and do the things that most mothers, daughters, and humans can do. Remember appointments. Arrive at their jobs on time. Have jobs. Meet deadlines. Not lose the milk you could have sworn you just bought. It's common to end up fixating on these perceived failures. Carey told us to comment on our breathing—neutrally—whenever we find ourselves slipping into dark rumination spirals. "Now I'm inhaling. Now I'm exhaling. My breath is shallow, huh."
I have two college degrees—why can I do that, but I can't figure out how to get to a grocery store?
After the session, I ventured to buy a glass of red wine because someone I cared about wasn't texting me back. When I arrived at the bar, I couldn't feel the hard trace of credit card in my back pocket, so I squatted down on the ground and removed the contents of my backpack. I found the loose card three minutes later, wedged in the pages of my planner.
Anyone who knows me knows this look well: hunched, flinging objects, muttering.
"I'm a mess!" I said, instinctively, to a woman who asked me if I needed help. "I really should get a wallet." This line usually kills. In the real world, the idea of not having a wallet to store your credit card, cash, and ID is so wacky as to be laughable.
"It's OK," she said, getting down on her knees to help me put my camera, old apple, headphones, cell phone, receipts, receipt-wrapped gum, and pen caps back into my backpack. "You're OK here."
Photo by Howard Morris/Maciejka (Em) Gorzelnik. Courtesy of Morris Creative Services LLC
Sari Solden speaking at the Better Together Festival. Photo by Howard Morris/Maciejka (Em) Gorzelnik. Courtesy of Morris Creative Services LLC
Anne Marie Nantais was diagnosed with ADHD five years ago, when she was 40. She loved her job as an elementary school teacher—and was good at it. Teaching had kept her hyper-focused for 19 years, but she was finding it more and more difficult to perform the basic tasks the job required. "Dealing with undiagnosed ADHD and the increasing demands of paperwork and being a part of a high-performing teaching team was taking its toll," she said.
At the festival, Nantais, now a full-time life coach, read what Solden calls a "turning-point story"—the moment when her perspective on her ADHD shifted—on stage. Her eventual diagnosis wasn't the turning point, as it is for some—Nantais continued to feel ashamed as she tried to hide her diagnosis from her neurotypical coworkers. Women diagnosed later in life can experience burnout from the exhaustion of concealing their symptoms, a phenomenon known as a "mask of competency"—the extraordinary lengths ADHD women go to conform. "They may be rigidly hypervigilant about controlling their behavior, investing extraordinary amounts of energy in the goal of maintaining a seamlessly 'appropriate' façade," Dr. Littman wrote in a 2012 essay. "This may prove effective in the short-run, but it comes at a heavy price: as they pursue the perfectionistic demands they deem necessary, they are constantly burdened by anxiety and exhaustion. Struggling to do what appears effortless for other women, they feel like impostors, fearing discovery at any moment."
Nantais found that medication alleviated some of her symptoms, but none of the shame.
"Because I lacked education and information about ADHD, I still had deeply held beliefs about the JUSTS," she said in her presentation. "If I 'just' tried harder, was 'just' better at managing my time, or if I could 'just' get a handle on organization, I could fix my ADHD."
A major discovery for many women is that they aren't stupid or bad. Rather than laboring to maintain a "mask of competency," Nantais allowed herself to shape her environment around her ADHD brain.
"Reframe the lens," Littman said in her keynote speech at the festival. "Create one that's more realistic. You have the ability to look at the same reality, but have options."
Photo by Howard Morris/Maciejka (Em) Gorzelnik. Courtesy of Morris Creative Services LLC
Sarah, a 26-year-old part-time yoga instructor who works full-time at a corporate sales job, is an expert re-framer. Diagnosed her sophomore year of high school, which is early (and lucky) compared to many women at the festival, who were grappling with the sorrow of "lost years," Sarah has been on everything—Ritalin, Vivance, Concerta, anti-depressants. Now, she takes nothing. For many women, myself included, medication is at once a game-changer and source of shame, as the national discussion surrounding stimulant usage zeroes in on abuse, addiction, finals cramming, college partying, weight-loss scheming, and professional maneuvering. (There are very few impassioned op-eds about Adderall improving the quality of some people's lives.) At the Better Together Festival, being prescription-free is neither a victory nor a loss, but is, unequivocally, stigma-free.
In the art tent, Sarah told me that she's recognized some things will always come a bit more challenging to her, "especially in a corporate setting." With my left hand I put cake into my mouth and with my right, I clawed at dried icing on my jeans. The philosophy behind yoga —largely Buddhist—has helped her with the reframing, she said.
"It takes such an observational stance on everything you experience; you watch it happen," she said. "'Oh, I'm distracted by this pretty color, even though I should be focusing on this report that the boss needs by the end of the day.' OK, you're distracted, but it is a pretty color, so enjoy that. You have to believe in the power that other people are able to adapt."
I wanted to say: I promise I'm listening, but there's icing all over my pants. Classic me! Maria "A Mess" Yagoda! Laugh track. But I stayed quiet and continued feeding myself cake. I focused on her words.
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"Maybe I'm not the perfect corporate person—I'm okay with pushing boundaries," she said. She explained that there are hard deadlines and soft deadlines, and she had to learn figure out which is which. I write "soft deadlines" in my notebook. I circled it three times. "'I know you want it by this time, but I need this space to get what you need done.' If that doesn't work, [the task] needs to be reassigned."
While the arc of the moral universe may bend towards adaptability, Sarah's experience isn't necessarily the norm quite yet. A woman told me that one of her clients recently got frustrated with her for always being a few minutes late. "I had to tell her, this is not about you, it's about me," she said. When I lost the company credit card, my credit card, company keys, and my keys—all within the span of two weeks— at a job a few years ago, my boss did not understand and was frustrated. I, too, did not understand and was frustrated; it's the sort of thing that's hard to adapt to. Now, I work triple-time to hide these quirks of executive functioning that, more often than not, make me feel stupid.
But here, at the festival, "stupid" was just an adverb I paired with "beautiful" to describe the deep-fried cheese curds I'd eaten the night before.
I took my last bite of cake. I left the icing on my pants.The godfather of Linux, Linus Torvalds, may think that NVIDIA is "the worst," but Valve respectfully disagrees. The company has been working closely with the manufacturer, as well as AMD and Intel, to boost performance of its hardware under the open source OS. The developer clearly has an interest in getting the best from those companies as it works to port Left 4 Dead 2 and Steam to Linux. That close partnership is already bearing impressive fruit as Valve claims its co-op zombie shooter now performs better on Ubuntu than it does under Windows 7 using a GeForce GTX 680. The first Open GL Linux version managed a measly six frames per second, while the Direct X powered Microsoft one was topping 270. Only a few months later, and Left 4 Dead 2 is hitting 315fps on the 32-bit version of Precise Pangolin, outperforming even the Open GL Windows port which sits at 305fps. Of course, it's relatively well established that Ubuntu has lower overhead and running Direct X only compounds the issue, though, its unparalleled driver support can't be denied. While it's not completely fair to compare performance on a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit one, Valve is proving that gaming on Linux need not be some proof-of-concept exercise. Linus can flip NVIDIA the bird all he wants but, through its work with Valve, it may be doing more to bring Linux to the mainstream than anyone previously has.Ray Lewis took the microphone and said one word three times: "Baltimore."
Staring out at thousands of people crowding the Harborplace Amphitheater, most of them holding cell phones or cameras aloft to capture the moment, the second player ever drafted by the Ravens launched into a short speech. The team was making a pit stop Monday on its way to the airport to fly to New Orleans for Sunday's Super Bowl, so these would be Lewis' last public comments in Baltimore as a member of the franchise he has come to personify.
"There is no Ravens without you guys," he said.
Behind him, his teammates also held their phones and cameras out.
"We're not going to New Orleans for nothing else but to bring a ring back to Baltimore," Lewis said.
Fans roared.
"That's what I came to hear," said Mike Dawson of Essex.
A few fans had arrived for the Super Bowl Send Off Rally as early as 7 a.m. Others filtered in throughout the morning, ignoring the rain while staking out spots to see the stage or one of several giant-screen televisions. Coach John Harbaugh led the Ravens' entourage off the buses when they arrived to loud cheers at 12:15 p.m. Traffic delayed their police-led caravan on Interstate 695 while making the trip from Owings Mills. No one minded.
Harbaugh called Baltimore fans "the best in the world" and said those who couldn't make the trip to New Orleans would be there in spirit.
Then the players left the stage and gathered, hands held high, as veteran safety Ed Reed — whose career in Baltimore also could be coming to a close, as he will become a free agent — led his teammates and the crowd in a final cheer, screeching out the line: "We've got two tickets to paradise," before imploring the crowd to shout, "Baltimore." Fireworks rose into the air, engulfing the players in smoke as they walked back toward the buses.
"That's Baltimore, man. That city is awesome," Lewis said after the team arrived in New Orleans. "Today's sendoff was absolutely electric.... I told John [Harbaugh] and I told a couple of other guys, 'This feeling is great. The sendoff is awesome. But there's nothing better than coming home as world champions.' That's what we're here for, to bring a world championship back to Baltimore."
Dawson found an elevated spot to the right of the stage for his three children and a nephew. When the biggest moments came, he lifted his 4-year-old daughter Payton up and propped her on his shoulder. The older kids didn't have school, but Dawson planned to take them anyway.
"This is awesome," said Logan Dawson, 11. "It's going to be a memory I have all my life."
Patrick Starleper, an insurance agent from Federal Hill, maneuvered through the crowd with a long stroller holding his identical twin sons, Brock and Tucker. Born in early October, in the middle of the Orioles' playoff series against the New York Yankees, the boys managed to sleep through the commotion.
"We couldn't miss it," Starleper said. "I'll tell them about it later."
Entertainment began at 6 a.m. at the Tir Na Nog restaurant with radio station 98 Rock. While listening to the show, local artist Donald "Doc. Toonz" Tyson-Bey and his girlfriend, Ashley Bacon, painted their faces in festive Ravens colors. Outside later, Tyson-Bey held out a poster-sized painting of Lewis for fans to look at. Protected in plastic, it showed Lewis in mid-scream.
"I decided to paint it last night," said Tyson-Bey, who has painted several murals in the city. "Took me seven hours. But Ray Lewis, he brings this energy to the city. I only hope he can continue to do it after his career."
Ravens radio play-by-play announcer Gerry Sandusky officially began the rally at 11:30 a.m. and led a discussion with fellow radio broadcasters Qadry Ismail and Stan White.
The trio often turned its attention to the national media, saying they repeatedly had underestimated the Ravens this year. Michael McCrary, a defensive end on the Ravens team that beat the New York Giants in the 2001 Super Bowl, came to the stage for a short interview and said he felt the Ravens would beat the favored San Francisco 49ers because they have "more heart than any team out there."
People packed the balconies around Harborplace for most of the morning. Ravens cheerleaders and the mascot Poe pumped up the crowd. Men and women lugging dufflebags sold Ray Lewis shirts, towels and pennants. The big screens showed a boy who'd had the No. 92 — defensive tackle Haloti Ngata's number — shaved into the back of his head.
"It's unbelievable," Ravens center Matt Birk said of the crowd at the rally. "There definitely is a special bond with this city and this team. Driving through downtown on the way to the airport and stopping to see the thousands of people there — the atmosphere was special. We don't doubt for one second that our city, our state and our fans are behind us."
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Gov. Martin O'Malley also spoke to the crowd, at times over a low murmur of boos. Rawlings-Blake played on the Ravens' underdog image, as well.I was teaching a Scrum class a few months ago when it dawned on me. I spoke just as much about Kanban as I did about Scrum. Folks in class were like, “Combine? Canban? Kanban? What?!” I heard myself say things like, “only work on one item at a time”; “pull vs. push”; “derive velocity”; "break through bottlenecks"; “team will work it’s ‘staffing’ out”; “build in time for learning.” I chuckled during this moment of realization. I never thought I would see the day when my attitude toward a project would be one of, “Let’s make a couple of decisions in order to get started, see how it goes, and then make some more decisions.” Not me, not the project manager who couldn’t live without a Gantt chart.
My professional life in the technology world began in 2000, after a stint in commercial manufacturing. Manufacturing – stamp this, cut that, send it down the line, measure parts per worker, good parts, bad parts, ugly parts, and so on – fit my introverted, planning side – the me that loves the quantifiable, the spreadsheets, the data. Life was predictable in manufacturing, except for when a vendor’s delivery didn’t show up, or when people went on strike, or something catastrophic like that. I liked the regular, the known, the predictable. And even though I sat through a few TQM sessions, well, quality wasn’t my job, actually, and as long as customers got their shipments, well, I was a happy camper. Until they called me to complain, and then I called the plant manager. How’s that for transparency?
When I moved to tech in 2000, I took what I learned in manufacturing and applied that to software projects. And gosh golly, what seemed easy on paper, or in a Gantt chart, wasn’t actually so straight forward in software development. I couldn’t seem to grasp, for example, that the testing plan changed week over week; when I met every Monday morning with the testing manager to discuss the activities in the project plan, he responded by changing them… again! I didn’t understand why at the time, and by George, I had to change the project plan almost every day in order to reflect all of those crazy resources changing their minds! In 2003, when our development group learned Scrum, I was more than opposed. I was threatened, angry, cynical. My unhappiness was scrawled across my face everyday, and was apparent in every interaction (sorry Jen and Stephanie!). I was a territorial, pissed off, frightened project manager. I shook hands with people like my hand was a steel vice gripping lumber.
I first tried to relate this Scrum nonsense back to what I knew before - spent two weeks in a panic trying to figure out how to tie actuals to a burndown chart; came up with some nice visuals and all, until it was quickly debunked. That waterfall change control process that I had worked so hard on B.S. (before Scrum) was now obsolete. What would become of my job? What would I do now that I didn't live in a project schedule any longer? I was a curmudgeon, for sure. ARGHH! Get away from me you Scrum pundits! ARGHH! Don’t look at me while I scramble to figure out my elbow from my knee in this “new way” of working. ARGHHH! Just. ARGHHH!
After years of reflecting, I’ve realized that my transition from curmudgeon to kanban happened in a series of steps. Now, I’m armchair quarterbacking here, but the introspection drew out some ideas that might help you. Or some other curmudgeon you might know.
My first big aha!: be OK with revealing insecurities and imperfections, everyone has them
As grumpy as I was in 2003, I was at least observant enough to notice that our development teams were working more collaboratively, and seemed, dare I say it, happier, although I didn’t really want to admit that at that time (heaven forbid, don't admit that the new thing actually works!). Executives came to sprint reviews, developers were excited about demoing their work. These were the positive motivators. Another positive motivator: our VP cared about us, and he let us know it. He worked with me and his other managers in various ways; one such way was to set up manager meetings every two weeks to discuss insights, articles, books, or other ideas. We had homework. We had to come in prepared to talk about our angle and how that might impact our work. We had to talk about ideas we tried, those that worked, those that failed. Our VP even brought in a ‘Women in the Workplace’ facilitator to help us girls understand why we run into particularly tricky dynamics (amongst each other and outwardly). Kleenex stock soared shortly thereafter as supermarkets restocked their shelves. He made it OK to “fail”, which for me, a person at the time who had very low self-esteem, was an interesting and scary concept.
My second big change: look for ways to add value
Once I started to accept the fact that Scrum wasn’t going anywhere, like it or not, I begrudgingly considered how I might integrate it with my life. So, in the spirit of self-preservation, I looked for ways to add value. This was obvious at first: get my Scrum teams up and running. This was at times exciting and at other times scary as hell. My initial thought was that if teams manage themselves, what do I do? Well, I was on autopilot at this point. I was committed to seeing it through, if not for any reason other than since our VP had instilled the idea that he believed in me, I didn’t want to let him down. So I began studying team dynamics, changing my language from directive to questioning, practiced facilitating, and so on. I had a checklist that I kept on my laptop from which I would pluck an idea to try this sprint, and next, and so on. Sometimes I felt really great about how a meeting turned out; other times, the sting of introspective embarrassment turned my face into a beet-like hue. But I did notice that my handshake vice grip began to loosen a bit. Now that my teams were performing, I felt comfortable working on agile reporting and such for other business stakeholders. Try, fail, try again, then succeed, then fail again. I started cozying up to and having hot chocolate with the notion of personal inspect and adapt, learning from failure. Curmudgeon begins to fade. The light breaks through the dark clouds. Become CSP, then CST. Travel world. One opportunity opens to another. Publish book. Teach others about Scrum. Life is exciting and good.
My third aha!: Let go.
My dear friend Lee Devin talks about personal edge and how we must find it and dwell in it in order to grow. On the map of my gloomy edge world was Mount Saint Holding On. I had to climb this mountain in order to let go. Let go of perceived control. Let go of charts and project schedules. Let go of thinking I could manage by force. Let go of predictive thinking, letting knowledge and realization of what’s possible emerge. Let go of the holding on to perceived certainties. You can only doing this by holding your breath and jumping off into the Canyon of No Holds Barred. And then you realize about halfway down that you have wing-like structures on your back, and you're soaring, not falling. Fly with the fact that there are no certainties in life.
My fourth aha!: realize that one process doesn’t fit all.
So much was tied into what I had worked for an achieved as a CST that some years I defended it tooth and nail. I realized at some point along the way that I had to open my mind to new ways, or risk going the way of the velociraptor. This meant continuing to build the ego (I desperately needed to do so), but letting vanity fall by the wayside. A couple of years ago, I ran into some trouble with a client whose 20-person development group was super-constrained by specialization into vastly different knowledge domains. Scrum just wouldn’t work at first. What to do? Hmm… what about this Kanban stuff I’d been picking up through osmosis and intrigue while working with my friend Maria Thelin? I decided to give it a try. And lo and behold, great green olive trees, it worked! And it made teams happy. And managers were happy. It was like my first Scrum rush all over again, except this time it was kanban. Different flavors of the same ice cream. And I love me some ice cream. Through my experiments with kanban, I’ve learned to help teams look at the desired outcomes, measure the big picture, trust each other, and learn and change as they go. Don’t sweat tasking out, unless you need to. Plan to a level that’s “good enough” and no more. Try this, and if that doesn’t work, try that. Oh, a far cry from curmudgeon, indeed. Who am I? What have I become? And now, my brain gets all mushed up as lean and agile ideas overlap and create this one big ball of ideas. One big ball of things to try, things that all support each other, that all support the bigger picture.
What I’ve learned: Scrum gives us a framework through which we may introspect so that we may change our behavior. This great gift of Ken and Jeff is ours for the taking – all we have to do is reach out and pluck it from that grand tree full of many gifts from those wiser than us. I realize now that my transition from traditional practices, to bringing in iterative/Scrum/XP/Lean mash-ups everywhere I go, is a process motif for the overall transformation of my life. Going from a grumpy, nervous person to a confident, happy person required discovering myself empirically. It took (takes) courage and a lot of hard work. Going from a grumpy, nervous organization to one of confidence and happiness means discovering empirically what will work - and what won’t - by empowering people to live for themselves and make the right choices every day.Several states are considering bills that target protesters who block or disrupt traffic, in the wake of widespread demonstrations that choked off roads and even highways.
Some bills came about after protests spilled out onto roadways and created havoc for motorists. In Indiana, watching national protests grow large and affect traffic prompted Republican state Sen. Jim Tomes to propose a measure calling on police to disperse crowds that block traffic.
In recent days, protesters in cities across the nation gathered at or near airports to denounce President Trump’s travel restrictions and the detention of dozens of people who had a connection to one of seven countries deemed terrorist risks. When protesters blocked traffic in front of the airport in Los Angeles, police in riot gear moved to confine them to another area as motorists who were stuck missed flights.
The lawmakers behind the measures appear to be mainly Republican and say that such actions are aimed at control at a time when protests sometimes grow violent and create chaos.
Civil rights groups, however, say the bill sponsors are really seeking to undermine protesters and that they are ready to fight such attempts in court if they become law.
North Dakota state Rep. Keith Kempenich, a Republican, has proposed a bill that would relieve a motorist from punishment who accidentally hits or kills a protester who is obstructing traffic.
Kempenich, whose bill has come under fire, drafted it after the large protests over the pipeline project near Standing Rock Indian Reservation last year.
Kempenich said he was moved to address concerns from relatives who described protesters walking in front of their cars as they were driving near the demonstrations.
“There’s a First Amendment right to assemble,” Kempenich told Fox News. “But there’s also the First Amendment right of people who don’t have to pay attention to it” and should be able to pass by and not be bothered.
“When people get aggressive, then the peaceful assembly [right] protected in the First Amendment disappears,” he said.
“Protesters stood in front of their cars and flashed signs in front of them,” Kempenich said of his relatives’ experiences. “If they’d hit the gas instead of their brake, someone would have been hurt.”
Lee Rowland, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the measures are unnecessary because localities and states already have laws that forbid the intentional disruption of traffic.
“These bills are not isolated,” Rowland said. “There’s an alarming trend of bills that penalize protesters in many different ways. They’re dressed up as ‘[traffic] obstruction’ bills, or bills on public safety.”
“These bills are about one thing and one thing only – silencing dissent.”
Rowland said the ACLU and other groups are closely keeping track of the measures and are prepared to fight them in court if they become law.
States that have pending legislation seeking or increasing penalties for obstructing highways include Iowa, Indiana and Minnesota, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other state legislatures have discussed introducing bills, according to NCSL officials. Proposed legislation in the state of Washington seeks to punish protestors who participate in “economic disruption,” which includes obstructing “the passage of any train, truck, car, ship, boat, aircraft, or other vehicle or vessel engaged in the carriage, hauling, transport, shipment, or delivery of goods, cargo, freight, or other item, in commerce.”
Tomes created a stir when he introduced a measure that directed police to use “any means necessary” to disperse protesters who block traffic.
Critics say the bill raises “serious constitutional questions” that were likely to impinge on First Amendment rights. And they say it could be used to justify brutal tactics, similar to those used on black civil rights activists in the 1960s.
Democratic Sen. Karen Tillian challenged the wording in Tomes' bill at a state Senate Local Government Committee hearing in which she held up historical photo of protesters cracking down on protesters during civil rights demonstrations.
“The object of this measure is very simple,” Tomes said in a statement sent to Fox News. “We need to keep our streets and interstates open to commerce, traffic, motorists and emergency personnel.”
“Anyone who wants to stage or participate in a protest or demonstration is free to do so," Tomes said. "But…an ambulance needs to be able to get to an individual who is having a heart attack, and law enforcement needs to be able to respond to a call to attend to someone who needs help.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.A body is found in the Potomac River by two Georgetown fraternity brothers taking a polar bear plunge. Based on the tissue, Saroyan thinks the person was a white male. Angela doesn't think she can do a facial reconstruction because the mandible is missing. To melt the ice, Hodgins and Wells hook up a blast furnace and defrost the guy in seconds.
Because the guy was wearing a nice suit, and because of the timing and location of where the body was found, Karen Delfs thinks it was a body dump rather than a suicide. Saroyan checks the guy's lungs for evidence of water and dinoflagellates, but there isn't any. The case needs to be treated like a homicide.
Even though they have age, sex, ancestry, stature, and other demographics, which they could cross-reference with a missing persons database, as well as flesh that could produce a DNA match, the Jeffersonian team obsesses over a tattoo of a woman's face. Angela runs the tattoo through her facial recognition software and comes up with Lissa Bowman, the wife of Frankie Kwiatowski. Alyssa tells the FBI that her husband was often out of town as he worked as a "fixer" and suggests they talk to Kerry, his assistant. Kerry pretends to turn over all Frankie's files, but Aubrey knows about the secret panel under the bathroom sink.
Wells cleans the skull and finds perimortem stellate fractures to the alveolar process of the maxilla and the inferior nasal conchae: his nose. Cause of death was likely intracerebral hemorrhage. Traces of northern white ash were found in Frankie's skull, where he was likely hit with a blunt object like a bat. Late-stage remodelling of the lateral surface of the left proximal tibia suggests a healed injury that happened about a year ago. Booth suspects Jimmy Nasari, a mid-level mobster whose signature move is breaking legs with a bat. While Nasari had motive to kill Frankie, he has an alibi and was also terrified of Frankie.
Hodgins finds fresh duck feces on Frankie's shoes, even though they were in the water for a prolonged period of time, and identifies it as having come from the greater scaup. One of Frankie's clients, Abraham Froome, has an office off of Anacosta Park, which is home to many scaups. Aubrey finds out that Froome was being blackmailed because of a sex tape and had hired Frankie to deal with it. Initially, Frankie counseled Froome not to pay the $2 million but then, when he returned beaten up, told Froome he should pay. Angela tries to decrypt Frankie's work computers. She can't find an email for the blackmailer. But she does look at the stills from the Froome sex tape and through the TV magic of enhance-enhance-enhance figures out that the person who made the tape was a hotel employee hiding in the closet.
Meanwhile, the Jeffersonian staff looks at Frankie's bones for |
sparse one. Friends and family mostly.
The result was a rare opportunity to listen to what Canadian head coach Jay Triano was actually exhorting his team to do over the course of their 101-59 romping against an overmatched Cuban team new to this level of international play.
And over and over again Triano said simply: “Let’s go.”
Those words rang out on every defensive rebound Canada corralled and every loose ball they pounced on and after every steal, deflection or blocked shot.
The message was clear: be the team that struck first, that forced the action, that dictated the pace. Be the opposite of the group that showed up flat and lacking direction in their opening game loss to Argentina, in other words.
And the best part was who was listening. Andrew Wiggins didn’t play poorly in Canada’s lost to Argentina – he tied for the team lead with 13 points. He rebounded well, he passed the ball. But he wasn’t impactful for the whole of his 30 minutes of floor time, and Canada needed more from their best player.
Wiggins went toe-to-toe with LeBron James twice during his rookie season with the Minnesota Timberwolves and more than held his own, so it’s not the opponent that matters in his case, it’s how quickly he’s going to engage in whatever game happens to be in front of him. He hesitated against Argentina, he went for the throat against Cuba.
He had three offensive rebounds before the game was five minutes old. He blocked a shot, made a steal and counted an assist. It was the most effective kind of leadership.
“I was trying to set the tone, trying to go hard in the first quarter, trying to give the whole team momentum going into the rest of the game,” he said. “… if [the ball] is there, go get it.”
No one was happier to see Wiggins come to play than Canadian head coach Jay Triano. He’s tried to sound diplomatic and imply that his team is a collection of equals, but Wiggins is more equal than others, and Canada is better when he plays that way.
“Andrew is going to be a guy we need to play well, we need to be a focus for us, offensively, for sure,” said Triano. “He’s proved he can do it in the NBA, we need him to be the focal point of what we’re doing and when we do that other teams are going to have problems, he’s going to be able to find other players and we’ve got natural players at other positions that will find ways to score.
“If Andrew is going to stand on the perimeter and shoot, that’s not going to help us. We need him to play the way he played today. That was a great first quarter for him, attacking the basket, looking to get offensive rebounds which he’s very good at and he was the best player on the floor in the first quarter.”
It was clear that their loss to Argentina was a wake-up call, and Canada responded the only reasonable way they could. It wasn’t just the loss that stung Canada, but it was the way they allowed Argentina to decide how the game would be played. Canada beat the giants of FIBA Americas at the Pan Am Games and again last week at the Tuto Marchand Cup, but couldn’t dictate the terms on Tuesday when it mattered.
“We played ‘em I think twice this summer already,” said Anthony Bennett, who had nine points and four rebounds against Cuba. “We kind of took that for granted, I think we kind of came out soft, actually.”
So their game against Cuba wasn’t so much a test of will as a chance to test their philosophy. Coming into the game Cuba had lost by 21 points to Venezuela and 30 to Puerto Rico. Only a colossal malfunction could result in Canada losing, so the question became how would they win?
Wiggins answered it. The Canadian star was mostly absent against Argentina apart from a few brief flurries. To his credit he made his presence felt early and he did it by doing the dirty work. Canada was up 17-5 by the time he scored his third put-back. They were up 30-10 at the end of the first quarter. Wiggins played eight minutes and sat down with 10 points, five rebounds, a block, a steal and an assist, the bulk of his production for the game.
It’s unlikely Canada’s most talented player will ever be a rah-rah leader – it’s not his nature. But when your best player honours an overmatched opponent by going for rebounds, steals and blocks, it’s a tone-setter.
There could have been no other result, really.
While Cuba has its own proud basketball history dating back to the early 1970s when they were bronze medallists at the 1972 Olympics, they have been a minnow lately. Their last Olympic appearance was 1980 and their last world championship appearance was in 1994, when they finished 15th. This is their first showing at the FIBA Americas Championship since 2011. They entered the game 0-2 and coming off a 31-point loss to Puerto Rico there was little chance for an upset, a loss that would put Canada in a terrible spot as they try to position themselves to advance into the second round.
Canada’s win – funny enough – doesn’t mean all that much either, even though it did ensure them a spot in the second round. But that was a formality anyway as four of the five teams in Group B will move on.The way the FIBA Americas competition is structured means that points earned in the first round will carry forward into the second round where Canada will play the top-four teams from Group A, but only points earned against the other teams that advance from Group B will count.
The two points from the win against Cuba won’t count because they won’t advance. At the moment Canada only has the point they got for their loss to Argentina to show for two games here. The challenge for Canada will come against Venezuela on Thursday and Puerto Rico on Friday. Presuming they advance Canada needs four points from those two games to avoid having to completely swim uphill as they try to position themselves for one of the four spots in the medal round.
What Canada showed against Cuba was a template for how they want to play in ideal conditions, and what they displayed was exciting – a team that swarms defensively, rebounds like a gang and looks to push the ball at every chance and plays an unselfish brand of basketball. If anything over-passing was a problem, as when Kelly Olynyk tried to find Wiggins for a highlight real alley-oop to finish a fastbreak in the second quarter rather than take an easy two himself, or sharp-shooter Nik Stauskas passed up open triples – the kind of shots the offence should be aspiring to create – so his teammates could get the ball. Well-intended to be sure, but anytime Stauskas passes up a wide-open three for anything other than a dunk, the next shot is not as good as what Canada had. Canada needs Stauskas to carry a heavy load – he’s the perfect complement to Wiggins – so the hope is his 15 points, six rebounds and four assists are signs he’s beginning to feel comfortable in that role. He’s struggled with his shot this summer, which has hurt his confidence, but he’s showing signs of breaking out.
“My confidence has steadily been getting back,” he said. “The coaching staff and players have done a good job of encouraging me, even when I haven’t been playing my best. It’s just up to me to stay aggressive. This team needs me to make plays, needs me to be aggressive on the floor, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
There are certainly kinks to work out. As much as they dominated Canada shot just 48 per cent from the field and just 35 per cent from behind the three-point line – that latter mark will certainly have to improve if Canada is going to reach their goal of qualifying for the Olympics next summer.
But Canada showed how they want to play in their blowout against Cuba, now they just have to keep it going.Hillary Clinton has had a robust fundraising operation but is seeing new strength from Donald Trump in that regard. | AP Photo 2016 Trump fundraising sets off Clinton camp alarms 'We must redouble our efforts in the coming weeks,' a concerned Robby Mook writes.
NEW YORK — Taken aback by the size of Donald Trump’s July fundraising haul, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is quickly working to beef up its efforts to raise campaign cash before the fall — sending the candidate, running mate Tim Kaine, and former President Bill Clinton on an all-out financial sprint through August while explicitly warning top fundraisers this week that they need to pick up the pace.
In an internal memo, first obtained by POLITICO, that will be circulated to high-level donors on Monday morning, campaign manager Robby Mook specifically writes that the Republican nominee’s July haul overshot the campaign’s expectations, necessitating a new wave of action.
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“Donald Trump also had his best fundraising month of the campaign, raising $80 million,” explains Mook in the roughly 750-word missive — titled “Wake Up Call” — after trumpeting Clinton’s own $90 million haul between the campaign and other Democratic committees. “This was far more than anyone expected — and should be a wake-up call to all Hillary supporters. We must redouble our efforts in the coming weeks."
Clinton has had a robust fundraising operation going since she launched her campaign in April 2015, allowing her to build up a cash stockpile of $58 million heading into August and funding campaign ads across the country that Trump has been unable or unwilling to match — that's in addition to the big-money efforts from her supportive super PACs. But Trump’s recent cash strength after months of not lifting a finger to raise money has given party leaders pause, particularly since — as Mook notes — Clinton’s cash pace is behind that of President Barack Obama four years ago.
“While we are very proud of the more than $469 million our campaign has raised so far, we remain behind the historic pace that President Obama set in 2012, raising $520 million during the same time frame. With only three months to go, it is critical that we close the gap between President Obama’s record-level fundraising and the pace we are currently on,” reads the memo. “Falling short of the resources raised in 2012 will require us to scale back from the investments President Obama’s campaign made in organizing, data and other critical tools."
To avoid such a fate while matched up against a Trump operation with $37 million on hand, the campaign is sending both Clintons and Kaine on a fast-paced fundraising tour of the country on top of their public campaigning. And while many of their events were scheduled prior to the release of Trump’s numbers, the campaign intends to use Trump’s figures to amp up the urgency among its fundraisers.
In August alone, the three campaign principals will headline over 80 finance events in more than 25 states, according to a schedule of the private events distributed to donors and obtained by POLITICO. The candidate herself will hit over 35, while Kaine will make it to more than 30 and the former president will headline somewhere around 20.
In just the next week, Hillary Clinton will hold two events in Florida, one in Illinois, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Connecticut. Bill Clinton will have one in Colorado, one in Utah and two in California. Kaine will hit three in Texas, one each in Louisiana and New Hampshire, and two in Rhode Island.
In addition, campaign surrogates will continue to headline their own fundraising events all over the world, while the Brooklyn-based team also looks to ramp up its online grass-roots operation. Both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are also expected to step up their fundraising on behalf of Clinton.
View Trump reports $35.8 million raised in July Donald Trump raised $35.8 million from small-dollar donors in July, the Republican nominee announced Monday, hours after the monthly Federal Elections Commission deadline.
Much of Mook’s pitch to wealthy Democrats is based around bolstering the campaign’s on-the-ground capabilities to end the summer, making the case that money raised in August is especially important — particularly given the campaign’s efforts to register 3 million voters before registration deadlines hit and early ballot distribution begins this fall.
“We have to make investments now in order to scale our organizing programs in time to be ready for GOTV. Our ability to reach targeted voters and turn them out will be decided by the number of organizers we can hire now and the volunteers they can start recruiting today,” he urges, making the segue to TV ads — of which Trump still has none, while Clinton and her supportive super PACs have blanketed battleground state airwaves for months. “Similarly, we know that television in the quieter month of August and in early September will do much more to cement the narrative of the campaign on our terms than in the last few weeks of the election. Simply put, a dollar raised in August has a much greater impact than one raised in October, especially if Trump closes the gap with us.”
Part of the Clinton team’s current task is to convince its fundraisers that the national polls showing Clinton up by double digits or high single digits are no reason to sit back and relax.
“The worst thing that could happen would be the campaign decides they’re seven or eight points up and people who are raising money stop being involved,” said Tom Nides, a former deputy secretary of state who remains close with Clinton and who’s been helping with the campaign’s fundraising efforts, predicting that Trump’s campaign coffers will continue to fill.
“Trump will get resources, there’s no question. They clearly understand that Trump is going to have the money he needs. For Trump, raising several hundred million dollars is going to be pretty important, so at the end of the day this campaign will not rest, and they shouldn’t."
The real estate developer was always expected to build up his fundraising capacity at some point in the campaign, but even veteran campaign financiers have expressed surprise at his strength online, a phenomenon that’s reminiscent — if hardly equal — to the Bernie Sanders cash machine that bedeviled the Clinton camp during the primary.
Clinton’s team has worked to build up its own capacities on this front. But Mook warned even that could be swamped by Trump’s rank-and-file supporters.
“While we have been working for more than a year to build and grow our grassroots support, Trump only recently started earnestly fundraising from small donors and has clearly seen significant growth in the last month,” he writes. “We anticipate that his grassroots donor support will continue to grow dramatically in the final three months. Trump also has the capacity to write his campaign an eight or nine figure check, which could single-handled tilt things in his favor."Michael Rosen asked a series of questions yesterday in response to the blog I had written explaining why in my opinion the country could afford to pay public sector workers the pay rise they clearly deserve. The questions are big enough and important enough to be worth addressing in some detail. They were:
Thanks for writing this and your other articles, Richard. Following the big bail-out of the bank, the graphs showed a huge leap in the ‘deficit’. We were given to understand this as the amount the government had borrowed in order to pay for the bail out. This was then used almost universally by the media and the Tories and LibDems to ‘prove’ that Labour had ‘crashed the economy’ and now it was ‘all hands to the pumps’ to correct the ‘deficit’. I can hardly recollect a single voice outside of Paul Krugman to challenge a) what this deficit really was and b) whether it was ok to live with it, and indeed to carry on investing in useful projects in order to increase wealth and value. However, according to your analysis, even this is skewed. Is that right? Are you saying, in effect, that there was no need to represent this as a ‘deficit’ anyway? It could have been represented as an ‘adjustment’ or some such? Or was money of some sort ‘borrowed’ from non-government funds in order to bail out the banks? If so, why? Why couldn’t the govt have just ‘borrowed’ from the Bank of England and let it disappear over time? Were the bond-holders (whoever they are) really knocking on Osborne’s door warning the Coalition that unless they cut wages/services/benefits they would up the cost of govt borrowing?
First, some data. This comes from a paper I wrote 18 or so months ago with my City colleague, Professor Ronen Palan:
This data very clearly suggests a number of things. The first is that at the turn of the century, during the dot com boom, Labour raised enough tax to cover all spending.
Then, secondly, Labour chose not to cover costs with revenues because there was a pretty massive stock market crash from 2000 to 2003 and Labour were rightly determined that this should not lead to an unnecessary impact for the vast majority of people who had not partaken in the stock market's absurd bubble.
Third, Labour instead had revenue track spending with about a year's delay. This is, of course, what is normally inevitable. If, as I argue, government spending always comes first out of newly created money then it follows that tax receipts that recover that spend from the economy will lag behind them. And that's precisely what happened until 2007, in what looks in retrospect to be a remarkably controlled fashion.
Fourth, when the crash came it was not because spending went out of control: it very clearly did not. It rose to meet the urgent need of falling incomes, declining employment and the need for investment as a counter-measure, which Labour saw the need for and delivered to beat the crisis. Instead what caused the deficit was the collapse in tax revenues, as the data makes clear. And, as a matter of fact, tax revenues are mainly paid by the private sector. In this case all the revenue that went missing were from that sector. So the crash was not created by the government at all: it was wholly private sector created, with the banks being the prime cause within that part of the economy. To pretend otherwise would be absurd, and just untrue.
Fifth, and largely for the record, this was not Labour's fault. Of course they did not regulate banks well enough. And of course they should not have believed in neoliberalism. That was their fault, but the Tories would have been worse on both counts. This cannot have been Labour's fault because Labour did not cause the crash of US banks or banks across Europe, where many did fail. The fault was systemic and inherent in the madness of a banking system almost universally out of control (Australia and Canada were exceptions, for example, but the exceptions do in this case indicate the generality otherwise).
Let me then address the specific questions. I, Ann Pettifor, Paul Krugman and of course some others, were arguing before the crash (in the case of Ann and myself) that what was happening was systemic. To lay the blame at Labour's door when the entire political culture of the UK, which made itself subservient to the supposed wisdom of markets in the way I describe in my book The Courageous State, is just a lie. The UK crash would have been as bad if the Tories had been in office as it was under Labour.
What was different was the reaction. Labour went for growth: it increased investment; it boosted the consumer economy (remember the 'cash for clunkers' scheme, which worked in moderation even if it was not very green, or economically inspired?); and it permitted the continuation of government spending. Why? Because the economy needed jobs. But most of all what it needed was money.
By 2009 banks had simply stopped lending. And people and businesses were saving because they were worried. Both were entirely logical things to do. But in an economy dominated by a single currency as the UK is savings must equal borrowings. And as the creator of cash, if most of the economy insisted on saving in 2009 (as it has also done so since because there is still only limited confidence in where we're going and what the risks are) then the government has no choice but to act as borrower of last resort i.e. it has to borrow what everyone else insists on saving because that cash has nowhere else to go. And so it ran a deficit. It did not even have a choice but do so: the economy demanded it because of the simple equation that in cash terms savings will equal borrowings and there was literally nowhere else for the money to go but to the government, who had to borrow it.
But in the process what the government did with that money (which was otherwise effectively withdrawn from active use in the economy, because that's what saving does) was what no one else would do, which was to spend it. And by spending it they did keep cash in the economy to ensure there was enough to make it go round, as is necessary if any economic well-being is to survive in such a situation.
And when even that spending did not look as though it could compensate for a lack of bank injected cash in the economy then QE had to be used as well.
But did the government have to borrow from bond holders? Could it have instead just borrowed the money from the Bank of England? Technically the answer is the government never needs to borrow from the public or gilt markets. EU law does though prevent a government borrowing from its central bank. That is to artificially support the role of banks in the bond markets, but the reality is that without that law we would not technically need those markets at all in the modern economy (we did in past eras, but what existed 50 plus years ago should be consigned to history now). That same law seemed to technically make us beholden to those bond markets. But the reality was different for three reasons.
First, actually people were begging to government to take their money. They still are, even though as I have shown in the last week, they literally make nothing from saving in government bonds; the corollary of which is that such borrowing costs the government nothing right now. The government did then have all the power in this relationship: they were the party doing the favour to bond holders by giving them a secure place to save, and not the other way round.
Second, as we now know (but did not for sure in 2009), QE works and quite simply cancels debt. Near enough one quarter of UK government debt has been cancelled by QE because the government cannot owe debt to itself, but now owns £435 billion of its own supposed debt.
And third, the bond holders did as a result have no way they could dictate terms to anyone. The pretence that they could demand austerity was a convenient and deliberately constructed myth that supposedly gave power to bankers and their friends in a way that was terribly convenient to a government intent on crashing the size of the state, but it had not an iota of truth in it. Actually bankers are desperate for government debt without which they cannot properly function.
To answer Michael's question then, the idea that we are beholden to bond holders is pure nonsense. I should say I have no problem with nonsense stories in the right circumstances, like when going on a bear hunt. But when used as a mechanism to suppress the well-being of people to the point where the lives of millions are deliberately turned into misery I think the situation very different, and culpability has to be taken in to consideration. If I could I would place Cameron and Osborne in the dock and I now suspect they might be found guilty by a jury of their peers. But, despite that, some are still crazy after all these years and so the pernicious myth goes on.This article is part of a Tyee Presents initiative. Tyee Presents is the special sponsored content section within The Tyee where we highlight contests, events and other initiatives that are either put on by us or by our select partners. The Tyee does not and cannot vouch for or endorse products advertised on The Tyee. We choose our partners carefully and consciously, to fit with The Tyee’s reputation as B.C.’s Home for News, Culture and Solutions. Learn more about Tyee Presents here.
“It remained a dark secret for a long, long time,” said Chief Robert Joseph.
Joseph is a residential school survivor. He was taken from his family and entered into St. Michael’s in Alert Bay at age six. He endured 11 years of emotional, sexual and physical abuse, from being strapped “buck naked” to being dragged by the ear, which severely damaged his hearing.
“I was so ashamed to talk about it,” Joseph said.
Come walk with us The Walk for Reconciliation is Sept. 24 at 9:30 a.m. in downtown Vancouver at Cambie and Georgia. The walk is two kilometres in distance and will end at Strathcona Park, site of the Reconciliation Expo. The expo is between 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. and features artists, multicultural performances and a speech by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde. More information is available here.
But then came the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2008, and the dark Canadian history that Joseph experienced began to come to light.
A 2015 poll by Angus Reid also gave Joseph optimism. The poll found that 7 in 10 Canadians agreed with the TRC’s characterization of residential schools as “cultural genocide.”
“For me, that really was healing,” he said. “It brought some peace to me that Canadians do care.”
Joseph recognized the importance of creating opportunities for Canadians to talk about Indigenous issues. He founded Reconciliation Canada in 2012 to keep the conversation going and to make and strengthen relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
In 2013, Reconciliation Canada and a number of partners hosted a Walk for Reconciliation in Vancouver that drew 70,000 participants despite the rain. There were a number of public speeches, including one by Dr. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.
“Believe it or not,” King told the crowd, “you have made a big step towards progress here in Canada.”
Reconciliation Canada, in collaboration with Canada 150+ and other partners, is organizing another Walk for Reconciliation this month. It will take place in Vancouver on Sept. 24 at 9:30 a.m. and is followed by a Reconciliation Expo (details available in the sidebar).
The walk will begin at Cambie and Georgia and end at Strathcona Park, which will host the Reconciliation Expo.
One business that’s collaborating with Reconciliation Canada is cosmetics company Lush. The Walk for Reconciliation is being promoted in their stores, and 250 store managers in North America will be coming to Vancouver for the walk.
“We’re in the beginning stages of talking about reconciliation as a business,” said Carleen Pickard, Lush’s ethical campaigns specialist.
Since connecting with Reconciliation Canada, Lush has educated their Canadian staff on colonization, the residential school system and intergenerational trauma.
“We really feel the momentum has been building over the last four years,” said Charlene Seward, Reconciliation Canada’s community engagement manager. “More people are aware of what reconciliation means and want to get involved.”
‘You’re all a part of this’
Chief Joseph, 78 this month, is at the forefront of the reconciliation efforts in Canada, but it took a long time for him to reconcile with the pain he experienced in his past.
Joseph became a heavy drinker after leaving residential school. It hurt his family life, and his wife and five children eventually left him.
Then one day, he ran into a friend in downtown Campbell River.
“I don’t like what you’re doing to yourself,” said the friend, Joseph recalls. “Let’s go fishing.”
It was an overnight trip. Joseph remembers waking up the next day unsure of where he was until he went outside to sit at the back of the boat.
“I saw the ocean on the other side of the channel,” said Joseph. “I saw the Vancouver Island forest, and it had lightning bolts going through it. Pretty soon, my gaze went right up to the celestial level. I heard a voice say to me, ‘In spite of what you’ve done to yourself, I love you, and you’re a part of all this.’”
It was exactly the words Joseph needed to hear.
But the healing took longer to happen. Joseph did international reconciliation work with the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace that took him to places like South Africa, Israel, South Korea and Mongolia.
“When you left the residential school, you never felt like you were a decent person, so I did service work,” said Joseph. “Reconciliation really starts internally.”
He later helped word the apology given to First Nations for Canada’s residential school system delivered in 2008 by former prime minister Stephen Harper. He was also an advisor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and to Indian Residential School Resolutions Canada.
Joseph says all Canadians have an important role to play in reconciliation. Some of his suggestions for how to get started: reach out to your local indigenous community to start a dialogue or, very simply, just read as much as you can.
Racism and stereotypes are reconciliation’s biggest roadblocks, said Joseph, but they can be combatted by becoming educated and meeting Indigenous people.
“It’s all about learning and listening,” he said.
Read more: Indigenous AffairsRecommended Equipment:
A nutrient solution system: I recommend starting with General Hydroponics Flora Series Performance Pack, consisting of the main three liquid parts, several enhancements, and the pH test kit. (Handy tip: If you ask General Hydroponics or other nutrient solution vendors for samples of their products, you can usually get free or discounted trial sizes.) A word of caution about miracle growing fertilizers, do not add any fertilizers other than those you know to be hydro-friendly, as it can cause a nutrient build-up harming your plants.
The nutrient solution water level of the hydroponic container system must be monitored.
As the nutrient solution level decreases it needs to be replenished with fresh water, otherwise the nutrient solution becomes more concentrated and some plants won’t respond well. Add fresh water to bring the concentration back to the level it was when started, often referred to as “topping-off.” The pH of water is an important measurement whether you are gardening indoors or outdoors, soil or soil-less, because it affects whether a plant can properly take in nutrients. The electrical conductivity (EC) of water estimates the total amount of solids dissolved in water -TDS, (Total Dissolved Solids). TDS is often measured in ppm (parts per million). In hydroponics, this measurement is used to determine the approximate concentration of nutrient solution to water.
There is no need to adjust your pH or EC until it is necessary.
There is a lot of misinformation out there about keeping the pH and EC regulated. If I were paranoid, I’d say it was a conspiracy from hydroponics manufacturers and retailers who want to sell more consumable product. Don’t get me wrong, proper pH and EC is important, even critical, to the success of a plant.
I recommend a handheld pH tester such as the Oakton EcoTestr pH 2 Waterproof pH Tester, which is excellent for the home gardener and has been proven time and again to be accurate. There are many hand-held EC devices available as well and if you are checking the pH, it’s a great time to check the E.C.
When do I need to adjust the pH?
Only under the following conditions:
pH is at or below 5.0 or above 6.5
AFTER at least 30 minutes from the time of topping-off or changing the nutrient solution.
How to adjust?
I highly recommend using pH Up and pH Down from General Hydroponics sparingly and only when necessary.
Flushing
Flushing means to literally flush empty the nutrient solution from the hydroponics system and replace it with fresh “good” tap-water. Then return the nutrient solution back to what it should be for the phase of growth. When in doubt, flush the system and refresh the nutrients. Otherwise, it’s recommended to flush your recirculating system every 7 – 14 days. When I grow, I try to keep the nutrient solution working as long as possible, however, salts build-up over time and it is good to flush with fresh water from time to time.Image copyright PA Image caption The extension is expected to be completed by March next year
A heritage steam railway is set to become "one of the best in the country" after raising £1.25m to fund a track extension, its bosses claim.
The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway launched a public appeal to complete its "last mile" a year ago.
It currently runs between Cheltenham and Laverton but has long planned to extend to Broadway in Worcestershire.
After an "overwhelming response" it will reach the Cotswolds village for the first time since 1960.
'One major hurdle'
The project involves extending the volunteer-run line and building a new station at Broadway, similar to the original which was demolished soon after closure.
Chris Bristow, the line's finance director, said extending the track will enable the line to become one of the best in the country for steam services.
"It's hard to think of another heritage line that has the same kind of opportunities for future growth and development."
Image copyright PA Image caption More than 100,000 passengers travelled on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway last year
But, he said, there is the "major hurdle" of a high, unstable embankment to be tackled before the line reaches Broadway.
He said an additional "£400,000-plus" was needed to correct "historic make-and-mend repairs" and stabilise the structure using modern techniques.
"It's rather more than we expected to have to spend, but the work must be done," he added.
Sign-up to get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morningThe effect is only apparent if you listen with headphones.
We talk about how cities and buildings look. We call places landmarks or eyesores. But we rarely talk about how architecture sounds, aside from when a building or room is noisy. The spaces we design and inhabit all have distinctive sounds. The reading rooms at the New York Public Library have an overlay of rich sound. Your office may be a big room in a glass building with rows of cubicles where people stare into computer screens.
It may be sealed off from the outside, and you may think it is quiet. Is it? (Really, it’s better with headphones.) Often the sound of a place is so pervasive that we stop noticing what we hear. Or we think the sound could not be otherwise — that is, until we, say, turn off the buzzing overhead lights.
Compare, for instance, the ear-shattering subway platform in New York City with a relatively silent station in Paris, where trains slide into platforms on whooshing wheels: Play video to compare. Click and hold image to compare sounds New York Paris Sound may be invisible or only unconsciously perceived, but that doesn’t make it any less an architectural material than wood, glass, concrete, stone or light. It is shaped by design, albeit most architects rarely think much about it, except when their task is to come up with a pleasing concert hall or a raucous restaurant — and then acousticians are called in. That said, you don’t need to be a specialist to distinguish spaces according to the sounds they make.
You can probably conjure the lofty, uplifting sound inside a great stone cathedral, like St. Patrick’s in New York, just by thinking about it:
A bistro, like Lafayette in Manhattan, has a distinctive sonic profile that’s textured, enveloping, open, bright. You can imagine the clink of glasses and plates, the scrunch of bodies on leather banquettes, the hum of voices reflecting off mirrors and windows. The sound is inextricable from the experience, like the smell of roast chicken or freshly baked bread. It’s almost tactile: During the Middle Ages, smell was the unspoken plague of cities. Today it is sound. Streets, public spaces, bars, offices, even apartments and private houses can be painfully noisy, grim and enervating. And we seek respite. The architects of the High Line did not focus especially on the sound of that popular elevated park.
But a good deal of the pleasure of walking along it — and of a visitor’s sense of escaping the city while being in the middle of it — derives from its height, some 30 feet above the street, and the corresponding change in the sonic environment. The rumble of traffic below the High Line physically assaults pedestrians at street level. Play video to compare. Click and hold image to compare sounds High Line Street Below Atop the High Line, the sound of the street slips almost out of consciousness but never quite out of range, becoming a bass note, grounding the views in an aural landscape that remains urban and layered. Nearly half a century ago, the critic Reyner Banham wrote “Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment,” in which he meditated on how heat, air, light and materials create habitats that variously influence our experience of buildings. He stressed the fact that such environmental considerations should be “naturally subsumed into the normal working methods of the architect.” To Banham’s list can be added sound. We talk admiringly about green or energy-efficient buildings, with roof gardens, cross-ventilation and stairways that encourage residents to walk, because good design can aspire to improve public health. But we don’t talk nearly enough about how sound in these buildings, and in all the other spaces we design, make us feel. Acoustics can act in deep, visceral ways, not unlike music (think of the sound of an empty house). And while it’s sometimes hard to pin down exactly how, there is often a correlation between the function of a place or an object and the sound we expect it to make.
So an expensive, solid wood door sounds better than an inexpensive hollow one, partly because its heavy clunk reassures us that the door is a true barrier, corresponding to the task it serves. Play video to compare. Click and hold image to compare sounds Solid Hollow A floor-to-ceiling window on an upper floor in a luxury apartment tower in Lower Manhattan provides spectacular, wide-open city views.
But listen: The room can sound muffled and even seem a little claustrophobic without the windows open. Windows are not just about light and views but also about letting in air and, by implication, the rest of the world. They are transparent membranes and portals.
A room sounds very different when a window is open. Sound defines, animates and enlarges the architecture. If only subliminally, we also know, by contrast, when sound spoils architecture because it fails to correspond to function. The bygone Shea Stadium in Queens was joyless partly because the design of its low, wide semicircle dissipated the sound of a cheering crowd into Flushing Bay. Fenway Park in Boston is the reverse; it concentrates hometown joy. Sound and form go together. We presume it’s a truism that a large, airy space provides us with more aural room than a small one. But imagine yourself having a private conversation in a crowded elevator where a half-dozen other people are talking as well. Now picture yourself having that same conversation with only a single other person in the elevator. In which case would you be |
KHL. Sekac also appears to have respectable puck-handling and passing skills, suggesting that he could be respectable as a playmaker as well as a goal-scorer.
Weaknesses
The NHL is a much faster league with tighter checking than the KHL. The time and space to make plays is much reduced and its more difficult to physically impose oneself on defenders in the NHL compared to lower leagues. It remains to be seen if Sekac can develop any aspects of his offensive game to the level necessary to overwhelm an NHL quality defense.
Of particular concern is Sekac's speed of release on his shot. While his shot itself is dangerous, he may not have the opportunity to use it effectively if he cannot get it away quickly enough. This can often be the difference between being able to beat NHL and AHL/KHL quality goaltending.
Projection
Based on Sekac's KHL season, it is fairly safe to suggest that he was playing at the level of a front line AHL forward, or AHL/NHL tweener last season at 21 years of age. The KHL players he kept up with are typically at par with the AHL star veteran players (often they are one and the same, like Justin Azevdo) and more than a few players with the offensive talent of an NHL top-niner.
I would presently value Sekac as being a player somewhere in the range of a NHL third-line winger and a top unit AHL forward, fitting in to the depth chart in a similar position as Michael Bournival and Sven Andrighetto. I'd project him to have a good chance of establishing himself as a permanent top nine winger in the NHL, with a decent chance of making it as a 2nd line winger.
Sekac has indicated a willingness to go to Hamilton for an apprenticeship in playing pro North American hockey. At this point I think we will most likely see Sekac do well in training camp but be sent to the AHL for seasoning for a few months until a spot opens up due to injury or Rene Bourque finally wearing out his welcome in Montreal.
Follow @StephanCooper30A sustainable livelihood project in Pakistan is boosting poor farmers' income and protecting their land from erosion.
In Rahdari village in Punjab's Khushab district, farmers have taken up growing trees as a cash crop on barani, or rain-fed lands, where yields were often uncertain and usually poor.
"It's like a bank account but with a difference," says a beaming Ramzan, 36, referring to the trees he planted 5 years ago on half a hectare of land. "You water the trees and see them grow every day. And when you need the cash, you cut the tree and sell the wood."
"A friend of mine has bought a car by selling wood and now earns money from the car by using it as a taxi," added Ramzan. "Many other families that I know are now able to send their children to school thanks to the additional income provided by the trees."
This was not always the case. Parts of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, suffer frequent droughts and low crop yields. Not long ago, the Khushab district was a barren land threatened by the advancing desert where wood was a rare commodity. An ADB project, however, has been literally planting seeds of change in the area. The results are now plain for all to see.
Changing the barani landscape
Loss of productive land to water and wind erosion often threatened the food security of villagers in Punjab. Widespread loss of shrub and vegetation in the sandy pastures also made livestock production challenging.
Against such a dismal backdrop, an ADB project presented a community-based development model, involving the communities and government and non-government organizations as implementers. The goal of the Sustainable Livelihood in Barani Areas Project was to raise the quality of life of the poorest and most vulnerable families in the targeted areas.
"Now every family sets aside a piece of land for planting trees. This practice not only stabilizes the sand dunes, but also gives them cash and food security." - Ghulam Rasool, regional manager of the National Rural Support Program
"The first time I came here to meet the communities was about 5 years ago. I was astonished to see the barren land except for some bushes and old trees, locally called kagali, here and there. It was like a treeless plateau that came to life once a year when and if it rained," says Ghulam Rasool, regional manager of the National Rural Support Program. Rasool is from the Hunza region in the northern most part of Pakistan, an equally dry but mountainous region where communities religiously plant and protect trees as life-nourishing assets.
"But now every family sets aside a piece of land for planting trees. This practice not only stabilizes the sand dunes, but also gives them cash and food security," he says, pointing to the rows of eucalyptus across the rolling sand dunes.
Villagers along the Chenab-Jhelum link canal in Noorpur Thal, Khushab district benefited in particular from planting eucalyptus. Ground water level had risen after the canal was built about a decade ago in the sandy region. Eucalyptus, a fast-growing and water-consuming plant, helped keep the water table down for over 26,000 farmers in waterlogged areas. The farmers planted saplings on more than 2,000 hectares of sandy fields and shelter beds.
"Planting trees on 1 acre saved 5 acres of land (about 2 hectares). Besides, the income these plants are providing are vital for me and my family," says 82-year-old farmer Allah Yar, who is now sick and unable to work in the fields. His son sold some trees for 29 thousand rupees to buy medicine for Yar and other needs of the family.
A lucrative venture
When the project was launched in 2004, the 10 barani districts had a population of 3.2 million in its 2,500 villages, spanning 200 local administrative units called the union council. At that time, about 47% of the people were living below the poverty line and around 50% of the children above 5 years old had never been to school.
The community forestry initiative now earns about $1 million a year, mainly through the sale of eucalyptus to local wood traders who sell to them to different users, including the construction, matchstick, and paper-making industries. The wood is also being used to make logs, brushes, and pulps.
The plantations have increased fodder supply for cattle. Many villagers also use the wood as fuel for heating in winter and for cooking purposes. Following the project's success, villagers planted more than 1,000 hectares with their own resources in the Noorpur Thal area alone. Many of these have been leased to the matchstick and pulp industry as captive plantations.
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The goal is to provide enough food to feed 300 families while raising money for the development of a mobile grocery store, typically a bus that drives throughout low-income neighborhoods providing fresh produce and other necessities, said Jenga Mwendo, a coordinator for the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development.
Food at the event will not be sold though donations will be accepted.
"If we had a grocery store it would be a catalyst for other economic development in our neighborhood," Mwendo said. "Given we lost about 75 percent of our population after Katrina having something like that would help bring people back and bring in new residents."
The Lower Ninth Ward is considered a "food desert," a low-income area with a population of 500 or more people that does not have a grocery store within a mile, as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Lower Ninth Ward has a population of 5,500, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, and the closest supermarket is 3.5 miles away. Investors contend they need a population of at least 10,000 people to support a 20,000 square foot grocery store, Mwendo said.
Beverly Jackson, a lifelong resident of the Lower 9th Ward, said there is a sentiment hardening in the minds of many that the refusal of supermarkets to open in the long-suffering community is a clear signal that they don't want the neighborhood to come back.
"Why is it taking so long?" Jackson said. "Why can other areas get the things they need and want and we here can't do that? You tried to keep us away after Katrina. Is this another way you're trying to force us out?"Several years ago, a group of American cockroaches discovered four strangers in their midst. A brief investigation revealed that the interlopers smelled like cockroaches, and so they were welcomed into the cockroach community. The newcomers weren’t content to just sit on the sidelines, however. Instead, they began to actively shape the group’s behavior. Nocturnal creatures, cockroaches normally avoid light. But when the intruders headed for a brighter shelter, the rest of the roaches followed.
What the cockroaches didn’t seem to realize was that their new, light-loving leaders weren’t fellow insects at all. They were tiny mobile robots, doused in cockroach pheromones and programmed to trick the living critters into following their lead. The demonstration, dubbed the LEURRE project and conducted by a team of European researchers, validated a radical idea—that robots and animals could be merged into a “biohybrid” society, with biological and technological organisms forming a cohesive unit.
A handful of scientists have now built robots that can socially integrate into animal communities. Their goal is to create machines that not only infiltrate animal groups but also influence them, changing how fish swim, birds fly, and bees care for their young. If the research reaches the real world, we may one day use robots to manage livestock, control pests, and protect and preserve wildlife. So, dear furry and feathered friends, creepy and crawly creatures of the world: Prepare for a robo-takeover.
LEURRE Project
Nature has long been a source of inspiration for roboticists. Engineers commonly borrow from biology to design robots that move in novel ways, yielding machines that undulate like snakes, climb like geckoes, or glide like manta rays. But when LEURRE launched in 2002, the research team aimed to reach beyond bio-mimicry. By then, collective behavior had become a hot topic in both biology and robotics. “We started thinking, we have on one side the animals capable of doing those collective behaviors, and we have on the other side those robots being built by roboticists that are able to replicate that same kind of collective behavior,” says José Halloy, the physicist who served as the scientific coordinator of LEURRE while at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. “If we establish a link between the two, well then obviously we will have a mixed group that will act collectively.” What’s more, Halloy says, the researchers believed they might be able to use the robots to influence the group’s natural behavior.
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The team started with cockroaches, which aren’t as social as, say, ants or bees, but demonstrate some collective behavior. In particular, they shelter together in large groups; a cockroach is much more likely to hang his arthropod hat at a hideaway that’s home to other roaches than to strike out on his own for a vacant resting place. Halloy and his colleagues set out to create mobile, insect-like robots, or InsBots, that could manipulate a group of real roaches’ decisions about where to rest.
The first step was to create robots that could intermingle with live cockroaches. Fortunately, the machines didn’t need to be exact replicas of the insects. “That’s good news for roboticists because it’s very difficult to copy an animal,” says Halloy, who is now at Paris Diderot University in France. “What matters is that the robots are sending the relevant cues to the animal.” The trick is to identify the few key social signals—which vary from species to species and can be visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile—that will allow robots to communicate with their flesh-and-blood counterparts.
“Wow, they can be squashed by the robot. We are going to kill some of them if this continues.”
Cockroaches identify their comrades by smell, so Halloy and his colleagues wrapped their matchbox-sized InsBots in filter paper soaked in cockroach pheromones. They placed the robots, along with a dozen real roaches, into a circular arena that contained two different shelters, one darker than the other. In earlier tests, the real roaches had revealed a clear preference for darkness, choosing to aggregate in lighter refuges only 27 percent of the time.
When the researchers introduced the InsBots, which were programmed to prefer the lighter shelters, the entire group’s preference for light more than doubled—the mixed society of roaches and robots ended up in the lighter shelter 61 percent of the time.
Halloy’s team provided a compelling proof of principle, but the researchers dreamed of doing more than bossing cockroaches around. Since their roach results were published in Science in 2007, they’ve been figuring out how to integrate robots into other critter communities.1 In one follow-up project, Halloy and Francesco Mondada, a roboticist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne in Switzerland, chose to work with chickens and exploit the well-documented phenomenon of filial imprinting, in which newly hatched chicks form nearly instantaneous social attachments to their mothers. Since the 1930s, biologists have known that chicks imprint on nearly any moving object they encounter in the early hours of their lives, from a person to a model train. This phenomenon was well documented by the zoologist Konrad Lorenz, who was famously photographed with a trail of ducklings waddling along behind him.
Halloy and Mondada knew that their surrogate mother didn’t need to look like a bird, but research had shown that it would help if it were approximately the right size, so they built a cylindrical, hen-sized mobile robot. Because studies had also revealed that chicks are more likely to imprint on objects that make noise, and stand out from the background, the researchers equipped the robot with a speaker that beeped and installed several rings of lights that displayed changing color patterns. Nine-hour-old chicks then watched through a Plexiglass wall as the so-called PoulBot traveled back and forth, beeping. After each chick had undergone three of these hour-long imprinting sessions, it was placed into the experimental arena with the PoulBot.
About 60 percent of the 213 chicks tested followed the PoulBot closely as it cruised around the arena. In fact, some of the chicks were so attracted to the robot that the researchers had to wrap the robot in a Plexiglass bumper so the birds wouldn’t get caught in the robot’s wheels. “We said, ‘Wow, they can be squashed by the robot. We are going to kill some of them if this continues,’ ” Halloy recalls.
With PoulBot leading the way, biologists might learn new things about bird behavior. “By having control of robots that are inside the group,” Mondada says, “you can do some experiments on the working principles of those societies.” For instance, how does a group of chicks act when only a fraction of the flock strongly imprints on a mother figure? And does following behavior change with age? The researchers are still analyzing their data, but they hope that the PoulBot can help answer these and other questions—and do so in a controlled, easily replicable way. Robots, after all, are the kings of consistency, able to perform the same way in trial after trial.
Halloy-Mondada
Several researchers have already begun using biomimetic robots to probe animal behavior. With the help of robots, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, for example, demonstrated that female Túngara frogs are attracted not only to the sound of male frogs’ calls, as was already known, but also to the sight of their expanding vocal sacs.
Robots might also help us control animal behavior outside the laboratory. Mondada imagines a world where robots shepherd free-range chickens out of their coops in the morning and back at night, for example. Robo-sheep or –cattle could one day lead real herds. (In 1999, a robotic sheepdog named Rover corraled a flock of ducks and drove them toward a designated location. The robot was not designed to pass as a duck, however, or forge a social connection with them, and probably worked simply by scaring the birds.) By tapping into animals’ social behavior and channels of communication, farmers may be able to manage their livestock in a more “natural,” humane way, Mondada says, without needing to rely on restrictive physical measures, such as electric fences or barbed wire.
For Maurizio Porfiri, an engineer at the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering who has built a series of robotic fish, protecting wild animals has always been the goal. “My feeling was that all this technology that was inspired by nature, was never utilized in nature itself,” Porfiri says.
Another possibility is to use the robots to manipulate “nurse” bees into taking better care of the colony’s brood.
Porfiri hopes to develop robotic fish that guide wild fish away from hazards such as oil spills and dams. His work so far suggests that it’s a plausible idea. Using a water tunnel to recreate the conditions fish might face while swimming in a flowing river, he discovered that when a plastic fish robot beats its motorized tail at just the right frequency, live golden shiners swim along behind it. At these frequencies—which vary according to the speed at which the water is flowing—fish in the wake of the robot “obtain a hydrodynamic advantage,” Porfiri says, meaning that they need to expend less energy to swim. The finding taught his team how fish robots will need to move in order to be effective leaders in the wild.
Robots may also ward off unwanted species. Over the last several years, Porfiri has developed a mobile robot that resembles a zebrafish; the machine is covered in bright blue and silver stripes, with a few splotches of yellow pigment, and has the slightly rounded shape of a fertile female fish. In a study published last year, Porfiri showed that while the robot attracts zebrafish, it repels mosquitofish, an aggressive invasive species.2 Over the past century, people deliberately introduced mosquitofish into a variety of new habitats because they eat mosquito larvae. But now, the fish cause significant damage to local amphibian and fish species by eating their eggs and young. In their native habitats, mosquitofish are preyed upon by brightly colored sunfishes, so when the mosquitofish viewed the robot, with its electric blue and yellow paint, it might have perceived it as a predator and been scared away. Similar robots could one day be deployed in the wild to keep invasive species out of critical habitats, Porfiri says.
Now Porfiri is scaling up, trying to understand how to integrate more than one robot into a group of fish. “It’s not practical to have one robot controlling a big group,” he says. “So you need multiple robots. How should these robots coordinate with each other to influence the behavior of a group? That’s a fundamental question.”
David Israeli
In Halloy and Mondada’s latest endeavor, they are attempting to pull off the same feat with zebrafish as they once did with cockroaches, using a group of biomimetic robots to manipulate the animals’ choice of shelter. The work is part of ASSISIbf, a five-year project launched last year that involves scientists in six European countries. (The project is named after St. Francis of Assisi, who reportedly had a gift for communicating with animals.)
In addition to working with zebrafish, the scientists are also developing a network of 64 robots to interact with honeybees. The robots, which are still in development, will generate heat, light, vibrations, and electromagnetic fields—all stimuli known to affect bee behavior. The researchers hope to be able to use a combination of these stimuli to encourage all the bees to aggregate at a single specific location. “As soon as we can do that, we will do other tasks like split up a group of bees into two swarms or four sub-swarms or maneuvering the swarm around,” says Thomas Schmickl, a zoologist at the University of Graz, in Austria, who is leading the project. Eventually, Schmickl says, beekeepers may be able to install this kind of robotic system in a bee hive, using it to encourage bees to take more pollination flights, for instance, or to go out looking for food at a certain time of day.
Another possibility is to use the robots to manipulate “nurse” bees into taking better care of the colony’s brood. If a higher percentage of larvae survive to adulthood, it could help boost the declining bee population and provide more pollinators to tend to our food crops. “There is always a loss in the brood in a honeybee colony, but if you can control the nurses, you can affect the losses, probably,” Schmickl says.
In an unrelated project, scientists at the Free University of Berlin in Germany have developed a honeybee robot that can do a basic waggle dance—a complex series of movements bees naturally perform, seemingly to communicate with each other about where food sources are located. Once refined, waggle-dancing robots could potentially be used to drive real bees to fly to specific locations.
It wouldn’t be the first time an outsider manipulated bees by pretending to be one of the gang. Certain orchids, for example, trick male bees into pollinating them by displaying petals shaped like beckoning female bees. In comparison, the roboticists’ plans are gracious. The grand union of beasts and ’bots may ultimately make animal societies stronger; a little robo-leadership could cause some species’ stock to soar.
Emily Anthes is a Brooklyn-based freelance science journalist and author of the book Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts.
References
1. Halloy, J., Sempo, G., Caprari, G. Rivault, C., Asadpour, M., et al. Social Integration of Robots into Groups of Cockroaches to Control Self-Organized Choices. Science 318, 1155-1158 (2007).
2. Polverino, G. and Porfiri, M. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) behavioral response to bioinspired robotic fish and mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). Bioinspired Biomimetics 8, 044001 (2013).Travel with me back to yesterday, the early days of the Reagan administration, when taxes were being cut and spending increases were being curbed (the actual cuts were few), and when journalists were losing their heads about the supposedly catastrophic state of the economy.
The prevailing ethos in those days in the White House was somewhat sensible. The idea was that the recession had to be permitted to run its course. The late 1970s inflation coupled with recession had wrought dollar depreciation plus high unemployment and high interest rates. These were part of the adjustment process. No one doubted it.
Now, there was a time, only a few years earlier, when the Keynesian orthodoxy claimed the power to control the economy the way we control our cars. One could adjust the inflation up to drive unemployment down, and adjust the inflation down and pay the price in higher unemployment. It was a trade off, and the wise economists would decide what was socially optimal.
One can only marvel at the navet, but it all came crashing down with the advent of the simultaneous appearance of both inflation and unemployment, and Keynesian confidence was shaken to its core. The better members of the Reagan team were more realistic. They believed that the goal of government policy was to create the conditions for economic growth, and if that meant letting bad policies wash themselves away during the transition, so be it.
The journalistic establishment at the time hated them and their free-enterprise ideas. So, of course, all bad news was treated as not only worse than it really was, it was also blamed on the Reagan administration, as if it had the control over events that Keynesians imputed to government. So, if times were bad, who were to blame but the people in control?
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Every day the headlines blasted away, as if the media establishment were trying to whip the public up into a hysterical frenzy against tax cuts. People were encouraged to blame That Man in the White House for all existing evil, and the nightly newscasts were filled with furrow-browed anchors doing stories on the poor suffering masses and their desperate plight. Their political agenda was aggressively on display, brazen beyond belief.
And then something amazing happened. The economy began to recover. Unemployment fell, inflation crashed, interest rates came down, and growth returned. The criticism later changed: the Reagan administration was accused of being too pro-growth and unleashing greed and “cowboy capitalism.” But it fell on deaf ears, and Reagan won a landslide reelection in 1984.
Now, I’m not saying that Reagan was laissez-faire or that the economic recovery didn’t owe something to a newly fashioned form of military Keynesianism. Rather, my focus here is on the spin: the press hated him, and exaggerated the failings of the economic structure in order to destroy policies it hated.
The contrast with the Obama administration can’t be more stark. No one in these ranks said that malinvestments have to be washed out of the system and bankruptcies and unemployment must be tolerated for a time in order to get back on a growth. Nay, nay, they pulled out the old bag of tricks and claim that they only needed to loot the public of hundreds of billions and spend it on building up government, and then, wow, like magic, the entire economy would come back to life.
But it hasn’t. The stock markets survive, but that’s no indication. Stock markets are never better performing than during a hyperinflation. Interest rates are rock bottom, but only through artificial means. Gross Private Domestic Investment is still falling off a cliff, having already completely erased ten years of investment from the record of history. Here is a fundamental factor that suggests that terrible things are still to come our way. And I guess I’ll have to put this in italics because the point seems to be lost in the shuffle: unemployment is still rising, even soaring straight to double digits!
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The sociology of this intrigues me to no end. Unemployment is one of the human elements that journalists are supposed to glom onto. Oh, look at poor Bob and Jane and how they lost their jobs and have nowhere to go, etc., etc. Talk about human interest! Where are the weepy stories about the plight of people wandering around with no work? Instead, we get happy clappy stories about how things are not nearly as bad as they might be had the great and powerful Obama of Oz not appeared to save the day. There is also the remarkable spin that things are getting worse, yes, but at a slower pace than before — an observation that might be most commonly heard in Hell.
Obama himself has other lines.
“In the last few months, the economy has done measurably better than expected.”
Well, that depends on your expectations, doesn’t it? It is irrefutable. But the press is glad to be the echo chamber. “Figures released last week showed that the economy contracted more slowly in the second quarter than many economists had expected.”
And then there are the benchmarks, and that might be the scariest part of all. The Obama administration is convinced that we can have no real and lasting recovery until homes go up in price. A top adviser said: “until we see a robust recovery in housing markets, housing prices, in jobs and family income, we’re not anywhere near out of the woods.”
This is precisely the same inanity that afflicted the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations. They saw falling prices as the problem to be remedied rather than the saving grace of an otherwise abysmal economic environment. So they kept trying to stamp out good things thinking that they were bad things, effectively burning the crops instead of killing the rats that were poisoning the wheat following harvest.
We can fully expect the mainline press not to understand economics. I can deal with that. But not even to draw attention to the awful reality of the current economic situation, simply because many members of the mainstream press are sympathetic to the idea that the government should be stealing ever more money from us for the state? Here is where ideology leads to blindness, which leads to the worst form of propaganda.
I suspect that they will no more get away with this now than they did in the 1980s.
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As intriguing as the prospect of watching Godzilla journey through hell is, what makes this series even more exciting is the return of cartoonist James Stokoe (Orc Stain, Wonton Soup) to the title. Prior to his musclebound Hollywood comeback last year, Stokoe, who will be writing and illustrating the opening issue, penned one of the most memorable Godzilla stories in recent times with Godzilla: The Half Century War. A six-issue mini-series published in 2012 and available in a collected hardback edition this month, Half Century War follows a Japanese soldier, Ota, and his lifelong mission to get the better of his ferocious nemesis. Beginning when Godzilla first makes himself known to man, young Ota’s vow escalates to a globe-trotting, decades-spanning obsession in a world plagued by monsters of all kinds. Poignant and hugely entertaining, Stokoe lovingly payed homage the Godzilla mythos with his neon gradient colors and distinctive, stupefyingly intricate art.
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Three years later, Stokoe is back to oversee the beginning of Godzilla’s descent into hell, and as his Marvel 100th Anniversary Avengers #1 special issue showed last year, he’s more than capable of producing something exceptional in a single issue. The remainder of Godzilla’s journey will be documented by Bob Eggleton on both script and art in issue No. 2; Buster Moody will illustrate No. 3 as written by Ulises Farinas and Erick Freitas; Ibrahim Moustafa takes up art duties on the Brandon Seifert-penned issue No. 4, and Dave Wachter brings the series to a close in No. 5.
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AdvertisementOne of President Trump’s first actions after taking office was to institute a federal hiring freeze, leaving thousands of jobs vacant across the US government. Many of these jobs are in agencies that Trump supposedly values, like NASA. But when you look at the job vacancies that NASA is forbidden from filling, we see Trump’s “values” are a crock of shit.
According to data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), Gizmodo has learned that there are currently dozens of jobs that NASA is unable to fill as a direct result of Trump’s hiring freeze. The vacant positions include everything from aerospace engineer jobs at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to accounting positions at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to computer engineer jobs at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
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President Trump has spoken highly of NASA and the role of space exploration in advancing America’s technological interests. And despite the fact that Trump’s proposed budget currently recommends cuts to NASA, the president has even said that he’d like to see Americans travel to Mars. But it’s pretty hard to travel to Mars without aerospace engineers.
The longer this hiring freeze is in place, the more these lists will grow. And the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under the direction of President Trump, is currently drawing up plans to make these kinds of cuts permanent.
There’s a certain segment of the population that will always see government employees as having cushy jobs, and those same people will generally believe that any cuts to federal spending are good. But these cuts have a direct impact on the number of positions available in the fields of science and technology, something that America could fall dangerously behind in during the Trump era.
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Below we have the most recent list of vacant jobs that won’t be filled because of President Trump’s hiring freeze. While NASA isn’t being hit as hard as many agencies in terms of volume (Gizmodo has filed similar requests with virtually every federal agency and will be releasing more info as our FOIA requests are fulfilled), it becomes apparent when you look at the list that these good, American jobs are exactly the kind of positions that we need if the United States wants to have a future in space.
Marshall Space Flight Center - Huntsville, Alabama
Aerospace Engineer
Aerospace Engineer
Supervisory AST Engineer Project Management
Contract Specialist
Lead Aerospace Engineer
Lead Aerospace Engineer
Kennedy Space Center - Florida
Accountant
Strategic Communications Specialist
AST, Technical Management
Johnson Space Center - Houston, Texas
AST, Environmental Control Systems
AST, Electrical Power Systems
Security Specialist
AST, Avionic Systems
Supervisory Quality Assurance and Technical Authority
Program Specialist
NASA Headquarters - Washington, DC
Systems Capability Leader - Entry, Descent, and Landing
Operations Research Analyst
Legal Administrative Specialist
Operations Research Analyst
Goddard Space Flight Center - Greenbelt, Maryland
Research Physical Scientist, AST, Atmospheric Chemist
Electronics Engineer, AST, Optical Engineer
Computer Engineer, AST, Software Systems
Resources Analyst
Aerospace Engineer, AST, Reliability & Quality Assurance
Research Space Scientist, AST, Planetary Studies
Aerospace Engineer, AST, Aerospace Propulsion System
Program Manager
Supervisory Contract Specialist
AST, Technical Management
Resources Analyst
Resources Analyst
Computer Engineer, AST, Software Systems
Resources Analyst
Glenn Research Center - Cleveland, Ohio
AST, Aerospace Experimental Facilities and Test Technologies
Chief, Space Combustion and Materials Branch, AST Experimental Facilities Technique
Chief, Facility Management and Planning Office, AST Experimental Facilities Technique
AST, Aerospace Experimental Facilities and Test Technologies
Armstrong Flight Research Center - Edwards, California
Electronics Engineer
Facilities Management Officer
President Trump likes to take credit for the creation of private sector jobs that he had no real role in negotiating. But by lifting the federal hiring freeze, he could legitimately create thousands of good jobs for Americans who are helping to build the future.
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Again, there’s always going to be a chunk of the American population who believe that government can’t and shouldn’t create jobs. It’s more or less built into the mythology of how America became the world’s lone superpower—through private enterprise alone.
But many of America’s greatest technological successes from the 20th century, whether it was the creation of the internet or landing on the fucking moon, started with massive amounts of research and development by the government. And yes, that means jobs for not just the NASA aerospace engineers but the contract specialists and the program managers and the facilities management officers that make it all work.
If you really want to make America great again, let agencies like NASA hire the people they need.Bitcoin startup 21 Inc has released an update to its previously announced paid messaging platform, soft launched earlier this year.
In a Medium post today, the San Francisco-based startup debuted ’21 Lists’, a new function that enables 21 users to offer bitcoin as a way to incentivize VCs, CEOs and angel investors to answer email messages from unknown senders. In advertisements, the startup has sought to position the offering as “better than LinkedIn”.
“Each list is a mini-directory organized by profession or skill,” the post explained.
It went on to detail six lists that group participants into categories including ‘VCs’, ‘CEOs’, ‘angels’, ‘founders’ and ‘blockchain’.
The update is the latest that finds 21 moving away from a former bitcoin mining hardware product play and toward software solutions it believes will spur consumer use of the digital currency.
In statements to CoinDesk earlier this month, 21 CEO Balaji Srinivasan pushed back on claims that the new product marks a pivot, indicating that its main goal is to increase bitcoin adoption.
He went on to compare the bitcoin network favorably to other forms of payment.
“[Bitcoin] allows instant receipt of funds without linking a bank account, it works across borders and it can scale up and down to very small and large payments alike,” he said.
Email visualization via ShutterstockThanks to the Post Gazette’s Wellness n’At on-line blog, we will be launching the first comprehensive Indoor Cycling Survey for the Pittsburgh region. Given the late start to Winter this year, we have been slow to pull this trigger for fear of a lack of interest, but now that the snow has begun to fly, and the temps have begun to fall, it’s time to make this happen.
The overall objective is to create a list of places to ride indoors within a 25 to 50 mile radius of Pittsburgh, PA. This will not be just a list of gyms and spin studios as may come to mind at first blush. We wish to obtain enough details that this list will provide real value – time saving value – for anyone who needs to make the most of their workout time. From big chain health clubs like LA Fitness to small studios like Meka Fitness – we will endeavor to include every possible place to get your ride on.
To that end, below is the list of questions that we intend to ask. For those who follow this blog, we are asking that you let us know if we have missed anything that is important to you – in making a decision |
of the United States. From my personal perspective this would be bad under normal circumstances; but this is happening under circumstances in which he has been credibly accused by more than one individual of having been a person who, as an adult, was attracted to children; which is the textbook (or dictionary) definition of a pedophile.
It is one thing to disbelieve his accusers and to consider them all to be politically motivated slanderers. This categorization of Moore's accusers would seem problematic from one perspective, because one or more of them have said that they voted for Donald Trump for President. But be that as it may, it is conceivable, if not understandable, that some people do not believe that any of Moore's accusers, including the Trump voters, are telling the truth at all.
For his part, Moore is now completely denying the truthfulness of all of these accusations; and has claimed that he doesn't know--and didn't know--any of these women now; and claiming that he didn't know any of them as minors (or children), when he is accused of having interacted with them. Therefore he is calling all of these women liars.
So it is one thing to disbelieve them all, and to consider them all to be politically motivated liars and slanderers; but it is another thing altogether to actually believe them to be credible; and therefore to believe that it is entirely possible that Moore, who claims to have always gotten parental permission to date whomever he dated back then, is (or was) actually a pedophile--and yet vote for him to be the next U.S. Senator from Alabama.
It is the height and/or depth of hypocrisy to indeed believe that Moore was a pedophile, and therefore now a liar, and still vote for him; and do so on the grounds that he represents your Christian values more that his opponent does (read that again); who also claims Christianity as his faith, but is a Democrat who disagrees with your public policy approaches to some issues; and who has otherwise been a model citizen.
If you are such a person, your political affiliation as a Republican is really your religion. If you are such a person, you make Christianity look bad; but probably do not care--because your actual religion is so-called conservative Republicanism.ST KILDA'S almost non-existent injury list has ballooned after a horror weekend, with Paddy McCartin and Sean Dempster unavailable until after the bye and skipper Nick Riewoldt no certainty to face Carlton at Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
It comes on top of news that young defender Hugh Goddard will have surgery on a ruptured Achilles tendon in his left leg after being taken from the ground on a stretchee in the 88-point loss to Adelaide last Sunday.
The stretcher was again put to use again for McCartin after he was concussed in the third term when hit in the head by teammate Jack Newnes and then Adelaide's Luke Brown immediately afterwards.
"Paddy won't play this week. It was precautionary to send him to hospital during the game at the weekend," Cox said at the club on Tuesday.
"He's OK, he's recovering fine."
Initial concerns about McCartin's neck were allayed, and Cox hoped the forward would miss just one game, with the Saints having a bye in round 13.
"You don’t mess around with these things. He'll certainly be tested coming out of the bye. We'd like to think at the moment he'd be fit for the game after (the bye)."
McCartin was concussed against Collingwood in round three earlier this year, and also suffered the injury in the VFL last year.
It was also an issue when playing in the under-18 championships, when a bump on West Australian skipper Dom Sheed (now at West Coast) caused the No. 1 NAB AFL Draft selection in 2014 to have delayed concussion.
"Sean Dempster won't play this week. He has a procedure on his knee and could miss the next four weeks. Along with Fisher." JC — St Kilda FC (@stkildafc) June 7, 2016
Dempster had surgery on Tuesday on his right knee after pulling up sore in the third quarter against Adelaide.
He played out the game but will miss four weeks.
"He had a bit of cartilage floating around his knee," Cox said.
He also said Riewoldt was only a 50-50 chance to play this week after copping a knock against the Crows.
"We won't know really how Nick's travelling until later in the week," he said.
"The procedure was positive, and it gives him a chance (to face the Blues)."
Cox said Riewoldt had not been experiencing any issues with his previously troublesome left knee.
"Until that knock, (his knees were) good as gold. He'd had no awareness whatsoever," he said.
Cox confirmed St Kilda's worst fears with Hugh Goddard's season over after surgery on his ruptured Achilles.
Goddard was injured after an innocuous incident in the second quarter against Adelaide as he pushed off his left leg.
"He's already got a text message via Nick Riewoldt from Jarryd Roughead, who had a similar injury, tohelp out and hopefully encourage him," Cox said.
Injury-prone midfielder Nathan Freeman also hurt his hamstring at training last Friday night.
"In isolation … it's about a 3-4 week hamstring. Given his frustration I suppose, and given it's another incident, we'll reassess Nathan's progress from here," Cox said of Freeman.
The Saints have already looked at different ways to build up Freeman's body, and Cox said the club would continue to explore its options with the 20-year-old.
"We've completely changed his program, and there are a lot of really positive signs," Cox said, acknowledging that Freeman might not be seen on the field again in 2016.
"Part of our motivation is to get him up playing some form of footy, because he hasn't for a while, but there is a possibility (he sits out the season)," Cox said.Summertime in LA is all about soaking up Vitamin D. To help usher in the sunshine, Chaya Downtown will open their outdoor beer garden and izakaya today. (Take that, June gloom!)
In its previous three years, Chaya's vibrant weekday happy hour scene has welcomed well-heeled young professionals looking for post-work tipple as well as the Downtown hipster crowd.
Chef Atsushi Kenjo’s special menu will include yakitori skewers ($2—$3) and a variety of izakaya fare ($5-7), like spicy tuna and shisito pepper tempura or baked scallops with soy butter and wasabi. Downtowners can toast (kanpai!) with discounted Kirin pitchers ($10), house made sake sangria ($6/glass), sake flights ($15), or premium Japanese whiskeys (starting at $18).
The outdoor patio will be festively decorated to re-create the traditional beer gardens thru August 31.
Chaya Downtown, 525 S. Flower St., Downtown; 4 p.m.-close; (213) 236-9577Vegan Apple Pie is the quintessential all American comfort food. It’s hard to beat a buttery, flakey crust, soft cinnamon flavored apples, and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream! (PIN it now!)
Fall brings an abundance of apples…which in turn has me cooking up all kinds of delicious apple treats! In the past month I’ve made Applesauce, Hard Apple Cider Bread, Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding with Apples, and Apple Streusel Muffins! But my very favorite thing to make is my Aunt Betty’s Vegan Apple Pie. It has a perfect buttery, flakey crust, warm apples swimming in cinnamon, and an amazing sugary crumb topping. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I’m pretty sure that this is what Heaven will be like.
My Aunt Betty was actually not a true blood relative, but she was, for all intents and purposes, a surrogate Grandma to me. She and my Uncle George took my newlywed parents under their wings when they first moved to Boston. They hosted big dinners each week for all of the young 20 somethings from their church, my parents included. I’d like to think that my Aunt Betty might be partly responsible for my mom’s gift of hospitality—my mom can throw quite a party! My Aunt Betty and Uncle George were the very first people to meet me when I was born—they actually drove my mom to the hospital! Each year we would go to their house in Boston for holidays—I have such good memories of driving through the snow at Christmas, seeing the lights of oncoming traffic as my Dad drove through dark back roads in the Boston suburbs, overhearing NPR on the radio, and singing in my head “over the river and through the woods….to Aunt Betty’s house we go!”
My Aunt Betty was an incredible cook. She was Greek, loved garlic, and didn’t believe in “light” anything. Everything she made was the real deal. Including this pie. She first taught me to make this pie one summer when I was maybe 11 or 12? My sister Hannah and I (at the time our family was living in Philadelphia) had flown up to visit Aunt Betty for the week. I still have the recipe card, transcribed in my scribbly junior high writing, more than 25 years later!
^^^ My original copy of her recipe, complete with notes from my mom, who still uses this recipe herself!
It’s true that her original recipe called for lard rather than shortening, but really, who wants lard in a pie? Vegan shortening stands in perfectly well. This pie bakes up in just under an hour, with pretty minimal hands on time. This is a French style apple pie, which I happen to think is a whole lot easier to make. Because the crumb topping is loose, rather than structured like a traditional lattice top, it sits right on top of the apples. As they cook down and shrink, the crumb top goes right down with them, so there’s no ugly gap when you cut into it. However, if you are like Irving, and really prefer a crust on top as well, feel free to double up the crust recipe.
My Aunt Betty passed away nearly 6 years ago now. I think of her often, especially when I’m cooking. I’d like to think that she would be so proud of me and the hobby chef that I’ve become. And I think she’d be really happy that I’m still making her pie all these years later.
Will you join me in making Aunt Betty’s Vegan Apple Pie? While there’s no need for a special occasion to make a pie, this is my go-to for Thanksgiving each year. A little bit less traditional than a pumpkin pie, but even more delicious. Be sure to post a picture to social media so that I can see your gorgeous version of Aunt Betty’s pie! #frieddandelions // @frieddandelions
Sarah De la Cruz Yields 8-12 slices Aunt Betty’s Vegan Apple Pie {Vegan} Apple Pie is the quintessential all American comfort food. It's hard to beat a buttery, flakey crust, soft cinnamon flavored apples, and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream! 25 minPrep Time 50 minCook Time 1 hr, 15 Total Time Save Recipe Save Recipe Print Recipe Ingredients Crust 2 1/4 cups flour (I use all purpose)
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons shortening (I use Earth Balance), cut into small cubes
1/3 cup cold water
Filling 6 cups peeled and diced cooking apples (I like Fuji or Gala)
1/4 cup flour (I use all purpose)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (apple cider vinegar works too)
French Crumb Topping 1 cup flour (I use all purpose)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegan butter, cubed (I use Earth Balance) Instructions For the crust: In the food processor, fitted with the pastry blade, mix flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl (alternately, this can be done by hand). Add the shortening. Pulse until in becomes crumbly. Add the water and pulse until it becomes a cohesive dough (you want to do this as quickly as you can, with minimal processing). Cover with plastic and put in the fridge while you work on the filling. For the filling: Preheat oven to 450°. Combine the apples, flour, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Roll out the now chilled dough. I use a baking mat with flour to prevent it from sticking. Roll out the dough to be about the size of your pie plate, with about 1" overlap. Carefully lift the rolled out crust into the pie plate. Fold over the excess dough and pinch around the outside of the dough to make a crimped decorative crust. Fill the crust with the apple filling For the crumb topping: Combine flour, sugars, and salt into a bowl. Add the cubed butter and mix with your fingers until it resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over the apples. There will be plenty of crumb topping—use your hands to lightly pack it down. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes Reduce the temperature to 400°. Bake for 40 minutes more. Remove from oven and allow to cool and let the juices from the apples set before cutting. Serve with vanilla ice cream! 7.6.9.1 49 https://www.frieddandelions.com/vegan-apple-pie/ Fried Dandelions
^^^ I love my notes at the end of the recipe, complete with smiley face exclamation marks. Desserts have always been very important to me!Exclusive | New ‘Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.’ & ‘Lobster Johnson’ Coming in 2017
This week, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell vol. 2 is in comic book stores, and it seems like a pretty definitive ending for the title character. But that doesn’t mean that Mignola is through with Hellboy. Not by a long shot!
Mignola may be currently focusing his artistic efforts on painting outside of comics, but he remains committed to continuing the fictional world of Hellboy and his fellow supernatural creations. Earlier this week, Mignola and Dark Horse announced a Hellboy spinoff called The Visitor, which will explore the alien assassin who was sent to kill Hellboy decades ago. But today, CraveOnline has the exclusive reveal of two new miniseries: Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1954 – Ghost Moon and Lobster Johnson: The Pirate’s Ghost!
The Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1954 miniseries takes place in the earliest days of Hellboy’s adventures, and it will start with a tale that finds the World’s Greatest Paranormal investigator on his own against a very familiar threat. As for Lobster Johnson, he’s a pulp era superhero who has his own problems to deal with. But any story with a pirate ghost already has our attention!
Hellboy and the BPRD: 1954 – Ghost Moon # 1
“Separated from the rest of the B.P.R.D., Hellboy finds himself in the company of a familiar enemy with a new weapon–and plans to test it out on Hellboy.”
Mike Mignola (Writer), Chris Roberson (Writer), Brian Churilla (Artist), Dave Stewart (Colorist), Mike Huddleston (Cover)
Release date: 03/08/17
Lobster Johnson: The Pirate’s Ghost # 1
“New York Harbor Patrol is in over their heads when a ghostly pirate ship appears on the Hudson River, and the Lobster’s hunt for a major mob boss may have something to do with it.”
Mike Mignola (Writer), John Arcudi (Writer), Tonci Zonjic (Artist/Colors/Cover)
Release date: 03/29/17
Are you excited about the new Mignolaverse comics? Let us know in the comment section below!
Photo Credits: All images provided by Dark Horse Comics.BOULDER POLICE INTERVIEW
Interviewer: Boulder Police
Interviewee: John Ramsey
Date of Interview: April 30, 1997
Interviewed At: Boulder District Attorney’s Office
Case: Hasson/Ramsey
Case No: 96-423
ST: Detective Steve Thomas
TT: Detective Tom Trujillo
PR: Patsy Ramsey
PB: Pat Burke
BM: Bryan Morgan
PH: Peter Hoffstrom
JF: Jon Foster
NOTE: This version has been prepared from a transcript provided to Global Reporting & Video, Inc. on October 10, 2002. Numerous inaccuracies in spelling, punctuation and other textual errors have not been corrected.
Introduction:
ST: We are going to get going here shortly, so just hit the play button and knock it out.
BM: See what you need to do.
ST: Did you have anything before we start Bryan?
BM: I did not.
ST: Okay.
Interview
ST: Our further purpose for the tape today is Wednesday, April 30, 2997, at the Boulder District Attorneys Office; present are myself, Steve Thomas, Detective Thomas Trujillo, Chief Koby, Deputy P. Hoffstrom, Mr. John Ramsey, Mr. Bryan Morgan, and Jon Foster.
John, just some real quick preface remarks, and although this isn’t how we usually conduct business in a hurried way, there is a lot we want to get through today and we know that our time is short. As we told Patsy, we appreciate this “leap of faith,” maybe on both our parts, finally came to the table, and uh with the help of Pete, establishing what we hope can be some on-going and continuing dialogue; let me simply speak for Tom and myself, that our commitment to this case, despite what you may read and hear and incenuate, or reported from third parties, we will find the truth in this case and that is solely what we are seeking from detectives bluecollar guys at our level, and we will work that to the ends of the earth. And John, I’ll tell you, we have gone to bat for John Andrew and Melinda to get them cleared. I have chased stuff all over this country unrelated to John Ramsey, and I’ll continue to do that as it has merit. So, with that said I think Tom is going to jump in with some questions, and I’ll probably close it with some. Okay.
TT: Thank you, John (inaudible). Our time is limited here, so I’m going to go right to December 25th; next kind of walk with you in chronological order, uh and kind give you the as far as it’s worth, for a minute there. Let’s kind of start, Patsy covered most of this, let’s cover from when you guys came home from the White’s house, actually when you guys left the White’s house that night. About what time, that kind of thing, just give me brief (inaudible) of what happen.
JR: Uh, it was probably 8:30 p.m., quarter to nine when we left as I recall. And uh, we had gift baskets for the Walkers, for the Stines, for the Franks, and we left the White’s and we took a basket to the Walkers; as I recall Patsy went in and I stayed in the car; we drove to the Stines and did the same thing, uh, and debated on whether to go to the Franks or not, but it was getting late and that was a ways away, so we decided to go home. So we probably got home about nineish, nine-fifteen I think, drove in the back through the alley into the garage. Uh JonBenet had fallen fast to sleep. Uh, I carried her inside and took her upstairs and put her in bed, put her on her bed. Uh Patsy came up behind me, and then I went down to get Burke ready for bed, he was down in the living room, working on a toy he got putting it together, and tried to get him to go to bed because we had to get up early the next morning, but he wanted to get this toy put together, so I worked with him on that for 10 15 minutes probably; and then I took him up to bed and got his pajamas on, probably brushed his teeth, and then I went up stairs from there and got ready for bed. I read her a little bit. The lights went out around ten-thirtyish or ten-forty.
TT: How did you sleep Christmas night?
JR: I took a Melatonin tablet because I wanted to get to sleep fast because we had to get up early, and I slept through the night.
TT: Now is that Melatonin an over the counter or prescription drug?
JR: Over the counter.
TT: That you are (inaudible)... are you taking any other medications right now?
JR: I have been on Paxel, and Quanopin, which are both prescription anti-depressants.
TT: Okay, and the second one is?
JR: Quanopin.
TT: OK. I’m not familiar with that one.
JR: It like, kind of like Adavan, I’m not an expert but...
TT:... Okay. How much Paxel where you taking?
JR: Uh, well one tablet a night, I don’t know how, but I can get the prescription from (inaudible) the size of it, whatever it is.
TT: Is it the same prescription that Patsy is on or...
JR: Basically, yeah, probably exactly the same thing.
TT: And the second medication, you take that once a night?
JR: Right.
TT: Right before bedtime?
JR: Yep.
TT: And second medication, how often to you take it?
JR: Uh, recommended is two to three tablets a day, and I tend to go from zero to just three. It’s uh, kind of depends on how you feel, it’s kind of a quick reacting.
TT: Okay. (inaudible) Let’s go back to the 25th, sorry about that. Get home about nine, nine-fifteenish, Burke’s downstairs playing; do you remember what kind of toy that was?
JR: Oh, it was a little thing that kind of unfolded, and it was like car ramp or something and then it folded all back together and it made something else.
TT: Was it like (inaudible)...Was it like putting stickers on it?
JR: Well, it was a plastic thing he had to assemble and he had some stickers too, and uh, he was intent on getting it done before he went to bed, so...
TT: Did you help Burke get into his pajamas that night?
JR: Yeah, like I do every night.
TT: Once he gets into his pajamas, he brushes his teeth, and climbs into bed. Which bed did Burke sleep in that night?
JR: He slept in the one he normally does, which is the one closest to the door.
TT: Okay. That where he, that’s like his bed and (inaudible) the room.
JR: Yeah. That’s like his bed were you’ll, that’s like his bed in the TV room.
TT: All right. Did Burke go right to bed, or did he watch, I know he...
JR: No he went right to bed...
TT: Does he have the habit of watching TV sometimes?
JR: Uh, Yeah he always like to put a pitch in for a movie or something, but I’m almost certain he went right to bed because it was by then, it was beyond when he went to bed anyway because he knew we had to get up at 5:30 a.m., so he went right to bed.
TT: Okay. You went upstairs and got ready for bed; was Patsy already in bed by the time you went upstairs?
JR: She was in bed when I went to go to bed, I remember that. Uh,...
TT: And you guys have kind of separate bathrooms there, you guys are getting ready about the same time then?
JR: Uh, I don’t really remember Patsy getting ready at the same time, but I can remember she was in bed when I went to go to bed.
TT: Okay. But about, actually which staircase did you use to get upstairs?
JR: The ah...
TT: The front or the back?
JR: The front.
TT: Okay. You came to the top of the stairs after helping Burke get ready for bed, do you recall whether Patsy was in bed at that time?
JR: I don’t remember, one way or the other.
TT: Okay. You brushed you teeth and you go get in bed, what book were you reading that night?
JR: I don’t remember. Uh, I had been reading Shadow of the Mood, I don’t know if I picked that one up or not, but I don’t remember which one it was, I don’t read them for very long.
TT: Okay. When you guys first got home that night, were there any lights on in the house that you can remember?
JR: Uh, not that I can remember, except it should have been, there would have remember specifically (inaudible), we normally would have left lights on.
TT: When you normally go out and leave lights on, which lights might you leave on?
JR: Well I usually leave lights in the living room on and the sunroom, if we think about it, we leave a hall light on, and the garage.
TT: In fact one on the spiral staircase, or in the coatroom?
JR: In the coatroom, usually. But I don’t remember specifically if it was on.
TT: Did JonBenet ever wake up when you carried her upstairs?
JR: No, she was sound asleep.
TT: Okay. Is she had to wake up when she is sound asleep like that?
JR: No, not usually. She was very sound asleep, and did notice (inaudible).
TT: Did Burke follow you guys in, or did you have to go back down to the car to get him out of the car?
JR: No I think he came in, I don’t think he was asleep.
TT: Okay. Were you in JonBenet’s room when Patsy got her bedclothes on?
JR: No, I don’t think so, not that I can remember.
TT: What was JonBenet wearing when you carried her upstairs?
JR: She had on a white sweater with a silver star and black pants and black vest, and that what’s she had on that night.
TT: Okay. Did Patsy put her in her bedclothes then?
JR: Uh huh.
TT: John, do you remember what Burke wore to bed that night?
JR: Oh, not specifically. He would have worn pajamas, but I don’t remember which ones because he usually mis-matches.
TT: I know we talked earlier about Burke liking watching TV movies. Does his TV come in real clearly as far as regular TV stations go, or is it just more for movie?
JR: It’s more for movies. In fact, I’m not even sure the TV was in his room that night, I don’t know, I don’t recall. But it’s not hooked up to cable or anything.
TT: Okay. Before you fell asleep that night, did you hear Burke making any sounds, noises, or anything like that? Any odd noises or sounds coming from the house at all?
JR: No.
TT: Okay. And Burke went to bed in the bed he normally sleeps in?
JR: Yeah.
TT: Does Burke usually sleep with his door open or closed?
JR: We usually close it partway. It’s usually (inaudible) for sound or light.
TT: Does he usually sleep with a night-light on or anything like that?
JR: Uh, not normally.
TT: Okay. What about JonBenet’s door, is it normally open or closed at night?
JR: It’s usually partly open.
TT: OK, and again, about how far is partially opened?
JR: Just enough to let some light in.
TT: Okay. (inaudible) about the same as Burkes?
JR: Uh huh.
TT: OK. Does JonBenet normally sleep with a night-light or any type of lighting in her room?
JR: Well sometimes we’ll leave the night light on, the bathroom there’s a little night light.
TT: Okay, is this like a plug into the wall type night-light?
JR: Uh huh.
TT: Okay. Does she have one of those plug into the wall type night-lights in her bedroom any way (inaudible)...
JR: Uh not that I recall...
TT: Okay, she normally has the bathroom night light on. Before Burke went to bed that night, after he got his little toy together, did Burke have anything to eat at all?
JR: No, I don’t think so.
TT: Okay. Did you guys get out anything to eat that night?
JR: No, I didn’t, and I don’t think Patsy did.
TT: You don’t think Patsy did?
JR: My wife I don’t think she did, no. I didn’t.
TT: Okay. Do you know if JonBenet Normally sleeps with the jewelry on, that she has on?
JR: She (pause), she had a little ring that she usually wore. If I would put her to bed, I would normally take off her necklace. Uh, that ring was fairly permanent, she wore it at all times.
TT: When did you get that ring?
JR: Uh, gosh I don’t know, I’m not sure.
TT: Okay. Have any idea of who she got her jewelry from?
JR: Uh, (pause)... No, not specifically, I mean it did come from Patsy or Patsy’s sisters (inaudible)
TT: Does JonBenet normally sleep with her TV on, does she normally go to bed with the TV on?
JR: It’s, it was always kind of a negotiating point. Uh, she liked to watch movies, and it would put her to sleep; so sometimes she would do that, but I don’t think that was the case that night because usually we’d have to go down and turn it off before she went to sleep; far as I know she stayed asleep, because she was asleep (inaudible)...
TT: Never woke up as far as you know?
JR: Not that I know of.
TT: Okay. Did Patsy pull back the bed covers or anything, or just lay her right on top of the bedspread of hers?
JR: Uh, I don’t remember exactly, but I would suspect the bed was not made Christmas morning, I don’t remember exactly.
TT: Okay. Is that, that part of the house is fairly warm, is that right?
JR: It can be.
TT: OK. Is that kind of since it’s remodeled (inaudible) problem or not, but it’s warmer than the old part of the house?
JR: Well, it’s hot water heat, it seems like just hot water pipes tend to heat that part of the room without having to have the thermostats turned up.
TT: Okay. Is that a problem with having to sleep in that part of the house at all?
JR: In terms of heat?
TT: Yeah. Too hot to sleep there?
JR: No, it was comfortably warm, it wasn’t too hot. It can get warm when you actually turn the thermostat up.
TT: Okay. Do you know about JonBenet’s normal bedtime routines, say other than the 25th when she’s sound asleep and you had to carry her up; what’s the normal routines for JonBenet to go to sleep?
JR: Uh, well we’d usually try to get the kids in the bed by 8:30 p.m. or 9:00 p.m., and uh, sometimes we’d read to them, and sometimes they’d want to watch a movie and fall asleep then; they usually go up, get their pajamas on, brush their teeth, then get in bed.
TT: And you guys were heading out pretty early the next morning?
JR: Uh huh.
TT: About what time did you guys plan on leaving the house?
JR: We needed to leave by 6:30 a.m., because we were going to take off about 7:00 a.m., because we were meeting John and Melinda in Minneapolis.
TT: You guys were going to taxi to fly out by 7:00 a.m.
JR: Uh-huh.
TT: What time were you planning on getting up; what time did guys get up?
JR: Well the alarm was set for 5:30 a.m., I woke up a little before that, before the alarm went off.
TT: Do you have an alarm? Does Patsy have an alarm? Do you guys both have alarms?
JR: The alarm is a clock radio which is on my side of the bed, which is the north side, left as you face the bed.
TT: Does Patsy use an alarm clock to wake-up at all?
JR: Well, she’ll use that one if I wasn’t there.
TT: Okay.
JR: That’s the only one we’ve got I think.
TT: So you woke up a little bit before 5:30 a.m. in the morning?
JR: Uh huh.
TT: John, about what time do you think you fell asleep on Christmas night?
JR: Well I think it was 10:30 p.m. or 10:40 p.m. probably somewhere in that range.
TT: Okay. Again before you fell asleep, do you recall hearing any noises or sounds in the house?
JR: No.
TT: Normally, do you do a walk through to kind of make sure the doors are locked?
JR: No, I don’t normally. The normal doors that we used to go in and out of the house were the garage door, the door to the garage and the door out in the hallway, the back hallway, and I would usually look to see if that door is locked, because that was the typical one the kids went in and out of.
TT: The back one out by the study area?
JR: Right, TV room.
TT: (Inaudible)
JR: The TV room, out by the study area...
TT: Okay.
JR:...the back hallway. But uh, I might have looked at the door that night, checked it normally I don’t specifically recall it...
TT: You don’t recall whether it was open or closed or anything?
JR: No, not specifically.
TT: Normally, any other doors left unlocked?
JR: Uh, the only door that is normally left unlocked intentionally is the door in the garage.
TT: Okay, between the house and the garage, the (inaudible) and the garage.
JR: Right.
TT: OK. John I want to back-up; who fell asleep first do you think, you or Patsy?
JR: Uh, I don’t know for sure, I suspect Patsy did because she usually does, but I don’t now. I didn’t notice.
TT: Did she stay up reading that night at all?
JR: No, not that I recall.
TT: Okay. Do you know if you had any problems, you talked about having, you wanted to get right to sleep because of the trip in the morning, did Patsy talk about having any problems falling asleep, or taking anything to fall asleep, anything like that?
JR: No.
TT: Okay. Is that something that, how often would you take this...
JR: Oh, (pause) I don’t know, it’s sporadically, it is suppose to also make you live longer and stay younger longer and all that stuff, so depending on how disciplined I was, but uh, it does help you sleep, but it wasn’t a regular thing at will.
TT: Normally, without taking that Melatonin, are you normally a pretty sound sleeper?
JR: Yeah usually (pause)
TT: I want to understand from Patsy, you guys didn’t have the alarm system on at all that day. Is that something, again, she talked about you guys having used the alarm for...
JR: No, we didn’t. We haven’t used it in a long time. Uh, it got set off accidentally, and all the sirens are inside the house, and it’s, and I, “A” I guess we would have a false sense of security, but “B” if that thing ever went off accidentally or you know without fault, it would give me a heart-attack, I mean this was a horrible sound. I never liked that system particularly, we left it hooked up in mind primarily because of a fire detection and monitoring.
TT: OK. It was just a fire alarm system?
JR: That was a fire alarm and intrusion, and far as I know the fire alarm part always worked.
TT: Okay. Who packed your bags to go out to Charleviox?
JR: Uh, well Patsy packed, I think, the kids bags, and was just going to take a dock kit.
TT: Okay...
JR: Because I had another full set of clothes up there.
TT: Okay. So you guys don’t have to take a lot of luggage or anything like that, uh?
JR: We packed some presents that we were going to take up the day before...
TT: Where were those presents at?
JR: Well I taken up, I grabbed them Christmas morning I think, or late Christmas morning and I took them up to the airport Christmas day...
TT: So they were already out of the house...
JR: They were out of the house and in the airplane, preloaded.
TT: Okay. What kind of, what type of, you just carried a little small bath kid, shaving kit I guess; uh, how big of a suitcase does Patsy carry for the kids and herself?
JR: Oh, I don’t remember, I remember there were some suitcases sitting out by the back stairs, uh usually it’s three of them, bags.
TT: Normally does take any suitcases, full size big suitcases, or anything like that?
JR: Well not for that short of trip.
TT: Okay. How much space do you have in the plane, as far as, storing luggage or anything like that?
JR: Uh, |
is probably a result of some of the user feedback we've been receiving as well because a lot of people I've mentioned they wanted to use these two characters, the one that uses the bow and arrow as well as the one who uses whip, because they have this kind of Final Fantasy appeal to them. But the combat specs were one issue that was raised. And so we increased the bases so they'd be more effective and usable in battle.
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Schreier: Something I've always been curious about is how, other than using internal testers, you guys get feedback from fans? Like if I'm a fan in North America and I have some feedback on Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, how do you find that out—are you reading message boards or just relying on PR reports or what? How does that feedback get to the top directors at Square?
Tabata: Well for example, when you post an article on Kotaku and then all the comments that are left on your article, when I have time I read through them and feed through the comments. Especially with your articles, because the comments on your articles are so many—is there a secret to getting so many comments on your articles? (laughter) It'd be great if you can teach me sometime.
Other than that, when we have these gaming events and we have consumers testing out our games, I sometimes watch over people who are playing for the first time, watching how they play and if there are any points I'd like to raise, I talk to people who are operating the booth and try to get feedback there as well.
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Also, we actually receive a lot of fan letters in physical form. That's actually delivered to us directly from consumer relations, and so we look through those appropriately.
Schreier: I'm surprised to hear that you read the Kotaku comments, Tabata-san, because of the translation barrier. Do you read them in English or do you get them translated for you?
Tabata: For the most part, I have Google Translate. (laughter) If there are points of concern, things where I want to get a grasp of the nuances and get exactly what the comment is trying to imply, I ask some of the native speakers on the team to help me out with the translations.
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A lot of the members on our team, they continually look out and read through the overseas articles that come out… So anything they pick up is relayed to me verbally as well. That's how I get a grasp of what's going on.
Schreier: Now that I know you're reading, I'll make sure that only the best comments are on the top.
Tabata: (laughter) No, then I won't understand what the truth is. I don't want you to do that.
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Schreier: (laughter) That actually brings up an interesting question: I know a lot of game developers struggle with the idea of how much to listen to fan feedback versus sticking with their own personal creative visions… How do you know how much feedback to listen to, when it's too much, and when you should stop listening and just do what you think is best?
Tabata: So obviously I have an idea and a complete image of where our landing point is in a sense. In order to achieve that, time is limited. And so given the limited time, we try to focus on a couple of points that are mostly raised from the comments and users, and so we try to pick up as much as we can within the given timeframe—those that make the most sense—and try to implement it within that time frame.
Schreier: So with something like Final Fantasy XV, everyone's talking about that game… There must be tons of feedback sent your way. I'm curious as to how you react to that and sort through it and deal with all the— There's such high expectations for that game, after the long development time and the fact that it's another numbered game in the series. How do you deal with that?
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Tabata: First and foremost, Type-0 and XV are different, they face different circumstances, so there isn't a set way that I go about things. With regards to Type-0 specifically, we're close to the end to our goal, so within that timeframe and with the feedback that we're receiving from consumers as well as media, we're trying to see what can be made possible within the limited timeframe we have.
With regards to XV, you did mention the long development timeframe, but it hasn't been that long since it became XV and we've been developing it for that title. So at this point we're still trying to work out what's best for our consumers as well on the dev side. And we're building it up at the moment. We really hope that our consumers try out the demo that will come with Type-0 and play through that first, then let us know their feedback, and that's where we'll start looking at user feedback more and concentrate on that.
Schreier: I wanted to say—something that's really impressed me recently is that you've been showing your face everywhere and talking about both of these games a lot, especially in contrast to all the months when we didn't hear anything about either of these games, really. I'm curious: what made you decide to start doing your online broadcasts in Japan and all these monthly presentations and Q&As?
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Tabata: In essence, nothing has really changed—I've always been an open guy, and I'm always willing to be out there—but I think the part that really changed everything was the whole Type-0 thing and actually really considering the feedback from our consumers and the reaction that we've received in response to that. That really got the ball moving, kept things moving forward and we have been communicating more often now than we did before.
Schreier: You mentioned before that you're still fine-tuning Type-0 HD—so it's not done yet, it's still in the final stages of development? What's the current status?
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Tabata: It's almost in the final stages, our QA checks and stuff are almost done. So we are really reaching the final leg of the process. In bringing it from a PSP to a PS4 title, when we were looking through the game and playing through the game one last time, we spotted some points that weren't enough, and that we wanted to address—camera being one thing. We're working until the very last minute so that we can deliver the best product. I've asked a lot of people to work very hard in realizing that for us, so that's where we're at. I really feel like we've reached a point where we have been able to address some of the concerns that users have raised, so hopefully that shows.
Schreier: Yeah, I think a lot of people are excited to play it in North America for the first time here, obviously, but also there's something special about this game being the first Final Fantasy on new-gen consoles, on PS4 and Xbox One. Does that have significance to you, getting to release the first Final Fantasy game of this new generation? Also, really, this is the first console Final Fantasy in a very long time that isn't part of the FFXIII trilogy, so it'll be new in a lot of ways—how do you feel about setting this landmark?
Tabata: In releasing the first Final Fantasy on the next-gen consoles, both PS4 and Xbox One, I'm very honored and very humbled, but this is a PSP remaster on next-gen consoles. In terms of the Type-0 gaming experience, I'm very proud of it and I know that I've delivered something great, but in terms of the graphics, obviously it's not on par with the highest level of graphics that the PS4 or Xbox One is capable of, and so there's a part of me that wishes I could've reached those levels. But with having the XV demo included with Type-0, I feel like it supplements that as they're bundled and packaged together… We hope that fans will enjoy the two different experiences that we're providing here.
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Schreier: At risk of [PR representative] David yelling at me for this one… I know you're not going to announce new products here, but speaking theoretically, I'm curious—now that Type-0 is done, is there anything else you'd like to see brought to HD for PS4 and Xbox One? Seems like this could set a cool trend.
Tabata: In terms of bringing games to HD, I believe that could exist as a different vector from like producing new products, so there could be two lines essentially. The possibilities I'm sure are there for Square Enix as well, in terms of looking into that as a different vector from constantly releasing new products. Earlier I had mentioned that we'd need to consider the user needs as well, in order to see if it makes sense for Square Enix to do something like that. But me on a personal level, with regards to Type-0 HD, that was a big aspect of it in terms of the fans' response. So I feel like the same type of feelings and the same type of passion will need to be generated for me in order to try out different HD remasters.
Schreier: So I should tell Kotaku readers to post lots of comments if there's something they want to see?
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Tabata: (laughing) I guess so.
[At this point Tabata spoke back and forth in Japanese with the translator and PR representative for a minute or so.]
[Translator] Amy: The article you wrote, after you interviewed [Final Fantasy creator] Sakaguchi-san, he had mentioned "Happy 10th anniversary Final Fantasy XV." Apparently he didn't really mean it in that sense. He felt apologetic about the situation. So Tabata-san wanted to let you know. (laughter)
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Schreier: Right, Sakaguchi-san was laughing. He was joking around.
Amy: (laughter) Sakaguchi-san mentioned it to Tabata-san, so he wanted to let you know.
Schreier: I hope I didn't get anyone in trouble!
[Square Enix PR representative] David Yang: I think Sakaguchi-san wanted to tell Tabata-san it was a light-hearted comment, so please don't take it the wrong way.
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Tabata: Sakaguchi said, "Oh yeah, I said 'tenth anniversary,' I'm so sorry about that. You've only been here for like two years, right?" (laughter) I said "You're very knowledgable."
Schreier: Very funny. No hard feelings! (laughter) So going back to the whole HD thing, it seems like you guys don't just port over a game and call it a day—you put in a lot of effort to bringing a game like this from the PSP to the PS4 and Xbox One. Was it a challenging experience overall? I know it took a long time for this to happen—at least a couple years now—was this a difficult thing for you guys to do?
Tabata: In terms of skipping a couple generations of platforms, it was more work than I had originally thought in terms of the quality that needed to be met as well as the amount of work that I had to do, and so it was a little bit more than I had expected. But there was good in it as well, because before finalizing FFXV and whatnot, it was great that we were able to bring Type-0 HD to the big screen and see how these traditional elements of a Final Fantasy game—like the abilities, magic, and the party system and whatnot, plus the action-based mechanics—play out.
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It was a really great experience, testing those elements. So in terms of figuring out the debug volume as well as tuning and how much work that needs to be done in that sense. Of course it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it served as a great reference.
Schreier: So there was something I was a bit confused about as far as the whole timeline here… could you clarify exactly when you started working on Type-0 HD and exactly when Final Fantasy Versus transformed into Final Fantasy XV? When did you take over?
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Tabata: I started being involved in the project around July 2012, when we were starting to shift from Versus to the actual XV project. At the time, with regards to Versus, we were considering it for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and in developing for [those platforms], we were kind of struggling to achieve what we wanted to achieve with this particular title. And so the first mission that I received was to create a prototype for the now current-gen consoles.
Schreier: And that was also in July?
Tabata: Yes, the time I started working on the prototype was July 2012, and at the time the details weren't announced for new-gen systems. So my team and I made assumptions and worked on the Windows PC DirectX 11 engine to build this prototype. The result of that was actually shown in the 2013 E3 gameplay trailer; what you see in there is what we were working on.
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At the time that the E3 trailer was shown, that's when we announced the whole title shift from Versus to XV, and after that, I started working on bringing together the team that was working on the Luminous engine as well as the team that was working on XV. And so I worked toward strengthening the team and combining the engine team with the dev team, so they could move towards working together. It was combining the Luminous engine and the Ebony engine—Ebony being the one that was the E3 prototype version—and combining those, and then shifting towards optimizing and working towards the PS4 and Xbox One versions.
With regards to Type-0 HD, when we were looking into and evaluating the new development environment for XV, we also evaluated what would potentially be possible for a Type-0 HD remake, in terms of the specs that we could achieve. So once that was done, actual development for the title started around November or December of 2013. We've gotten up to this point in a little over a year.
Schreier: So as far as the FFXV demo [that will come with early copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD], the first question everyone wants to ask is: when is the demo actually going to be playable?
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Tabata: In terms of when consumers will be able to play the demo, it hasn't been officially announced but we've mentioned in Japan that we're working very hard towards making it available around the timing of when Type-0 HD releases. So that's our current goal. You're probably gonna write that, aren't you? (laughter) It'd be great if you can [talk about] Type-0 first, before you talk about that. (laughter)
Schreier: (laughter) Don't worry, it's not only XV that people care about.
David Yang: I think the only caveat to that is that Tabata-san and the development team are trying really hard to get that close to the launch. There may be factors beyond our control—in game development, there's what we want and then external factors. There's that.
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Schreier: (laughter) I'm not planning on writing an article saying "OMG it's coming out in March!" But I think one of the big concerns is that—
Tabata: Just to give you additional insight to that, the volume is exceeding a little bit more than what we had originally expected—it's a little bit more than what we were originally planning. So in that sense we needed a little more time to implement that, and we're working towards really trying to meet that goal right now.
Schreier: I don't think anyone will be mad if the demo isn't there on the day [Type-0 HD] comes out; I think people are more concerned that they'll have to wait another six months or another year before they get to play it, because of the history of this game. (laughter)
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Tabata: And we, the dev team, understand that there are a lot of fans who have been waiting for a long time, and that's why we wanted to show the game in some form. That's one of the main reasons we wanted to release a demo for the game as well. We just ask that you try playing it first, and then after that we want to hear your honest opinions—including your opinion—about the content of the demo itself. We're working very hard towards that, so we'd appreciate it if you guys can wait a little longer.
Schreier: So going back to what we were talking about before, with feedback—just how much impact will the reactions to the FFXV demo have on the development of the game? So for example, if everyone says they hate it, will you change things around and totally overhaul development? Just how much influence will people's reactions have there?
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Tabata: First and foremost, we don't anticipate that everyone will hate it. (laughter)
The project team and I are really trying to execute an evolved version of Final Fantasy, and we're working towards that, and we really feel like we'll be able to show one portion of it. It is still in the midst of this evolution, but even if we do receive some negative feedback with regard to the demo itself, if we can address that, if we feel like we can address those within the final product that we envision, then it's probably something we can work towards and potentially address. But if people completely say that this is a worthless game, I honestly don't know… at that point I'll probably talk to you, and ask for your advice. (laughter)
Schreier: I'll make sure to post comments on Kotaku.
Tabata: (laughter) But I think at this point, it'll be the most healthy result if we receive both positive and negative comments at this state. If the comments are shifting, balancing on either side, it seems unnatural. So I think a healthy balance of positive and negative comments at this point is understandable.
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Schreier: So I've seen all the things you've said about the demo, about the town, the region of Duscae… but I'm curious as to how it's structured. Is it going to be a part of the story where you follow a certain path of events, or will you just get dropped in the world where you can wander around and do what you want? How will that work, exactly?
Tabata: How are you translating [my presentations from Japan]? Google Translate? (laughter)
Schreier: (laughter) No, no, we have a guy in Japan, Brian Ashcraft.
Tabata: Ah. I'm sure that's a point that everyone's wondering about, but unfortunately with this particular demo, we're avoiding having players play through the main story. That said, it's not gonna be as simple as we're dropping you into this open world and you can do whatever you'd like to do. We are designing the demo around kind of a good balance in terms of ensuring that there's this playability to it, but it's enjoyable on its own, and we've considered all these factors. You don't need to worry too much about it—it's gonna have some concreteness to it.
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That said, we are kinda taking a part of the game that's related to the main story to a certain extent. It may feel a little bit unnatural, but we did kind of include portions that players would easily be able to provide feedback on. So for people who have high expectations for this particular title, it would be easy for them to provide their feedback on the contents of this demo.
One skill that we—the team—need to acquire is that, you know, the opinions we receive through Square Enix members are very official opinions. They're substantive. Whereas the feedback that we're gathering from sites' comments, articles, forums and whatnot—we're not sure if it's based on comments of people who have actually played through the game. So the skill we need to acquire is to feed through and figure out which ones are the substantial ones and which ones aren't.
(laughter) So we don't need you to [promote] the positive comments, but we need you to help raise the comments that are from people who have actually played the game.
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Schreier: OK, so I have to ask one quick question: we know that you can drive the car in Final Fantasy XV, but will you be able to fly an airship and pilot it around the map?
Tabata: That's still TBD.
Schreier: I know we've seen the scale of [demo region] Duscae, and it seems like a big world, but a lot of people are wondering: just how big is the entire world of FFXV going to be? Can you give us a sense of scale there? I just want to get a sense of how big the whole world is and how big the demo is.
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Tabata: I do want to give you a clean answer in terms of the percentage of how much the Duscae region holds within the entire world, but working on the Duscae region, it's become bigger than we anticipated. So in terms of the percentage that we had envisioned before, we're understanding that it's shifting significantly. We can't really—we don't have a number at the moment, because it's hard to gauge within the entire world.
Before—I know it's kind of hard because you don't know exactly how big the Duscae region is until you play it—but in the original estimates, the size of the entire world was potentially gonna be even 20 times that of the Duscae region. But actually playing through the current Duscae region, if the entire world is 20 times the size of that, it's gonna take forever to play. We can't really even estimate how long the game would be. So we're going back and forth with that right now.
David Yang: I think what Tabata-san is also saying is that just in terms of physicality, the size of it, size doesn't equal gameplay. And so that's what's difficult, I think what he's trying to struggle with, if you put down "20 times" and then Duscae is four hours, people might think oh this game is gonna be [80] hours or whatever, but that's not what it is—he's thinking in terms of scale and size.
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Tabata: Originally, we were aiming so that the entire [FFXV] story could potentially be cleared within 40 hours. But looking at the current volume of what's becoming available, it's looking harder and harder to clear within that time. So it's something that we're gauging right now and trying to work around.
Yang: It's an organic game. It's growing.
Tabata: [In English] Yes, organic game.
Schreier: So I guess we're out of time—before we go, is there anything else you want to share with readers?
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Tabata: First and foremost, we would love everyone to properly play through Type-0 HD, because it's not just a simple action game—if it was just a simple action game, the development team wouldn't have struggled too much with it—it also involves the Final Fantasy mechanisms. And it's combining that with the action elements, which is what the dev team felt was a hurdle, but having went all through that, we really felt like we were able to generate a new type of Final Fantasy. We were able to change the Final Fantasy model in a sense, and so upon experiencing Type-0 HD and understanding and experiencing that type of model change to the mechanism, XV is becoming even beyond what we were originally expecting. So we really want you to try experiencing that as well. It's this evolution that we have for you to see.
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.
Top photo via Square Enix blogI study nuclear science, I love my classes
I got a crazy teacher, he wears dark glasses
Things are going great, and they're only getting better
I'm doing all right, getting good grades
The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades
If Art Briles doesn't have any Timbuk3 on his practice playlist, he should.
After an up and down and up 2012 campaign, an eventful offseason, current success on the recruitment front, and high hopes for the upcoming season, this song just seems apropos. Of course it brings back fond memories. The same year that song was released on cassette, Baylor went 9-3, finished the season ranked 14th in the nation, and beat Colorado in the Bluebonnet bowl. On a personal note, I was enjoying life as well. Doing all right and getting good grades…
I am not aware that any of Baylor’s current football team members are studying nuclear science, but I could be wrong. After all Baylor did top the conference APR rankings last season so it would come as no surprise. You never know which classes a recruit might take to assure his eligibility. It was Packard Physics in my day, but I imagine that times have changed.
The thing that I am definitely not wrong about is the "things are going great, and they’re only getting better" part. And Baylor’s shades-wearin’ Art Briles has a lot to do with that. Granted, it has been a team effort and there are a lot of people that had a lot to do with turning this program around. Among the names that immediately come to mind are Ian, Phil, Phil, Kaz, Nick, Robert, Drayton, and many others. But I would say that coach Briles is in a category by himself. He is the guy in the intersection with the whistle in his mouth, the guy at the front of the parade march holding a saber and not a rifle, and the guy at the head of the table saying grace. There are a number of reasons why he is where he is today, but a few traits like his levelheaded management of a game plan, his charisma, and his ability to do more with less really stand out in my mind.
Coach Briles walks on the sidelines in his long-sleeved shirt with arms crossed, and no matter what is going on in front of him, he just does not get rattled. Sure I have seen him get frustrated at a bad call here or there. Passionate? Of course. But the bad things just seem to roll off him. Angry about the last play of the Holiday Bowl? Yes. Challenge the last play of the Holiday Bowl? No. Didn't matter. Everyone in San Diego that night knew that he could have scored 100 points, but he ran, ran, ran the clock in the second half and subbed liberally. No problem. Celebrate the win, congratulate the team and fans, and head back to Waco with another trophy. Take one more step away from pretender and one more closer to contender.
Bubble screen on 4th and 3 from his own forty and not think a thing about it? Why not. Nobody in the stands would call that play. Nobody. They would be staring in disbelief as the ball was quick-snapped with the only sound heard a combined 70,000 lung gasp. If he got it fine, if not fine, but he usually gets it. In any case, the game plan didn't change. When you think about it, it made sense. The other team was pretty likely to score if he had punted it anyway, so what the heck, try to keep the drive going. I would like to see the stats on it, but I imagine he goes for it on 4th down more than any coach in Division 1.
What about calling a receiver pass in the 4th quarter of a nationally televised season opener against a ranked team that sends your star quarterback on a crossing route into a safety/linebacker hammer sandwich? And by the way, that was no soft defense; they were the number one ranked squad from the previous year giving up a parsimonious 11 points per game. Sure, go ahead, throw it to him. I was in the stands cheering, but shaking my head at the same time on that one. It was ridiculous, crazy. The really ridiculous part was that it worked. Talk about a Heisman moment. People forget that one, but boy it was big at the time.
The bottom line is that Art is not afraid of taking a risk and does not get wrapped around the axle about it when he does. Say what you will about that, but it is a good thing for Baylor fans. Only a pretty serious risk-taker would have come to Waco in 2008 and taken over Baylor’s appalling Big 12 state of affairs.
In terms of personality, you would be hard-pressed to find a more colorful character in the collegiate coaching world. Sleeves, sunglasses, humor, self-effacement, Texas drawl, all of it goes together in a package that is a perfect fit in Waco. Screenwriters in Hollywood would not draw it up any differently except that John Wayne (God rest his soul) is not available to play coach Briles.
Even if you are a competitor, you just can’t help but like the guy when you hear him speak. I have to admit, I don't understand some of his quotes. A lot of them actually. Maybe it is my East Texas upbringing or where I am on the redneck continuum. I don't know if it would help to be more or less of a redneck, and I consider myself pretty far down the scale. But when I hear one of those quotes, I normally chuckle and just move on.
"That’s a good question, that’s an intelligent question, and it’s a sensible question, but I’m not a sensible man. We’re not going to predicate anything on anything that should be predicated."
I don't get it, but it sounds good. The reporters at the Big 12 Media Day liked it. In fact they loved it.
"Well, there’s two shiny things up here, that helmet and my head probably."
Now that is funny and everybody smiled when they heard that. Everyone who just read that quote also smiled. Admit it…
"Really, Bryce, a reasonable expectation, first thing that popped into my mind is break every Baylor record there is offensively, which is what we expect him to do and what he plans to do. I don’t know what expectation anyone would have other than doing that, which equates to winning every football game we step on the field with, which needs to be his expectation along with ours."
Confidence. Not unfounded, non-sensical departure from reality, but a genuine belief in your player. Did that put pressure on Bryce? You bet it did, but not any more than he already had on his shoulders. His name has found itself in the same sentence with names like: RGIII, Nick Florence, Tim Tebow, etc. He has been feeling the pressure since December 28, 2012, so that did not incrementally add to it. In fact it fired Bryce up. It gave him increased confidence, made him want to do it even more. Time will tell, but I doubt Baylor fans will be disappointed.
Speaking of confidence, I fell out of my chair when Lache announced he was winning the Heisman. I thought it was a bit premature as I am sure that many reading this article thought. This was a week before the Holiday Bowl game. I was thinking to myself as I was booking tickets to San Diego that he better back it up… Well he did. He torched a top-20 team and was the offensive player of the game. Frankly I think that barring injury Lache could very well be in New York at the end of the season, but it is not my opinion that matters. An opinion that does matter? Art Briles’. Was Art upset about the prediction? Nope, not at all. He backed up his guy all the way. He wants people believing in themselves. Confidence does not equal arrogance. Good to have the former without straying into the latter.
"He's always that way. Everybody thinks that he's just this guy with the big bold predictions. But if you're a pretty premier, elite athlete and I ask you if you think you're good enough to win the Heisman, I would want you to say 'yes sir'."
This is a coach that is loved by his players, his constituency, his employers, and the media. A pretty tall order for anyone but somehow he pulls it off. He has a compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others. In other words charisma.
Now for the number one reason why the future is bright in Waco and why Art Briles is a success. It is that he is an overachiever in the classic sense of the word. Overachievement is a relative term to be honest. Overachieving in Waco is not the same as overachieving in Austin, Norman or Tuscaloosa. And it does change over time. Think about it for a minute. 2010 was a 7-win season that ended with a blowout loss in a minor bowl. Everybody, including myself, thought that was a huge success. We stormed the field after winning a 6th game as giddy as we could be. If you didn't think it was a success, you were 1) lying to yourself or 2) delusional. I am sure that Art thought it was great to have a 7-5 season and be a hero. To take that season and build two more successful seasons and begin to quash the discussions around being a one-hit wonder (with all due respect to Timbuk3) is impressive. Now people are saying that a 9-win season will be only ok, a bit on the disappointing side. We have come a long, long way in the last 3 years.
And by the way, this was all with fairly average recruiting classes, good but not great facilities, and average levels of resources. Make no mistake, Baylor has always had a reasonably good story to tell on the recruiting front and has been part of a major conference, but not even close to what its larger, state-supported rivals have enjoyed. Can you imagine what coach Briles could have done with some of the top recruits that Texas has landed in the last 3 years? A scary thought, and now that we are getting some of those top recruits, one that we will get to see played out in real time.
My point is this, Baylor is en route to the next level. Not there yet, still debatable where it is on the scale, but at least on the scale somewhere. Recruiting classes that are nationally recognized (that will no doubt overachieve), world-class facilities, an 8-year contract extension for its coach, and an outstanding Christian-based education that parents want for their kids are all parts of the puzzle that will spell success on the gridiron for the Bears. With the new river-front development next door to the stadium, dare I say that Waco is in danger of becoming a tourist attraction? That might be too big of a stretch... The needle is pointing in the right direction though. Things are only getting better.
So Coach, thanks for all of your hard work and good luck in the upcoming season. And… if you haven’t heard of Timbuk3, you should have a listen. Just make sure you are wearing your shades when you do.March 30 & 31, 2019
The McDonald’s Houston Children’s Festival is the largest children’s festival in the United States!
Two days of games, circus acts, rides, food, beverages, and entertainment for all ages centered in downtown Houston. The Festival excitement includes Fourteen Big Family Adventure Zones, Six stages of music and entertainment, over three hundred fun activities, as well as featured celebrities. Created 31 years ago by Child Advocates as an avenue to create awareness and funding to help the abused and neglected children of Houston.
Over 5.5 million dollars have been raised for the organization through the annual two days of children activities.
Come celebrate, enjoy, laugh, and play at the 31th Annual McDonald’s Houston Children’s Festival and create a lifetime of memories!
Anthony Gonzalez
Anthony Gonzalez, actor who voices the animated character Miguel in the Oscar winning Disney film COCO, will headline the celebrity entertainment at the 31st Annual McDonald’s Houston Children’s Festival in downtown Houston, March 30th and 31st.
McDonald’s Houston Children’s Festival
“Breakfast With The Stars”Facing sinking poll numbers in several battleground states and allegations of sexual misconduct, Donald Trump on Monday claimed that a major "undercurrent" of closeted supporters will carry him to a victory on Nov. 8.
"Those polls were great today but, you know, they're also showing there's like an undercurrent that they can't poll," Trump told a boisterous crowd in Green Bay, Wis., where several protesters were ejected from his campaign rally.
The Republican presidential nominee was presumably referring to the latest batch of CNN/ORC battleground polls that found him edging Hillary Clinton in Ohio, and within the margin of error against her in Nevada and North Carolina. All three of states are crucial to Trump's path to victory and most other polls released since the beginning of the month have shown him losing ground to his Democratic opponent in key battlegrounds.
"Remember when I was in the primaries? 'How's he doing in such and such?' 'Well, it looks like he won't win that state,'" Trump said to his Badger State fans, mocking those who underestimated his support in the Republican horse race.
"Then the next day it's like you win in a landslide. It's like, 'what happened?'" he recalled. "I guess people don't want to say they're voting for Trump, which is OK."
"We'll take it any way we get it, do you agree?" he said to cheers. "But there's a big, big undercurrent out there."
Trump has long referred to his core supporters as the "silent majority," but it wasn't until recently that he began to argue that an unexpected share of the electorate could win him the presidency. Last week, he described the current election as "Brexit all over again," referring to the thousands of British citizens who shocked pundits across the globe earlier this year when they voted to exit the European Union.
"[W]hen the Trump team draw parallels between the situations in Britain and the United States — the detachment many voters feel — and compare their effort to our recent referendum success, they are absolutely right," Brexit campaign leader Nigel Farage wrote in an op-ed last week.Yankee great Jorge Posada has sued his money agents for allegedly duping him out of $11.2 million — stealing a major chunk of his wealth just three years after he retired from baseball.
Posada’s civil suit, filed in Miami-Dade County on Monday, claims financial advisers Juan Carlos Collar and Anthony Fernandez defrauded him into investing in a shady real-estate deal in 2005 as well as sinking millions into risky hedge-fund transactions beginning in 2007 while he was still the star catcher for the Bronx Bombers.
Posada’s lawsuit suggests he’s taking a |
had five strikeouts and two walks. Naoya Masuda closed out the ninth for his fourth save.
Hawks 4, Orix 2
At Kyocera Dome, Bryan LaHair keyed a three-run first inning with a two-run double off Buffaloes starter Chihiro Kaneko (2-1), Seiichi Uchikawa went 3-for-4 with an RBI single, and Softbank held off Orix to return to.500 with its second win in a row.
Tadashi Settsu (3-1) pitched two-run ball over seven sharp innings, striking out seven with no walks. Brain Falkenborg shut things down in the ninth for his second save. Takahiro Okada hit a two-run homer in the second, but that was all she wrote for Orix.
Swallows lose Takai
Kyodo
Tokyo Yakult Swallows outfielder Yuhei Takai was diagnosed with ruptured ligaments in his right knee on Friday, the team said.
It is likely that the 28-year-old Takai, who injured himself in a game on Wednesday, will have to undergo surgery, meaning his season is effectively over.
The club also said that infielder Shingo Kawabata, who has been working with the Swallows’ farm team while he recovers from a left ankle injury, will have bone fragments removed in an operation on Monday. The 25-year-old is likely to be sidelined for two months.
The lefty-hitting Takai batted.297 (11-for-37) with two homers in 13 games this season.The Divide, which marked WE TV’s first original scripted series, will not be coming back for a second season. “We are extremely proud of The Divide and grateful to its brilliant creators, Richard LaGravenese and Tony Goldwyn, and an amazing cast and crew, for bringing this story to life as WE tv’s first scripted series,” the network said in a statement. The Divide, created by LaGravenese and Goldwyn, was originally developed and piloted by WE TV sibling AMC before it was picked up by WE TV as its first original.
The legal drama, described as exploration of morality, ambition, ethics, politics and race in today’s justice system, starred Marin Ireland, Paul Schneider, Damon Gupton, Nia Long and Clarke Peters.
WE tv made a push with The Divide, with its premiere available a week before the July debut on various of platforms, including Roku. Still, The Divide had a quiet 10-episode run, which ended in August.
WE TV is currently in production on its followup original drama series, supernatural one-hour South of Hell, produced by Eli Roth.By Robert J. Garrison
Donald Trump’s focus on the size of his rallies and on poll numbers is misguided. All throughout the primaries Trump would pull out polls showing how well he was doing against the GOP field. People chalked this up to his ego and narcissism but in reality it was a manifestation of something much worse, his lack of focus on building a ground game.
A ground game is a local organized team whose job it is to target voters through mailings, calling, voter drives and other GOTV (Get Out the Vote) efforts for a candidate running for office. Donald Trump has been fortunate to be able to run a primary race without much of a ground game. However, a nationwide campaign is very different from a party’s nomination campaign. A candidate must have boots on the ground in order to get as many people to the polls to vote for them. A successful national ground game is a necessity if Trump wishes to reach people outside the GOP sphere, like Independent voters.
Donald Trump is relying on the Republican National Committe, the RNC, to build the ground game for him. Back in May, former RNC National Chairman Michael Steele laughed when asked if the RNC could be a candidate’s entire ground game.
That is part of what they do…I’m sure Paul Manafort and others know they’ve got to put a lot of that ground game in.
In fact, the reason why Donald Trump hired Manafort was to build a ground game and to make sure the campaign headed into the convention with all the delegates that had been won. If Paul Manafort did his job correctly, it would’ve been very easy to change Trump’s campaign infrustructure into a ground game. However reports are not only coming out from the media but also from the campaign, that Paul Manafort did a very poor job.
In an interview in June on Meet the Press, Trumps Campaign Chair Paul Manafort said
Our campaign, frankly, is getting organized. It’s all in words I guess. But we are fully now integrated with the Republican National Committee.
Once again we see that the Trump campaign is relying on the RNC to do the ground game for them.This lack of organization this late in the process is just inexcusable and reckless. More proof of Trump’s lack of organization and focus would be his choice of campaign stops in Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
Donald Trump campaigning in states like Maine, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, and even Minnesota, makes no sense at all. These states are democratic strongholds. Maine and Connecticut haven’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988. New Hampshire last voted for a Republican back in 2000. Minnesota hasn’t gone to a Republican since 1972! Which brings me to my next point. Donald Trump’s lack of focus on the most important thing, the electoral college.
Donald Trump’s focus on the size of rallies and polls numbers is misplaced. Having a large crowd at rallies does not always equate to votes, just ask Mitt Romney. Romney had large crowds at many rallies throughout the Presidential campaign but came up way short of winning the election. The United States is not a democracy but a Republic, which means that we do not elect a president by popular vote. We elect a president through the Electoral College. Donald Trump needs to forget about the polls and keep his focus where it matters, on the Electoral College.
As of right now Hillary Clinton is around 253 and Donald Trump is at around 206 in the Electoral College. That means Donald Trump would need to win all the swing states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Nevada and Pennsylvania to reach 272. This seems highly unlikely since Pennsylvania has always turned out to be fools gold for Republicans since 1988. Not winning Pennsylvania would give Hillary 273 and the win.
If Donald Trump wants to win this race, then he should focus every effort in building a strong ground game in every one of those swing states and a few others like Virginia, Wisconsin and North Carolina to reach the 272 threshold.
Finally with 70 some days left in the campaign, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, says the campaign is going to work on beefing up its ground game in the coming weeks.
So what we’re trying to do this week is get an assessment of where we really are state by state…We’re going to start deploying people who are very talented in different states and bring them to these seven or eight swing states that then we plan on expanding to 10 or 11.
However, Donald Trump has proven he doesn’t listen to his advisors but instead to his instincts. Sometimes those instincts have gotten Donald Trump off track and down the rabbit hole. It is because of this that makes it so hard to predict what will happen. With all that said, during this election cycle we have learned one thing, that all the political pundits and political elites have been wrong on what Donald Trump should be doing. Maybe they are wrong about this as well, or maybe this is the one time where Donald Trump’s instincts are wrong…we shall see.
Robert J. Garrison is a political and religious writer for The Systems Scientist. You can connect with him directly in the comments section, follow him on Twitter or on Facebook, or catch up on his articles in the Archives.
You can also follow The Systems Scientist on Twitter or Facebook as well.
Donald Trump | by Gage Skidmore
Copyright ©2016 – The Systems ScientistBritish Columbia's Coquihalla Highway has again been closed due to what a search-and-rescue official calls a massive avalanche.
The route linking the south coast and southern Interior was closed earlier this week for nearly a day when a small avalanche struck near the highway's summit.
Doug Fraser of Chilliwack Search and Rescue said that a Class 4 avalanche came down on the highway late Thursday, although he didn't know the exact location.
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"It's a massive avalanche... the power from that would destroy houses," he said.
Fraser said his group and another were on standby, but he hadn't heard of any vehicles being caught in the slide.
The current storm cycle on the highway's corridor has created avalanche conditions not seen since the Coquihalla opened 27 years ago, the ministry said in a news release.
"This is a really unique winter up on the Coquihalla," added Paula Cousins, a ministry spokeswoman. "We've had some just really unique conditions because of the cold temperatures and a really weak basal layer in the snow pack."
Just when the highway will reopen remains unknown, although the ministry's DriveBC website says it has tentatively scheduled avalanche control for Friday morning.
Meantime, detours were available via Highway 1 at Kamloops and Hope, or at Highway 8 in Merritt.
Earlier in the day, the Canadian Avalanche Centre issued a special public warning about the potential for large, destructive avalanches in all B.C. mountain regions, except for the area just north of Vancouver.
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Spokesman Karl Klassen said fresh snow is sitting atop one of the weakest surface layers they've seen in years after an extended dry period in late January and early February.
He said the weakness is currently between one and two metres deep and could result in very big slides.
While the drought has created pent-up demand for powder by recreational backcountry users, Klassen said the weak layer will persist for the foreseeable future.
Everyone in a group venturing into terrain is being urged to carry an avalanche transceiver, probe and shovel and have a good knowledge of rescue skills.
The centre is also recommending backcountry enthusiasts take an avalanche skills training course and check the avalanche bulletin regularly to stay informed of conditions in their area.click to enlarge Photo via Brightline
an on-site hotel
Orlando
Orlando
The West Palm Beach-to-Orlando leg of the passenger train service Brightline, formerly known as All Aboard Florida, has announced another delay. (.)This comes just months after Martin and Indian River counties filed federal lawsuits attempting to block the bond-based financing that Brightline planned to use to help finance the rail.According to the South Florida Business Journal, the latest delay means the private passenger high-speed train service from Orlando International Airport to Miami is 2.5 years behind its initial opening date.The first section of the South Florida leg of Brightline, running between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, will open in late July, with the link to Miami opening by this fall.The nine-acre Miami station, now under construction, will feature800 residential apartments with trains arriving via an elevated track nearly 50 feet in the air. The area below the station will become a new retail center.Theleg has been plagued with many more difficulties than the West Palm Beach-to-Miami leg, where Brightline parent company Florida East Coast Industries owned many pre-existing tracks. The Orlando leg will include a 40-mile section where new rail must be laid. That section will run alongside the Beachline before connecting to pre-existing tracks near Cocoa. The Orlando station will be in the now-under-construction terminal at the Orlando International Airport.Brevard County has been pressuring the private train service to add a stop in the county that could service county attractions, such as Melbourne, Port Canaveral, Cocoa Beach and Kennedy Space Center. Brightline has been extremely reluctant to add the new station, a move that could cause Port Canaveral to lose cruise passengers to South Florida cruise ports, which will be easy to access from nearby train stations.Last week Brightline announced a shake-up in leadership when sports and entertainment insider Dave Howard was named CEO. Brightline President Michael Reininger will shift to leading new development and growth opportunities for the Florida-based passenger rail company. Reininger explained that the leadership transition is due to the shift from building to customer operations.Former rail systems planned for Florida (and blocked by Gov. Rick Scott, despite funding being nearly completed in one of his first major decisions as governor) included stations in Daytona Beach, Jacksonville and Tampa, among others.Florida East Coast Industries owns numerous rail lines in the state, including a line that Henry Flagler developed over a century ago along Florida’s east coast."There is an unprecedented opportunity to replicate the remarkable success Brightline has built over the last five years in many other places," said Wes Edens, co-founder of Fortress Investment Group, in a press release. "We have proof of concept for delivering private-sector led transportation projects that can be created efficiently, quickly and profitably. As we see the impact of Brightline take hold in Florida, we're going to look to translate our success across the country."Financing for theleg has to be secured, in part due to the Department of Transportation changing the bond approval it had initially approved in 2014. The change in approval may mean the lawsuits filed by Martin and Indian River counties are no longer legitimate.Florida lawmakers, including Melbourne-based State Senate Republican Debbie Mayfield, have filed bills that would require rail operators to install and pay for safety upgrades.“I find it quite astounding that Florida does not have any measures in place to address high-speed rail when there is a statewide project underway that will crisscross through my community, many others between Miami and Orlando, and potentially up Florida’s entire east coast,” said Sen. Mayfield in a public statement. “I can tell you that to date I have not heard one thing from AAF about what they are going to do to ensure safety features are in place to protect the public around these fast-moving trains. This legislation is designed to protect all Floridians from accidents and injuries at these dangerous railroad crossings across the state.”In a statement announcing the bills, Brightline’s second phase through Martin, Indian River, and Brevard counties are specifically mentioned. The announcement says “Brightline, in the Treasure Coast region, threatens to put at risk thousands of school children, pedestrians, first responders, and residents who would be forced to cross railroad tracks between 110 mile-per-hour trains multiple times per day.”The bills call for Positive Train Control and Remote Health Monitoring of train tracks, along with fencing on both sides of the track in areas that the bills deem necessary, installation or realignment of crossing gates, and other safety measures.With the original funding now in question, and Florida Republicans once again attempting to create more difficulties in blocking higher-speed rail for the state, the 2.5-year delay for Brightline may grow even longer before we finally get a station here.At least we’ll have all the new flights from the MCO terminal, so we can always just fly to Miami instead.UPDATE: Brightline spokeswoman Annemarie Matthews contacted us to correct our original description of the Miami station as having an on-site hotel; it will instead have 800 apartments, as updated above. She also said, "We have been very focused on launching Phase I of the service from Miami to West Palm Beach. Now that we are readying for service launch, we are continuing to make progress on Phase 2 to Orlando. We are currently finalizing permitting and should have a better idea of timing to Orlando after we begin operations this summer."The Monroe County Sheriff's Office is reporting that a woman suspect has been taken into custody for the shooting death of 33-year-old Megan Duncanson Dix from Lyndonville.
During a press conference, the Brockport Police Chief announced that 31-year-old Holly Marie Colino, from Arizona, has been charged with second degree murder.
The police chief went on to say that Dix did nothing to warrant this crime, she was in the "wrong place at the wrong time."
According to police, Colino was picked up on Monday night in Henrietta for a different crime.
Police say Colino had previously lived in Brockport and came back to the area a few days prior to the homicide.
At Colino's arraignment on Tuesday, she pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Dix was fatally shot to death during a lunch break from her job at the Brockport Lowes on Friday August 25, 2017. Her body was found in the drivers seat of a pickup truck that was parked near a footpath area not far from the Lowes store. Police said she had suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
The shooting death left Dix's family and the community of Lyndonville in shock as Megan Dix came from a family that was well-known and respected in the small tight-knit community. Dix was married and had an 8-year-old son.
A gofundme account set up by Dix's family has almost reached its $15,000 goal. The family says money will be used in part to pay for her son's education.Wavves' Nathan Williams' band Spirit Club features his brother/Sweet Valley co-conspirator Joel, and Andrew Caddick (aka Jeans Wilder). They've just officially announced their self-titled debut album, which will arrive in late spring via Williams' Ghost Ramp label. That's the cover above, and you can check out the tracklist below via Stereogum.
They've also shared the video for album cut "Duster", which follows the visual for "Still Life". It features the band skateboarding through town in honor of a deceased friend. Watch below.
The band is also promising "a special surprise" on Valentine's Day, which is tomorrow.
Spirit Club:
01 All the Time
02 Eye Dozer
04 Carousel
05 Bless This Mess
06 Duster
07 Dream On
08 Ripped
09 Still Life
10 Sling
Watch Wavves' episode of Pitchfork.tv's "Frames":As the business and political elite met at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, there was much talk of rising inequality, and many references to the "wealthiest 1%". The phrase conjures up images of billionaires living on private islands - but is that who the 1% really are?
A report by the charity Oxfam released to coincide with the Davos gathering caused a stir by predicting that the wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world's population.
It drew on research from the bank Credit Suisse, which estimated total global household wealth in 2014 at $263tn (£175tn).
That's wealth, not income. It is calculated as assets minus debt.
Obviously billionaires like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg are part of the 1%. But who else is? According to Credit Suisse, another 47m adults - everyone with wealth of $798,000 (£530,000) or more.
That includes many people in rich countries who may not regard themselves as particularly wealthy, but who simply own their house outright or have paid off a significant chunk off their mortgage.
Among them are:
18m people in the US - the country with more members of the 1% than any other
3.5m people in France
2.9m people in the UK
2.8m in Germany
Germany has the biggest economy in Europe. The reason it has fewer wealthy people - by Credit Suisse's measure - is that it has lower levels of home ownership.
There are two Asian countries with more than a million people in the top 1%:
4m in Japan
1.6m in China
The country with the largest proportion of its population in the 1% per capita is Switzerland. One in 10 Swiss residents - 800,000 out of 8m - have assets worth more than $798,000.
But Credit Suisse's report doesn't tell the whole story.
It doesn't take into account how much it costs to buy goods in each country, for example. Half a million pounds might buy a one-bedroom flat in central London, but in other countries it could buy a mansion.
It also doesn't take into account income. As a result, many well-paid young people in Western countries may fall into the bottom 50% of wealth - either because they still have student debt to pay off, or because they know how to live well, and spend all their income.
If entry into the 1% does not guarantee a jet-set lifestyle, this is even truer when it comes to the cut-off point for the wealthiest 10% - for this you only need $77,000 (£50,000) of assets.
And the figure required to be in the top half of the world's wealthiest is just $3,650 (£2,400).
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.Microsoft's final copy of Windows 8 leaked online back in early August and pirates have been battling to work around Microsoft's activation technology ever since. Early attempts involved the use of third-party Key Management Services (KMS) servers that would activate a copy for 180 days, requiring a re-activation every six months. This work around has allowed Windows 8 pirates to use the operating system free of charge temporarily, but the software maker has now made it even easier to avoid paying for a key.
Microsoft is giving away a Media Center upgrade to Windows 8 Pro users until January 31st, and pirates have discovered that the key provided will fully activate a copy of Windows 8 that was previously temporarily activated through the KMS workaround. The blunder means pirates can download an illegitimate copy of Windows 8, temporarily activate it through KMS and then upgrade it fully to an activated copy of Windows 8 thanks to Microsoft's own Media Center upgrade offer. The Verge has confirmed the procedure works on a test machine and we have reached out to Microsoft for a comment on the method.
Thanks, Stephen!KEY POINTS:
The prevalence of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) non-response gradually declines in healthy individuals exercising 60, 120, 180, 240 or 300 min per week for 6 weeks. Following a successive identical 6-week training period but comprising 120 min of additional exercise per week, CRF non-response is universally abolished. The magnitude of CRF improvement is primarily attributed to changes in haemoglobin mass. The potential for CRF improvement may be present and unveiled with appropriate exercise training stimuli in healthy individuals without exception.
ABSTRACT:
One in five adults following physical activity guidelines are reported to not demonstrate any improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). Herein, we sought to establish whether CRF non-response to exercise training is dose-dependent, using a between- and within-subject study design. Seventy-eight healthy adults were divided into five groups (1-5) respectively comprising one, two, three, four and five 60 min exercise sessions per week but otherwise following an identical 6-week endurance training (ET) programme. Non-response was defined as any change in CRF, determined by maximal incremental exercise power output (W max ), within the typical error of measurement (±3.96%). Participants classified as non-responders after the ET intervention completed a successive 6-week ET period including two additional exercise sessions per week. Maximal oxygen consumption (V̇O2 max ), haematology and muscle biopsies were assessed prior to and after each ET period. After the first ET period, W max increased (P < 0.05) in groups 2, 3, 4 and 5, but not 1. In groups 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 69%, 40%, 29%, 0% and 0% of individuals, respectively, were non-responders. After the second ET period, non-response was eliminated in all individuals. The change in V̇O2 max with exercise training independently determined W max response (partial correlation coefficient, r partial ≥ 0.74, P < 0.001). In turn, total haemoglobin mass was the strongest independent determinant of V̇O2 max (r partial = 0.49, P < 0.001). In conclusion, individual CRF non-response to exercise training is abolished by increasing the dose of exercise and primarily a function of haematological adaptations in oxygen-carrying capacity.
© 2017 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology © 2017 The Physiological Society.The preparation for the 2013 NFL season officially begins for the Raiders Monday. The players are itching to meet some of their new teammates and eager to get the bad taste out of their mouths that a 4-12 season brings.
Many of the newcomers are excited for a fresh start with a new team. With the Raiders signing a lot of players who are eager to get their first real shot at proving they deserve a starting job, that journey begins Monday.
Perhaps no current Raider play exemplifies the excitement of the coming workouts than Punter Marquette King. He was in camp with the Raiders last year but he knew at the time, the job belonged to All Pro Shane Lechler. He also knew Lechler would be moving on after the 2012 season at which point, he would be given a chance to take over to job.
King has been working hard to ensure this one chance is the only one he needs. Few players are more excited to show off their skills than he is. He tweeted this on Saturday:
I'm ready to meet my crew I'm goin to war wit on Sundays on Monday! #RaiderNation — Marquette King (@MarquetteKing) April 14, 2013
Several new Raiders are looking forward to Monday. Rashad Jennings is one.
"You're gonna be issued a playbook, you're gonna be issued an opportunity to be on the field and showcase your talent," Said Jennings. "It's just an opportunity to go out and prove yourself. That's what I'm excited to do. I'm excited to come help this team win some football games."
Most of the Raiders defense is rebuilt, so there are a lot of new faces already. There are only three returning starters - Lamarr Houston, Tyvon Branch, and Miles Burris. The few remaining players on the defense are looking forward to meeting the new members of the team. Likewise, the newbies are looking forward to starting to build chemistry with their new squad.
As of Sunday, there are 13 new faces who will enter the facility Monday - Defensive linemen Jason Hunter, Vance Walker, and Pat Sims, linebackers Nick Roach, Kevin Burnett, and Kaluka Maiava, safeties Reggie Smith and Usama Young, cornerbacks Mike Jenkins and Tracy Porter, offensive tackle Alex Barron, running back Rashad Jennings, and quarterback Matt Flynn.
It makes for quite an exciting kick off to off-season workouts. The journey begins post haste.
Follow @LeviDamienPOPULAR Melbourne food trucks that have been allowed to operate at Docklands to add variety and activity to the precinct have been banned after complaints from local traders.
Gumbo Kitchen, a trendy food truck specialising in spicy Cajun New Orleans cuisine, has attracted the ire of some local traders and Melbourne City Council, with the van's owner told they were no longer welcome at Docklands and would not be issued a new permit.
The mobile food vans. Gumbo Kitchen (right) will not receive a new permit. Credit:Joe Armao
Gumbo Kitchen owner Michael Cotter said they were hoping to trade at Docklands until March, when a new cafe was expected to open on Harbour Esplanade.
On Wednesday he was told the van, a regular at Docklands on Friday lunchtime, would not receive a new permit.Louisville City FC’s trip to play New York Red Bulls II on Sunday isn’t just about holding a spot in the USL standings. It’s also a chance for redemption.
Red Bulls II have defeated LouCity — a back-to-back Eastern Conference finalist — in all five of the teams’ meetings, including last year’s USL semifinal that ended in a penalty shootout.
Even the club’s newcomers know about their past.
“There’s a history from last year, I guess, from the playoffs and stuff,” said left back Oscar Jimenez. “Everybody’s buzzing for it. Everybody wants to take it to them.”
The opening whistle is set for 4 p.m. at Montclair State University in New Jersey. WDRB-TV and NewsRadio 840 WHAS will broadcast the action in Louisville.
New York is the only Eastern Conference side LouCity hasn't beaten in its two-plus years in the USL aside from newcomer Ottawa Fury FC, which it plays for the first time on July 1. Looking back at previous matchups, coach James O'Connor recognized a theme from the games.
“I feel that we just haven’t taken our chances," he said. "We’ve had some really good chances when we’ve played them and haven’t been able to capitalize. Where New York are really clinical is, they get a chance and do that and have consistently since they’ve been in the league."
Red Bulls II became the first USL side operated by a Major League Soccer franchise to win the title in 2016. The club set USL records for wins (21), points earned (69) and goals (61) in a season. A plus-40 goal differential was also a new league mark.
Contests against LouCity were especially tight. A penalty kick determined a 1-0 win for the Red Bulls II last August in a regular-season matchup between the Eastern Conference's top-two sides. The penalty shootout ended 4-3 in the postseason.
"They’ve obviously had a good run against us, so it’s a game we’re looking forward to," O'Connor said.
LouCity holds a slight advantage on New York in the current Eastern Conference standings with two games in hand. LouCity moved up to third after defeating the Charlotte Independence on Wednesday, jumping ahead of the Red Bulls, who now sit at No. 4.
“It’s an important game this year because they’re sitting right below us on the table," Jimenez said. "I think if they win, they move ahead of us, so we want to get in front of them and create a gap there."
One major variable could play a role Sunday.
The Red Bulls' MLS side is off this weekend ahead of Wednesday's Fourth Round U.S. Open Cup game. New York will have fresh legs, plus plenty of talent to choose from when making a lineup.
“The difficulty is, when you’re playing against the MLS 2 teams, you’re never quite sure which personnel will be available,” O’Connor said. “They have a number of players both in their MLS team and their regular squad who are very capable players. It’ll be a tough game for us.”The Hong Kong authorities must release all those detained solely for peacefully protesting in pro-democracy demonstrations, said Amnesty International, after more than 500 people were arrested by police on Wednesday.
Police removed hundreds of peaceful demonstrators from the city’s business district in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
“This was not an illegal assembly; it was a peaceful and legitimate protest under international law. The police action was hasty and unnecessary and sets a disturbing precedent,” said Mabel Au, Director of Amnesty International Hong Kong.
Hundreds of protesters remain in detention, reportedly for holding an ‘illegal assembly’ and obstruction of a public place.
“All those being held solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly must be immediately and unconditionally released,” said Mabel Au.
Amnesty International urges the authorities to ensure all those detained are given access to a lawyer of their choosing, after reports many lawyers had not been able to meet with their clients.
On Tuesday, more than half a million people took part in one of the largest pro-democracy marches in Hong Kong’s history, according to organizers. Hundreds continued the protest throughout the night before police moved in.
Under international law, protests do not require approval by the authorities, though advance notice can be requested.
“The dispersal of protests should only be taken as a last resort and it is questionable this was the case. The protesters said they would leave at 8am and those remaining at that time did so. The authorities must remember peaceful assembly is a legitimate and valid use of public space.”
Police reportedly also asked media to leave the demonstration site before the protesters were removed.
“The request for journalists to leave the protests was wrong and is another worrying sign of the Hong Kong authorities’ growing hostility to press freedom,” said Mabel Au.When ISIS bulldozed the 3,000 year-old city of Nimrud, countless artifacts were lost. There are clandestine groups working to halt the destruction of Iraqi heritage through education and smuggling, while nearby countries are guarding what they can. But now many fear that all that remains of Nimrud’s impressive winged bull statues, intricate relief carvings and ancient walls are photos. Still, even those photos can be valuable. Archaeologists are using those images to create 3D reconstructions that can be studied digitally, reports Jonathan Webb for BBC News.
Photogrammetry is the technique used to build models out of many 2D images. When the video of ISIS militants smashing statues in Mosul Museum came out in February, two PhD students, Chance Coughenour and Matthew Vincent realized they could use that technique to reconstruct those statues digitally. They rely on crowd-sourced photographs from people who visited the artifacts before the conflict that destroyed them. Webb writes:
So they set up Project Mosul. People who have visited now-destroyed sites - beginning with the Mosul Museum - can submit their photographs. Then volunteers log on to help sort the images, and those with the know-how get stuck into the job of rebuilding the artifacts. The project has received more than 700 photos so far, including 543 showing artifacts from Mosul. A gallery on the homepage displays 15 3D reconstructions, completed by nine volunteers.
Statutes like that of a lion from Mosul Museum that have been photographed the most make the best reconstructions. The photogrammetry image is not as sophisticated as those created using things like laser scanning and calibrated cameras that can scan the intact object, but it is some way to preserve the statue’s memory and importance.
Webb writes:
Looking beyond Project Mosul, Mr Vincent is anxious that other digital preservation efforts should be undertaken more deliberately and proactively. Once a digital record has been created, it would even be possible to physically re-create precious items using 3D printing, he suggested. This could prove useful in building replicas not only of destroyed or lost artefacts, but also things that are too fragile to be put on public display - as was the case for the remarkable Chauvet cave paintings, now rebuilt above ground in France.
Even artifacts destroyed by natural disasters, such as the Dharahara tower toppled by the first earthquake in Nepal, could be preserved in this way.Now that their distillery's tasting room is up and running, prepare your glass for deluge of new Ballast Point spirits, scheduled to be released in quick succession over the next several months.
More bottles of their award-winning single malt whiskey and bourbon are hitting local store shelves, where they'll be soon be joined by a line of flavored Fugu vodka inspired by San Diego taco shops. The naturally-flavored vodka sippers will be available in horchata, jamaica, pina and habanero and should be out within a month.
Eater also taste-tested a new digestif that distillery founder Yuseff Cherneyand lead distiller Derek Kermode are perfecting, an anise-forward after-dinner drink with notes of cinnamon and fennel and a dark roasted malt color; it's reminiscent of both ouzo and Jägermeister. Due in March, it'll be called Opa.
This April, they'll release a "barrel-rested" version (aged for 50 days) of their Old Grove gin. Also on tap, a spiced rum and schnapps in both fruit and beer flavors, made on the distillery's new German schnapps still.
· Ballast Point Spirits [Official Site]It’s not often that an article about climate change becomes one of the most hotly debated issues on the internet — especially in the midst of a controversial G20 summit.
But that exact thing happened following the publication of a lengthy essay in New York Magazine titled “The Uninhabitable Earth: Famine, Economic Collapse, a Sun that Cooks Us: What Climate Change Could Wreak — Sooner Than You Think.”
In the course of 7,200 words, author David Wallace-Wells chronicled the possible impacts of catastrophic climate change if current emissions trends are maintained, including, but certainly not limited to: mass permafrost melt and methane leaks, mass extinctions, fatal heat waves, drought and food insecurity, diseases and viruses, “rolling death smog,” global conflict and war, economic collapse and ocean acidification.
Slate political writer Jamelle Bouie described the essay on Twitter as “something that will haunt your nightmares.”
It’s a fair assessment. Reading it feels like a series of punches in the gut, triggering emotions like despair, hopelessness and resignation.
But here’s the thing: many climate psychologists and communicators consider those feelings to be the very opposite of what will compel people to action.
“Based on my research on climate communications, this article is exactly what we don’t need,” says Per Espen Stoknes, Norwegian psychologist and author of What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.
“It only serves to further alarm the already alarmed segment of people. ”
Climate Psychologists Recommends ‘Positivity Ratio’ of 3:1
Let’s get one thing out of the way.
Critics of the New York Magazine article — and other instances of doomsday journalism — are not anti-science. These are all people who firmly recognize the severity of catastrophic climate change, and are certainly not petitioning for a bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach, shielding the public from the potential horrors.
Rather, they suggest that most people will only process such facts about climate change if it’s framed in an appropriate way that acknowledges how individuals and societies respond to potentially traumatic threats.
“It’s really important to understand that it’s not just about facts and numbers, but having a way for people to interpret them and know there’s something they can do,” says Kari Marie Norgaard, associate professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon and author of Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.
Stoknes notes there’s a well-known “positivity ratio” for optimal engagement of a 3:1 ratio of opportunities to threats. He says the New York Magazine piece was around nine threats to every one proposed solution.
In other words, a tripling of the ratio in the wrong direction.
Article Sticks to Hard Science, Ignoring Role of Social Sciences
The author of the New York Magazine article has already responded to a series of criticisms on Twitter, including on the scientific merit of some of his claims.
A rather revealing moment was when Wallace-Wells replied to a critique from renowned futurist Alex Steffen — who had described the article as “one long council of despair” — by suggesting that “my own feeling is that |
Constitutional provisions that curtail the legislative power to govern in this area unquestionably do more harm than good.
The first 10 amendments to the Constitution placed limits on the powers of the new federal government. Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of the Second Amendment, which provides that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
For more than 200 years following the adoption of that amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus, in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated Militia.”
When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about the limited coverage of the amendment, and I cannot recall any judge suggesting that the amendment might place any limit on state authority to do anything.
Organizations such as the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and mounted a vigorous campaign claiming that federal regulation of the use of firearms severely curtailed Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Five years after his retirement, during a 1991 appearance on “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” Burger himself remarked that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
In recent years two profoundly important changes in the law have occurred. In 2008, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court decided in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects a civilian’s right to keep a handgun in his home for purposes of self-defense. And in 2010, by another vote of 5 to 4, the court decided in McDonald v. Chicago that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment limits the power of the city of Chicago to outlaw the possession of handguns by private citizens. I dissented in both of those cases and remain convinced that both decisions misinterpreted the law and were profoundly unwise. Public policies concerning gun control should be decided by the voters’ elected representatives, not by federal judges.
In my dissent in the McDonald case, I pointed out that the court’s decision was unique in the extent to which the court had exacted a heavy toll “in terms of state sovereignty.... Even apart from the States’ long history of firearms regulation and its location at the core of their police powers, this is a quintessential area in which federalism ought to be allowed to flourish without this Court’s meddling. Whether or not we can assert a plausible constitutional basis for intervening, there are powerful reasons why we should not do so.”
“Across the Nation, States and localities vary significantly in the patterns and problems of gun violence they face, as well as in the traditions and cultures of lawful gun use.... The city of Chicago, for example, faces a pressing challenge in combating criminal street gangs. Most rural areas do not.”
In response to the massacre of grammar-school students at Sandy Hook Elementary School, some legislators have advocated stringent controls on the sale of assault weapons and more complete background checks on purchasers of firearms. It is important to note that nothing in either the Heller or the McDonald opinion poses any obstacle to the adoption of such preventive measures.
First, the court did not overrule Miller. Instead, it “read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.” On the preceding page of its opinion, the court made it clear that even though machine guns were useful in warfare in 1939, they were not among the types of weapons protected by the Second Amendment because that protected class was limited to weapons in common use for lawful purposes such as self-defense. Even though a sawed-off shotgun or a machine gun might well be kept at home and be useful for self-defense, neither machine guns nor sawed-off shotguns satisfy the “common use” requirement.
Thus, even as generously construed in Heller, the Second Amendment provides no obstacle to regulations prohibiting the ownership or use of the sorts of weapons used in the tragic multiple killings in Virginia, Colorado and Arizona in recent years. The failure of Congress to take any action to minimize the risk of similar tragedies in the future cannot be blamed on the court’s decision in Heller.
A second virtue of the opinion in Heller is that Justice Antonin Scalia went out of his way to limit the court’s holding not only to a subset of weapons that might be used for self-defense but also to a subset of conduct that is protected. The specific holding of the case covers only the possession of handguns in the home for purposes of self-defense, while a later part of the opinion adds emphasis to the narrowness of that holding by describing uses that were not protected by the common law or state practice. Prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons, or on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, and laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings or imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms are specifically identified as permissible regulations.
Thus, Congress’s failure to enact laws that would expand the use of background checks and limit the availability of automatic weapons cannot be justified by reference to the Second Amendment or to anything that the Supreme Court has said about that amendment. What the members of the five-justice majority said in those opinions is nevertheless profoundly important, because it curtails the government’s power to regulate the use of handguns that contribute to the roughly 88 firearm-related deaths that occur every day.
There is an intriguing similarity between the court’s sovereign immunity jurisprudence, which began with a misinterpretation of the 11th Amendment, and its more recent misinterpretation of the Second Amendment. The procedural amendment limiting federal courts’ jurisdiction over private actions against states eventually blossomed into a substantive rule that treats the common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity as though it were part of the Constitution itself. Of course, in England common-law rules fashioned by judges may always be repealed or amended by Parliament. And when the United States became an independent nation, Congress and every state legislature had the power to accept, to reject or to modify common-law rules that prevailed prior to 1776, except, of course, any rule that might have been included in the Constitution.
The Second Amendment expressly endorsed the substantive common-law rule that protected the citizen’s right (and duty) to keep and bear arms when serving in a state militia. In its decision in Heller, however, the majority interpreted the amendment as though its draftsmen were primarily motivated by an interest in protecting the common-law right of self-defense. But that common-law right is a procedural right that has always been available to the defendant in criminal proceedings in every state. The notion that the states were concerned about possible infringement of that right by the federal government is really quite absurd.
As a result of the rulings in Heller and McDonald, the Second Amendment, which was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their power to ensure that their militias were “well regulated,” has given federal judges the ultimate power to determine the validity of state regulations of both civilian and militia-related uses of arms. That anomalous result can be avoided by adding five words to the text of the Second Amendment to make it unambiguously conform to the original intent of its draftsmen. As so amended, it would read:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”
Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands. Those emotional arguments would be nullified by the adoption of my proposed amendment. The amendment certainly would not silence the powerful voice of the gun lobby; it would merely eliminate its ability to advance one mistaken argument.
It is true, of course, that the public’s reaction to the massacre of schoolchildren, such as the Newtown killings, and the 2013 murder of government employees at the Navy Yard in Washington, may also introduce a strong emotional element into the debate. That aspect of the debate is, however, based entirely on facts rather than fiction. The law should encourage intelligent discussion of possible remedies for what every American can recognize as an ongoing national tragedy.
Copyright © 2014 by John Paul Stevens. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company. All rights reserved.Challenge 193 is Mojo #67: Pepper, Alien Ant Farm, Child’s Play and Stacks.
Challenge 194 is another one from Whimsy and Zen. This challenge first cropped up two weeks ago – as challenge 184. What I managed to miss from that one was the title “grow a garden”. We were meant to do a theme. But I missed that because I’m a muppet. Although I did put a flower and some vines in, so I guess I scrape by. This time I have noticed the theme however! Build a house. Here’s the template she gave us:
And here’s my house:
It’s simple, especially when compared to the exquisite ones that have been submitted – like this one by Cathy. But I like it nonetheless 🙂
Challenge 195 is an Inchie – Orange.
Challenge 196 is MadebyJoey #19 – to create a monotangle with a tangle that looks 3D. I had a go at Paradox:
I’m not entirely happy with it. I love how Paradox looks, when other people do it. I can never get it to look quite right. I do like the one at the top centre though 🙂
Challenge 197 is the next Tackle It Tuesday – to use tangles that begin with the letter U. I’ve used Upholstered, Up and Across and Upndown.
Challenge 198 is the Wacky challenge from July 20th – to make a “stendoodle” – using a stencil as your string. Here’s my stencil:
And here it is all nicely filled in:
Challenge 199 is Mojo #68: Jash, Flubber Ducky, Clam Bake, Bzzz. I really like how this turned out. Bzzz is so cute.
Challenge 200 is the Wacky challenge from 27th July – all about colour and no black!
Challenge 201 is Mojo #16: Flubber, Rose, Verdigogh and Jelly Roll.
Challenge 202 is It’s A String Thing #51, using Tanglepatterns.com string 51, and tangles that begin with Fa in honour of Linda Farmer who designed the string. I used Fang, Fairy Wings and Facets.
AdvertisementsImage copyright Getty Images Image caption The OSCE says threats of sexual violence have become "part of everyday life" for some female journalists
A senior official from the European security body, the OSCE has warned of a growing number of online threats faced by women journalists.
Following her reports on the protests at Istanbul's Gezi Park in 2013, Turkish journalist Amberin Zaman was fiercely attacked on Twitter.
The messages were abusive, violent and sexual, she said.
"I received hundreds of tweets, using the most obscene language, threatening to kill me, threatening to rape me."
She said some threatened "to make me sit on a broken wine bottle".
She is Turkey correspondent for the Economist and a columnist for the Turkish daily Taraf.
After reporting on the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris last month Ms Zaman experienced another mass attack on Twitter.
"It's like a public lynching," she said. "It has made me frightened for my physical safety when I am out in the streets."
She is not alone.
Image caption Amberin Zaman says she refuses to be scared into silence
Online abuse against women journalists is "a global phenomenon growing at a very rapid pace" according to Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE's Representative on the Freedom of the Media.
She says she is "alarmed" at how female journalists and bloggers are singled out and attacked in social media, where people can hide behind anonymity.
"The female journalists targeted most report on crime, politics and sensitive - and sometimes painful - issues, including taboos and dogmas in our societies," Ms Mijatovic says.
"These online attacks tend not to address the content of the articles but instead degrade the journalist as a woman."
Image caption The OSCE's Dunja Mijatovic says there is a "dangerous new trend" of online abuse
The OSCE says online threats of rape and sexual violence have become "part of everyday life" for some female journalists. Others, it says, experience "severe sexual harassment and intimidation".
Ms Mijatovic says "in some countries like the UK, the US and in Scandinavia, the problem is acknowledged… In other countries [it] remains a non-issue."
The abuse is a "dangerous new trend, which needs to be addressed now," she says.
Image caption Anonymous threats are among various risks faced by journalists, with women especially targeted
The Swedish TV anchor Jenny Alversjo, who works for TV4 Sweden, agrees that things have changed.
"For almost 20 years, I have worked as a journalist and I have always been a target for other people's opinions," she told me by email. "I guess part of it comes with the job."
But she says "four or five years ago something changed and the tone became much more aggressive and threatening."
She received death threats.
"When someone threatens to kill you… the world stops," she said. "The first real threat was horrifying. The person who wanted me dead said I had two weeks left to live. It's hard to describe the fear I felt."
However both Jenny Alversjo and Amberin Zaman say they are determined not to let the internet trolls win.
"First you're scared, but soon the fear turns into anger," Ms Alversjo says.
"No one has the right do this to me. No one can keep me from doing my job.
"If someone can scare me to silence we have a huge democratic problem and I refuse to be a part of that."Warren Kinston
When I was a therapist and then a consultant, I prided myself on my practicality, on being down-to-earth. I still do. This often brought me into conflict with colleagues who loved abstractions and built their work and life around playing with them. Why shouldn't people focus on concepts? In principle, I want people, colleagues and clients alike, to do what they think is right and best.
The question really comes down to what is right and best. If you get that wrong, then perhaps you might find yourself in trouble. Conceptual input means starting from ideas that are part of a theory. Or perhaps it means applying a paradigm that is popular. This idea-based engagement always left me uncomfortable. Still does.
When I tried to deal with some management mess, I would typically focus on the goals that were being pursued and the work that everyone was doing, or ought to be doing, to achieve those goals. Complex work requires large organizations with lots of people and (like it or not) a hierarchy of some sort. The challenge always is how to integrate the differing work of lots of people and become clear about their relationships in regard to getting that work done.
At the end of the day, the consulting work was only successful from my perspective and for my client (invariably the CEO) if the mess went away, if staff were getting on with their work and enjoying it, and if there was progress in regard to goals and plans.
I found that there were no recipes for success. The only way to achieve a good result was to listen to everyone and see their point of view.
"Hold on!" you may say. "Didn't you use THEE frameworks? Aren't they a paradigm? Isn't that your theory?" Well, that is a bit like asking whether I used the English language. I certainly discussed topics that had been organized in THEE. But every time I use a THEE framework I am testing it out with myself and with the person I am talking to. My goal is to make sure that the two of us are referring to the same specific thing in the same way. That often required me to avoid using my THEE-names, and use their terms. That was fine by me.
Getting back to the process now.
Once their viewpoint was valued and their ideas were validated, tensions dropped and good relations developed. No practical solution existed at this point, but the problems were clear and the basis for finding a resolution and getting it accepted was in place.
In devising practical solutions, I used THEE frameworks where I had them, not necessarily explaining them in a detailed fundamental way but picking and choosing from the principles to suit the situation and fit the mindset of whoever I was talking with. Where I hadn't an explicit framework, I think I intuitively used one nevertheless, or perhaps it was being used and explained to me by my client. Or perhaps it was a widely accepted model or principle within the management consulting fraternity that had an as-yet-unknown location in THEE.
However, looking back now, the crucial feature in solutions seemed to be the values that were in the back of my mind and in the forefront of my explanations.
I was trying to find a practical solution that was fair to those involved, and positively experienced as fair. People are reluctant to actively support unfairness.
I explained radical solutions in a way that reduced burdens and enabled easy learning and spontaneity.
Efficiency was something I used as a lever. Few managers are against that.
I regularly counselled patience, because introducing new practices or new relationships cannot occur overnight.
I tried to develop a sense of adventure and the necessary courage to try something new.
I explained the importance of trust in working together and what trust means in an organizational context—it's not the same as in a marriage!
Creativity requires a move from describing jobs in terms of action to specifying general responsibilities. That then allows the creation of purposes to meet issues and challenges.
I recall making efforts to ensure balance amongst conflicting pressures and needs and not letting people ignore obvious pressures on others.
I emphasized that arrangements that played to personal strengths would permit firm but compassionate responses at times of stress.
Do I need to go on?
Solutions based on THEE frameworks were practical because they embodied, again and again: fairness, integrity, spontaneity, efficiency, trust, honesty, responsibility, clarity, purpose, creativity, wholeness, compassion.
These are humanity's ultimate values. The fundamental experiences that everyone seeks, that mankind has always sought. If we want to identify what is good or what goodness entails, this is how we describe and explain it.
Remember that these values were never the focus—the focus was always the problem and the practical solution. In my experience this is unusual for those who start with abstractions. They focus on abstract values and sound wonderful. But the all-too-common end-result of following value-preachers has been failure and horrors.
Ultimate values are not only possible, they are essential, but they cannot exist on their own or via ideologies. They are impossible within a resolute relativism, as Charles Frankel argued so persuasively over 50 years ago. But they are only the key to supreme success when embedded within everyday practical living and the pursuit of sensible goals in the world as it is.
Exactly how this works within us is being developed in a Your Better Self framework that will be posted early next year.
Perseverance furthers.
WK
About Warren Kinston"I think we should go from saying 'when in doubt, don't circumcise' to 'when in doubt, do'."
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians has flagged it will not change its policy against circumcision despite evidence the procedure can prevent the spread of HIV and other sexual diseases.
The college, which represents physicians and paediatricians in Australia and New Zealand, has adopted the position that "there is no medical indication for routine neonatal circumcision" since 2004.
But it has been reviewing this stance in part following recent scientific research suggesting that the risk of HIV infection could be dramatically reduced by the practice.
Three trials conducted in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda between 2005 and 2007 showed conclusively, according to the World Health Organisation, "that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60 per cent".
Further research, published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, has found that circumcision can reduce the transfer of human papillomavirus - the chief cause of cervical cancer in women - by 35 per cent, and herpes simplex virus - the chief cause of herpes - by 25 per cent.
Three trials conducted in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda between 2005 and 2007 showed conclusively, according to the World Health Organisation, "that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60 per cent".
The journal said the findings underscored "the potential public health benefits of the procedure".
The college, which began its review in 2006 and was supposed to come out with a revised policy at the end of 2007, will not do so until the end of this year, as it considers the new evidence.
It is estimated that 10 to 20 per cent of male infants are circumcised in Australia.
The chairman of the college's panel considering the issue, David Forbes, of the University of Western Australia's school of paediatrics, said the African studies had delayed the new recommendation, but so too had the fact "it is a contentious and non-clear-cut issue".
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"It's quite clear that there's evidence that circumcision in adult males helps prevent HIV in Africa," said Professor Forbes. "It's not so clear that circumcision in Australia in infants is of benefit to the infants or the community.
"Policy is about getting the right message to health planners so that we have safe but cost-effective expenditure."
New concerns about the practice of circumcision in Australia were raised last week after the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute found that parental consent might not be enough to protect the circumcisers of baby boys from later legal action.
No specific laws regulate the removal of the foreskin.
Professor Forbes said he wanted to have the college's position "finalised by the end of this year, hopefully before".
He said the benefit of reducing human papillomavirus "appears not to be such an issue in Australia" because a vaccine was being produced. And there were important differences between the HIV situation in Africa and Australia: HIV rates in Australia were far lower and condom use was much higher.
He said although there was clear evidence that circumcision reduced the rate of urinary tract infection, this alone did not justify routine use of the procedure as the infection rate was so small.
He said the 10-strong panel consisted of paediatricians, surgeons and policy and public health experts. "There are extremely strong views at both ends of the spectrum for those who promote circumcision and those who oppose it," he said.
"Undertaking elective surgery of minors who are not able to consent is for many paediatricians an even bigger issue, especially when there are examples of (Muslim) societies who elect to have it at puberty when people can choose."
Dr Forbes declined to preview what the college's recommendation would be. "Policy change tends to be evolutionary, not revolutionary, and given that there are no trials of neonatal circumcision for prevention of HIV, I wouldn't expect revolutionary change. I would expect evolutionary change."
Roger Short, from Melbourne University's department of obstetrics and gynaecology, hopes the college will view circumcision in a more favourable light.
"It would be exciting to see the Royal College come forward with a slightly more progressive attitude than its previous pronouncements," he said. "The evidence is coming in, and it is irrefutable, that there are major benefits."
Professor Short said there were no grounds for making circumcision mandatory. Instead, the college should change its recommendation.
"I think we should go from saying 'when in doubt, don't circumcise' to 'when in doubt, do'."
Discuss this topic in our Babies forums.A new billboard spreads the atheist gospel of carnal delights.
The Backyard Skeptics, a group of freethinkers based in California, have put up a billboard with a humorous but positive message concerning atheism just in time for Valentine’s Day.
The billboard, located in Santa Ana, proclaims:
Atheists make better lovers. (After all, nobody is watching.)
The text is accompanied by a photo showing two pairs of feet poking out from under bed sheets.
Backyard Skeptics explains:
On Feb 2, 2016, Backyard Skeptics in association with American Atheists from New Jersey, placed a billboard off Harbor and First in Santa Ana, CA for 30 days. This billboard was timed with Valentine’s day to promote a godless love day for lovers. … Backyard Skeptics previously has placed over 14 secular billboards in Orange County promoting a non-theist worldview. Some have been more controversial then others. Many times a newspaper, magazine or tv news crews have released articles and news clips on our billboards. With over 22% of Americans not affiliated with any religion (and increasing – 33% for those under 30), these billboards might become boring ‘so what?’ billboards in the future!The life of an occultist, whether it is a magician, mystic, or shaman, is probably one of the richest experiences in the world. Knowing, seeing, and coming to an understanding of how certain invisible laws influence our lives, and all life itself, gives us a deeper appreciation and value to what we come into contact with in life.
Working as an occultist, however, takes time and effort. Where others may enjoy leisure time, talking on the internet, or other recreational activities, the occultist must study and perfect their knowledge. Perfection of our knowledge as spiritualist is not about reading books in search of an answer. Reading is an occult art as much as writing is, but this in itself is not the work, save the study of conclusions.
For years, I used to be under the impression that an armchair magician was someone who would never perform a ritual or technique, but just read books and talk about the most impressive occult subjects. That is just part of the story. An armchair magician may be very skilled in certain fields of magic, but cannot adapt to new circumstances and teaching they commit themselves to. They will claim to have abandoned a certain perspective, but deep down inside they will use every opportunity to promote the ideologies that they have learned instead of emptying their cup.
The use of the term “armchair” is often applied to a person engaged in Western Magic, posing as an authority in such matters, but without practical experience. However, I am discovering that the meaning of an armchair magician is not just limited to Western Magic, but also traditions of the East as well. An online version of the Urban Dictionary defines the phrase armchair magician in the following words:
“A person who studies and discuses the arts of magic(k), treating themself as an authority on both the practical applications as well as the histories behind the techniques, with very little (usually none) actual experience in its use. This is a person who has probably read a great deal of literature written by members (or ex-members) of the Golden Dawn and/or a great deal of metaphysical theory (Chaos Magick being a common choice). Generally, these people come in one of two varieties, a: the overly accepting type, typified by the statement, “Well, it should work… in theory” and b: the overly pessemistic type, typified by the statement, “You can’t do THAT!”. Generally, the second type is deemed more annoying, being that they tend to have a highly negative reaction to any concept, theory, or technique that they have not already read about in a book that has been published for more than ten years. There are some, however, who find things the opposite, finding the ridiculous ideas expounded by type a bordering on offensive. (a term generally used amongst Pagans, occultists, and other magic(k)-practicing people)”
Armchair magicians exist, not only in Western Magic, but other aspects of the occult, including Eastern Mysticism. In the Art of Ninzuwu, however, certain steps are taken to protect the culture against such things. In The Ivory Tablets of the Crow, we read:
“Take special care not to change these instructions that I give unto thee by one letter, for in its perfection is its initiation.”
The initiation process in the Ninzuwu Current is eternal. We are told in a previous part of the text that memorization of the prayers and incantations also play a vital role in our initiation:
“They must be remembered for all that which is remembered is alive. If a thing is not remembered it cannot be put into operation. Long before my father and I returned to the land, we learned of fools who read their incantations from books. They were deceived by spirits of the grave and promised many things which never came to pass. The knowledge you possess is the knowledge you remember. If it has not been remembered then it is borrowed, and will be taken away, then searched for again and again.“
Many who seek to gain an understanding of the Art of Ninzuwu never make it pass the first level of initiation because all they can remember is the Soul of Fire incantation, what you remember is the level of your understanding in the Art of Ninzuwu. This would even apply to those who enacted all the initiatory rituals in The Ivory Tablets of the Crow. If they never elevate in what they remember, their travels through the Ivory Tablets will remain on the first level. Unfortunately, there are many people who don’t like to remember or learn anything new. For some people memory is hard to come by, so it is easy to use as an excuse when certain work comes to the forefront. There have been many people who are physically handicapped that overcome such limitations by hard work and effort. Yet, when it comes time to remember incantations, perform meditation, and etc, many people would rather spend the time that could be put into study by surfing the internet and posting their opinions on Facebook, or using some other aspect of social media. There is nothing wrong with the use of these things, except when what we have dedicated ourselves to starts lagging. They have literally become slaves of their own emotions. It is due to such reasons that they can never understand that despite the amount of techniques learned, they are still victims of the same problems, year after year.
Just imagine a person who is overweight putting off exercise, and yet, talking as if they exercise all the time around their friends. Then when they are invited to the gym to workout, they will make every excuse in the world not to do so. Perhaps, they don’t feel so well. Okay such things do occur. Just imagine how their friends feel, however, when they see the same person looking happy-go-lucky, posting all sorts of exciting facts and taking and posting pictures of themselves eating real good foods during the same time that they were invited to workout. This is the life of an armchair magician.
Armchair magicians and mystics do not go through life, purposely thinking of themselves as such. For the most part, their place in the occult world is due to their understanding of life. The main problem comes from not being able to empty one’s cup. What they will do is investigate every occult teaching with a predetermined understanding of the occult and try to merge anything new that they are learning with it. The understanding that the armchair magician has gained is usually an imitation of what they are most impressed by. Other armchair magicians are able to capitalize on this, as they setup businesses, called occult organizations, where the membership is made to feel important based on a particular title they are given. Initiation into such organizations is a joke to say the least.
It is easy to spot out such schemes, as the terms used to describe the membership have already gained quite a bit of popularity in the media and legend. All the pseudo-occult organization has to do is align themselves with such terms and the membership is led to believe that this organization is part of some great legacy. This is how some groups are able to take advantage of the mentally ill. First, it should be acknowledged that individuals seeking entrance into such organizations are looking for an easy way of self-gratification with the least amount of work. After signing a few papers and learning some terminology specific to the said group, they are led to believe that they are on the winning team, even though they have learned nothing new, and due to such, no real transformation has taken place. Usually, the only sincere interest in joining such groups would be to find others of a similar mindset, other people with the same mental-illness. People how join one group after the next, learning a few techniques, but never really internalizing the energies of the work involved. Still, emphasis is placed on a role one has in society, a perfection of a limitation that is surrendered through identification rather than the using hidden sciences for the cultivation of one’s self. Here are a few signs of a person who has been exposed to the Armchair Magician Disease.
Signs of the Armchair Magician Syndrome
Armchair magicians can be spotted out very easily, especially in authentic mystical and occult organizations. Once they join a group they will not focus on learning new material, but talk about who they are as an individual and some of their perspectives that has nothing to do with the information at hand. The ego will always speak boastfully about what it has done, even though nothing has changed is changing in a person’s life, no new perspectives, nothing at all!
The armchair magician will always seek to draw attention to their own person when they are confronted about the teachings of a certain path that they are enlisted in. In their minds, learning something new is a sign of weakness, so they can’t take on that responsibility. The armchair magician is listed among the Sons of Aho is The Ivory Tablets of the Crow:
“The Sons of Aho have betrayed our ways..With their magical arts..But what more are magical books..Than the jurisdiction and procedures..Set down by kings.”
The armchair magician, unknowing to his/her ownself, will not work for any cause where they do not receive validation or honor. It is for this reason that they are quick to betray the group that they were once involved with. Seemingly, once the group shifts its attention towards the greater good, the armchair magician will now remain silent and eventually become an inactive member of the group.
Instead of learning and mastering the material that is presented to them at the grade they are learning on, they are quick to seek information that is reserved for “higher grades.” The logic behind this is just that! Logic! It is purely a logical process of learning different techniques. This is what elevation means in the mind of the armchair magician.
What is the Cure for the Armchair Magician Syndrome?
In cases where such behavior is encountered, nothing can be more suitable than suggesting that one participate in psychiatric counseling. Subscribing to psychiatric counseling doesn’t mean that a person is crazy, as it can help them learn about the psychology of their own minds. It is perhaps good for anyone involved in the occult arts to become briefly acquainted with some of the principles found in psychology, especially if one is working as a healer or spiritualist. This will help in determining the source of some of your own problems and those who may inquire your assistance. We are not talking about acting as a psychologist, for that would put one in harm’s way legally. But, understanding what can be resolved by spiritual means and what really is a form of mental illness.
Another way to assist an individual, who is having issues with Armchair Magician Syndrome, is by encouraging them to pursue the process of self-renewal. The reason why many armchair magicians are plagued with problems is because they have become accustomed to demonstrating the same behavioral traits. What is the definition of insanity again? Doing the same things and expecting different results. They find themselves in because situations because the latch onto the conclusions that they were most impressed by, a certain perspective that never changes, even when they enter different occult schools. Devouring the same knowledge over and over gain is like eating the same foods every day. This doesn’t mean that a person should move from one organization to the next, but not remain in the same perspective they were in before they entered the current organization they now claim to have membership with. The only way this can happen is if they lose the fear of beginning again. The Ivory Tablets of the Crow, states:
“The beginning of every journey is always in this time now. For many years I struggled between the sides of darkness and light.”
When our internal struggle is never in the now, but in trying to impress those in the past and those things existing in the future, the mind enters a worrisome condition when the false ego has taken over the spirit. The best way to help those suffering from the Armchair Magician Syndrome is by the example we set as occultists ourselves. We must have confidence in the path that we walk regardless of how popular it is, even in occult circles. The more we grow and develop, the easier it will be to understand the friendships and experiences that are useful and useless.
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Content Editor
Hello my fellow Gleeks!
This is our last recap of season four of Glee. And I have to admit that I’m pretty bummed out. I mean as much as the show as made me pull out my hair, I have come to enjoy out little “lady chat” recaps together in the half of season I’ve been doing this. Don’t worry though! I will be back for season five and six! Still this will always hold a special place in my heart.
Now with all that sentimental stuff out of the way. Let’s get down to business. We have been promised answers and cliffhangers! A lot going both ways since well we’re ending in the middle of a year for a change instead of the end of the year.
(I am going to love seeing how they produce a Christmas album next year. That is going to be hilarious.)
Will Rachel get the part in Funny Girl? (I hope not.) Will New Directions win Regionals? (It would be nice to give the newbies an authentic win) Will we found out who is Catfishing Ryder? (Oh God I hope so.) Will we finally get an answer as to where Finn is? (Pffft. No.)
According to Jacob Artist, not even the cast knows how this is going to end guys. So with those questions in mind, let’s recap “All or Nothing”.
Plots
All Or Nothing (Leave It On The Dance Floor): It is time for |
aria in early November after guns and explosives were found in his car may be linked to the Paris attacks, Bavaria’s state premier said on Saturday.
Analysis of the Montenegro man’s car navigation system found he drove from Montenegro via Croatia, Slovenia and Austria to Germany, aiming to reach France. Asked about his destination, the man said he wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, police said.
Criminologist Alain Bauer, a former security adviser to French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, said the increasingly coordinated character of much European criminal activity was not always matched by the work of police authorities.
“We have a series of European partners that have completely different policies, be it on terrorists or organized crime,” he said.Johanna Bergström-Roos, project manager RIT, and the PhD students in Atmospheric Science Álvaro Soria Salina and Teresa Mendaza de Cal, are now leaving Kiruna for India. On the trip, they'll bring a prototype of HABIT, the instrument that will be sent to Mars in 2020.
Three members of the research group in Atmospheric Science are now leaving for Ladakh, India, to test a prototype of HABIT, the instrument selected as part of the payload on board the ExoMars 2020 mission. – We look forward to seeing how HABIT performs under extreme atmospheric conditions, says PhD student Teresa Mendaza de Cal.
An environmental set of sensors including an ultraviolet sensor (UVS) composed of six photodiodes to measure the UV irradiance, a ground temperature sensor (GTS), and three air temperature sensors (ATS) to measure the ambient temperature as well as the wind regime in three different directions.
A container of salts divided into six different vessels in which the deliquescence process will be monitored as it occurs, providing a first in situ direct observation of liquid water. It includes hygroscopic salts whose presence in the Martian regolith has been reported so far, such as magnesium, sodium and calcium perchlorates, as well as sodium chloride. The hydration state will be registered by three conductivity sensors arranged at three different heights in each vessel, since the electrical conductivity through the salts depends on the amount of water they have captured. This way, the device will allow knowing in every moment if the salts are dry or hydrated and how much water they contain.
The HABIT instrument has 3 main capabilities: it will monitor the formation of brines on Mars and the conditions in which it takes place, it is an environmental station, and it is and in-situ resource utilization demonstrator to produce liquid water on Mars. The instrument is composed of two units, BOTTLE and ENVACK.
– HABIT will demonstrate in situ the possibility of having salty-liquid water on the Martian surface. This will be essential for future manned missions for Mars exploration.
The participants from Luleå University of Technology, PhD students Álvaro Soria Salina and Teresa Mendaza de Cal, and Johanna Bergström-Roos, project leader RIT, have already been in both Abisko and Iceland to get prepared for the expedition. Now it’s time for India and the prestigious expedition Spaceward Bound India, arranged by NASA. The final destination is Ladakh in the north of India, where the environmental conditions include high altitude (3,500-5,500 m), extreme dryness, cold, and high UV exposure and topological similarities with Mars. All these features are of high-interest from an astrobiology point of view.
To find life
During the 12 day long expedition, multiple different geografical zones will be visited. In addition to testing HABIT, the expeditioners will take samples from the soil, ice, water, permafrost and aerosols, to establish the amount and diversity of life they sustain through further chemical and biological analysis, contributing this way to the astrobiological studies that guide the expedition. The results will provide a valuable framework to define habitability criteria in relation to the rest of the environmental parameters measured, like it is expected to be done on Mars. Teresa Mendaza de Cal summarizes the scientific mission:
– We will test a prototype of HABIT to see how it performs under extreme atmospheric conditions. We will also characterize that response and check which are the environmental conditions producing it. Will we find life with the means we will have on site and if so, what kind of life?
Benefits for Earth
Besides the scientific tasks, the team from Luleå University of Technology are also facing some logistic hardships in India. The high altitude locations mean lower density of air and lack of oxygen. They will have to trek along harsh, uneven terrains every day and at the same time handle the scientific equipment. They will have to master the assembly and dismantling of the HABIT prototype and the meteorological station, since it has to be installed in different points throughout the campaign. Also, the collection of the samples needs to be done carefully. If biologically contaminated, the samples will be useless.
Hopefully, Spaceward Bound India will be a successful and significant stop on HABIT’s way to Mars. And also a way of contributing to better life on Earth.
– We will test and evaluate the first prototype of an instrument that will give us more knowledge on how we can capture water from extremely dry environments. One day this new knowledge might help us to transform a desert area on Earth into a green oasis, and that would be fantastic. Water is one of the key components for life on earth and therefore an important issue for survival, says Johanna Bergström-Roos.
In the media(APN) ATLANTA — On Wednesday, September 30, 2015, the Georgia Commission on Medical Cannabis latest hearing erupted in debate between two Commission Members on whether Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the chemical components of cannabis, is harmful or beneficial.
Dr. Yong Park, a neurologist with Georgia Regents University, and Dr. Cynthia Wetmore, Hematologist/Oncologist, with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, disagreed with each other regarding THC.
Dr. Park stated THC was not good for the brain, nervous system, or for seizure control and that this information was scientifically proven.
“There is no conclusive evidence that THC causes damage to the brain and I beg to differ with Dr. Park,” Dr. Wetmore responded.
“Most of the drugs we give children with cancer and seizures is far more harmful than marijuana. Many of the drugs we use are not FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] approved for children,” Dr. Wetmore said.
“If you give a rat eight hundred gallons of Diet Coke, they are not going to do well. If you give a mouse huge amounts of THC or CBD or anything, you can cause damage to the nervous system, ” Dr. Wetmore said.
It is well-known that THC has many medical benefits.
What does damage the brain and nervous system is multiple sclerosis (MS) and severe childhood epilepsy. As these conditions progress, even more damage is done to the brain and nervous system.
Dr. Park advocated for GW Pharmaceutical’s synthetic cannabis products for seizures; and against natural THC, which he considers not useful and damaging.
“I think the hearings are going well and we are going in the right direction but I’m concerned about Dr. Park’s presentation. I felt that he has a bias in favor of GW Pharmaceutical and their products,”James Bell with Georgia Campaign for Access, Reform and Education (CARE) told APN.
“I think he presented information to the Commission that was unfounded when he said THC has no use and no medical value, that is misinformation. I question a person with a bias like this serving on a Commission and trying to influence decision-making,” Bell said to APN.
Park said his other concerns were his belief that physicians did not know the correct cannabis dosages to use; and that medical cannabis does not have FDA approval.
“A lot of these kids did not have time to wait for FDA approval. I know that goes against the grain of the medical practice, but kids are dying while we were waiting,” State Rep. Allen Peake (R-Macon) said.
Dr. Mandy Reece, a pharmacist on the Commission, shared with the Committee members that the State of Minnesota has a medical cannabis program that has specific dosage algorithms.
“They are using the natural product, not synthetic THC. They have specific dosing algorithms for cancer, epilepsy, and HIV,” Dr. Reece said.
Cannabis has been used throughout history for thousand of years. Medical research and literature on cannabis has been available for decades all over the world for anyone wanting to find it.
Benefits of THC were cited in Dr. Wetmore’s presentation. She explained that opiates can’t control most cancer pain or neuropathic pain. A blind trial supported the use of THC and CBD with other medications to control pain not controlled by opiates.
There are over one hundreds different cannabinoids contained within the cannabis plant and THC acts on two receptors, CB1 and CB2.
Investigative researchers are stimulating the CB1 and CB2 receptors with THC and CBD to fight tumor growth with some success.
Wetmore tells the Commission that the infusion of THC and a small amount of CBD prevented a harmless brain tumor from invading the normal tissue and seems to decrease tumor cell migration in lung cancer in animal studies.
“In conclusion, there is research that THC and CBD or some combination does provide relief from pain and possibly even kills cancer cells,” Rep. Peake said.
Additional information was given to the Commission by Dr. Steven Morris with Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates. They serve over three thousand patients with Crohn’s disease. There is no cure for Crohn’s disease but many of the symptoms can be helped with medical cannabis.
“We know that medical cannabis has great benefits in reducing pain, increasing appetite and reducing nausea,” Dr. Morris said.
Morris cited Israel as having the most advanced research in the medical use of cannabis. The most common illnesses they treat with cannabis are cancer, chronic pain, childhood epilepsy, Crohn’s, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The commission heard from two retired veterans,Sully and Ruth Chainey, from Blue Ridge, Georgia. Ruth has multiple sclerosis (MS) and her spasticity and pain was helped by using cannabis.
They wanted to control the quality of the product and started growing it to treat her medical condition. A few months later, a drug task force arrested and indicated them. Eventually the charges were dismissed mainly because of Ruth’s MS and the fact they were veterans with a clean criminal record.
It is important for this Commission to come up with a way to grow the product in State, so citizens no longer have to break the law and risk incarceration to treat their medical conditions.
The next Commission meeting is scheduled for October 28, 2015, when they will hear the concerns from law enforcement.
(END/2015)The Fox News hosts of Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate’s worked hard to put Donald Trump back on his heels. At times, it worked – but it’s not clear whether it will matter.
Trump was alternately prickly, crude, menacing and proudly sexist as he took center stage at the first GOP debate. Bret Baier baited him with the very first question, asking the candidates whether they’d promise to support the eventual nominee and forego an independent run. Only Trump refused, and the crowd booed. Trump shrugged. "I will not make the pledge at this time," he demurred.
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Megyn Kelly got under Trump’s skin with her first question: about his history of calling women "fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” Trump blustered back: “Only Rosie O’Donnell!” But Kelly wouldn’t leave it there, and Trump got nasty: “Honestly Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you although I could probably maybe not be based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.”
Trump occasionally seemed rattled and out of control, but he didn’t melt down. The most potentially damaging segment came when Chris Wallace asked him about his four corporate bankruptcies. Wallace dismissed Trump’s claim that he personally never went bankrupt. “That’s your line,” he needled him.
“I’ve taken advantage of the laws – and so has everyone else in my position,” a visibly irritated Trump insisted. To Wallace’s claim that the corporate bankruptcies hurt his lenders and employees, he delivered one of his best lines: “These lenders aren't babies, Chris, those lenders are total killers!” For a while the crowd seemed fed up with Trump but at that, he got big cheers.
Fox hosts took one for the team, making sure Trump got hit, but that none of the other candidates had to do the damage and risk making Trump an enemy. Only Sen. Rand Paul went after Trump, more than once, earning a mocking reply: “I don’t think you heard me; you’re having a hard time tonight.” The other eight, including Jeb Bush, treated him with deference.
Bush had another bad night; I honestly can’t remember anything he said without looking back at my notes. Post-debate commentary made much of the crowd's rather muted excitement about Bush; more importantly, he once again failed to appear excited about his own candidacy. College debate champ Sen. Ted Cruz was remarkably unimpressive, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson looked out of his league in a political setting.
The conventional wisdom is that Sen. Marco Rubio had the best night. It’s true that he came off as poised and possibly leader-like, though all of the love for Rubio expressed on TV and online centered on his presentation, not his policy. Rubio got tripped up on a question about abortion, and seemed to insist the Constitution prohibits abortion in cases of rape and incest.
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker shrugged off a question from Kelly about his opposition to abortion even when it’s necessary to save a woman’s life. “Would you really let a mother die rather than have an abortion?” she asked.
“Well I’m pro-life,” Walker said. “I’ve always been pro-life. I’ve got a position that’s consistent with many Americans out there in that I believe that that is an unborn child that’s in need of protection out there. And I’ve said many times that that unborn child can be protected and there are many alternatives that would protect the life of the mother.”
No idea what Walker was talking about there – or on foreign policy either.
I was likewise kind of stumped by Mike Huckabee claiming that a president could use the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to stop abortions. I’m not entirely sure how, although Huckabee made clear he supports personhood legislation establishing that life begins at conception. A hint to Huckabee’s real meaning came earlier in the day in Iowa, when he said he wouldn’t rule out using federal troops to prevent abortion.
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The meatiest exchange came between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rand Paul, old sparring partners. Christie was asked about his claim that Paul would bear some blame for a terror attack due to the Kentucky senator's opposition to the NSA’s bulk collection of American phone records. “I want to collect more records from terrorists but less records from innocent Americans,” Paul retorted. Christie, who touted his work as U.S. attorney prosecuting terrorists after 9/11, called that a “completely ridiculous answer. How are you supposed to know?”
“Get a warrant! Get a judge to sign a warrant!” Paul shot back. “I don’t trust [President] Obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug, and if you want to give him a big hug again, you go right ahead.” Christie pulled a Rudy Giuliani: “You know the hugs that I remember: the hugs that I gave to the people who lost their families on Sept. 11, and those had nothing to do with politics, unlike what you’re doing,”
It’s the kind of exchange that could let both men get new attention, if Trump wasn’t soaking up most of that for now.
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Ohio Gov. John Kasich made a play to take the sober, non-hateful establishment Republican baton from the sagging Jeb Bush, defending his decision to expand Medicaid and increase funding for drug treatment. While he reiterated his opposition to marriage equality, he took a conciliatory tone.
“Look, I’m an old-fashioned person here and I happen to believe in traditional marriage. But I’ve also said that the court has ruled … and I said we’ll accept it,” Kasich said. “And guess what? I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay. Because somebody doesn’t think the way I do doesn’t mean that I can’t care about them or I can’t love them. So if one of my daughters happened to be that, of course I would love them and I would accept them.”
As Luke Brinker noted, the crowd actually cheered (although Kasich had the home field advantage in Cleveland). But it’s not clear that there’s much of a constituency in the GOP for even rhetorical moderation.
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Few people will still be griping that Fox’s debate rules might have deprived the GOP of exposure to better candidates. With basic competence, an apparently rare knack for coherence and a prepared attack on Hillary Clinton as a liar, Carly Fiorina dominated the earlier debate of the seven candidates who didn’t qualify for the grownups’ table. Lindsey Graham, who’s normally glib and confident on TV, looked tired, over-rehearsed and kind of sad; I’ve suggested Rick Perry is a better campaigner this time around; this debate proved me wrong. Jim Gilmore played the role of Admiral Stockdale.
Fox may have helped the field in the end, even with its Trump problem. While he criticized the Fox hosts after the debate -- "Megyn behaved very badly," he told reporters -- he had kind words for his GOP primary opponents. “They really are quality people,” he said. Short of Trump’s being shamed out of the race, that’s progress for Republicans, for now.1. The Pearl High School shooting Via murderpedia.org
Oct. 1, 1997 Luke Woodham fatally stabbed and bludgeoned his mother and went on to kill two students and injure seven others at his high school. Woodham was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, a U.S. Army Reserve commander, who detained Woodham by using a.45 caliber semi-automatic pistol he kept in his truck, until authorities could show up. Myrick stopped Woodham from going across the street to the middle school.
2. The Parker Middle School dance shooting maps.google.com
April 24, 1998 Andrew Wurst showed up to his middle school dance with his.25-caliber pistol. He fired it, killing a teacher, wounding a second one, and injuring two students. The 14-year-old's shoot-out lasted about 20 minutes. It was ended when James Strand, the owner of the banquet hall the dance was happening in, confronted Wurst with his personal shotgun. He ordered Wurst to drop his weapon and held the teenager in place for 11 minutes before finally getting him to drop the weapon and lie on the ground, and then searched him for other weapons.
3. The Appalachian School of Law shooting asl.edu
Jan. 16, 2002 A 43-year-old Nigerian former student named Peter Odighizuwa arrived on campus with a handgun. There are different variations of the story, but according to eyewitness accounts, law students Tracy Bridges, a county sheriff's deputy, and Mikael Gross, a police officer, ran to their cars after hearing gunshots and grabbed personally owned firearms. They approached Odighizuwa, ordering him to drop his firearm; he did and was subdued by unarmed students. Three people were killed and three others were wounded.
4. The New Life Church shooting Via blutube.policeone.com
Dec. 9, 2007 A former police officer from Minnesota named Jeanne Assam was at church when a 24-year-old gunman named Matthew Murray began firing at parishioners in the parking lot. Murray claimed two victims before Assam opened fire on him with her personally owned concealed weapon. After receiving multiple hits from Assam, Murray then shot himself.
5. The Trolley Square shooting murderpedia.org
Feb. 12, 2007 Sulejman Talović killed five people and wounded four others in 2007 when he began firing in a public square in Salt Lake City, Utah. He carried a shotgun and a backpack of ammunition. He was eventually stopped in a shoot-out involving Salt Lake City Police Department SWAT that took place in a Pottery Barn Kids. He was cornered, however, by off-duty police officer Kenneth Hammond, who held him in position before authorities could arrive. Hammond ran on scene after hearing gunshots fire out while having an early Valentine's Day dinner with his pregnant wife at a local restaurant.
6. The Golden Market shooting Via maps.google.com
July 19, 2009 The details are murky but according to reports, a man entered a Golden Market in Virginia in 2009 and began firing a gun. He shot and wounded the clerk and then began firing at patrons inside. He ran out of ammo and was attempting to reload when he was shot, wounded, and then subdued by a permit holder who happened to be in the store.
7. The New York Mills AT&T store shooting criminaljustice.ny.gov
May 27, 2010 Off-duty police officer Donald J. Moore stopped Abraham Dickan, a 79-year-old man who decided to shoot up an AT&T store in New York Mills, New York. Moore was in the store when Dickan entered brandishing a.357 magnum and a hit list of employees he planned to kill in his pocket. Moore heard Dickan's gun go off, drew his own personal weapon, and killed Dickan on scene. One AT&T employee was injured in the shooting.
8. The Clackamas Town Center shooting STEVE DIPAOLA / Reuters
Dec. 11, 2012 Two people were killed and a third was seriously wounded in Clackamas County, Oregon, when Jacob Roberts opened fire in a local shopping mall. Nick Meli, a shopper in the mall, drew a personally owned firearm on Roberts, who then retreated. Meli did not fire his weapon, for fear of striking bystanders.
9. The San Antonio Theater shooting Via google.com!1s0x865c584a4c319ad5:0x45b1c6d419e5c7d1!2m5!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i100!3m1!7e1!4s plus.google.com!5sSantikos+MayRussia
(1) Igor Akinfeev: 6.5 The Russian goalkeeper didn’t have much to do, but he was alert when called upon, and distributed the ball well from the back.
(19) Alexander Samedov: 8.0 The right wing-back found his feet in the second half. He was constantly a threat, and he got his reward by assisting Smolov’s goal in the 69th minute.
(6) Georgi Djikia: 7.0 Like most of Russia’s defense, didn’t have much to do. He was calm with the ball at his feet and playing from the back.
(5) Viktor Vasin: 7.5 Playing at the center of a three-man back, he did well to limit Chris Wood’s opportunities. Led his backline by example and hit the post early on.
(13) Fedor Kudryashov: 7.0 Started the game slowly, but eventually settled in the back three. Did well to limit the trickery of Marco Rojas.
(18) Yuri Zhirkov: 7.5 Even at 33, the experienced left-back never stopped running. Was a big threat down the wing in the second half and had a goal-line clearance near the end of the game.
(21) Aleksandr Erokhin: 7.5 The least noticeable of the midfield trio, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Distributed the ball well and won it back for his team, leading to the first goal of the game.
(8) Denis Glushakov: 8.0 (Man of the Match) The 30-year old was at the heart of Russia’s midfield, dictating the tempo of the game with his passing and dribbling forward. Opened the scoring in the 31st minute with a lovely chip after a run from deep, despite FIFA awarding an own goal to a New Zealand defender instead.
(17) Aleksandr Golovin: 7.5 The Arsenal target was the best player in the opening minutes. As the game worn on, he settled in a deeper position and helped out defensively as well.
(9) Fedor Smolov: 8.0 Had a hard time adjusting to New Zealand’s high line in the first half, but figured them out in the second. Played a big part in the construction of his goal before tapping it in, and almost created another one later on.
(7) Dmitri Poloz: 7.0 His big moment came at the half time mark, as he played a beautiful ball through to Glushakov, who put it in the back of the net. Had a header saved in the second half before he was replaced in the 64th minute.
Subs:
(11) Alexander Bukharov: 6.0 Replaced his club teammate Poloz after the hour mark, but wasn’t too involved.
(22) Dmitri Tarasov and (15) Aleksey Miranchuk: Not enough playing time/impact for a rating.
New Zealand
(1) Stefan Marinovic: 7.0 Started off poorly, but made a number of decisive saves in the second half, including a double save with the score at 1-0.
(18) Kip Colvey: 5.5 The 23-year old struggled to deal with Zhirkov’s runs on the left wing, and didn’t really get a chance to do much going forward. Lost the ball which led to Russia’s opener.
(20) Tommy Smith: 6.5 His side’s best defender. Cleared the ball after Marinovic was defeated early on, and was relatively solid throughout the game.
(22) Andrew Durante: 5.0 Found in no man’s land time after time. It seemed that while Smith and Boxall had clear duties, Durante was just strolling in the back three. Struggled to keep up with or at least challenge the goal-scorers in both occasions.
(5) Michael Boxall: 5.0 Unfortunate to be awarded an own goal, though a critic might say he could have done better with his attempted clearance. His attempt at a clearance was even worse in the second half, as he missed the ball entirely, and Smolov made it 2-0.
(3) Deklan Wynne: 5.5 Like Colvey, couldn’t really keep up with his man, and did next to nothing going forward. Samedov ran him ragged in the second half.
(7) Kosta Barbarouses: 5.0 Despite being one of the more experienced players in the New Zealand squad, the 27-year old lost the midfield battle and had almost no impact in the game. Subbed off at the hour mark.
(8) Michael McGlinchey: 6.0 New Zealand’s hopes of winning the midfield battle rested on his shoulders, and they didn’t win the midfield battle. His best contribution in the game was an early goal-line clearance after Vasin’s header.
(14) Ryan Thomas: 6.5 The 22-year old was the brightest spark in the Kiwi’s midfield, but his attempts at going forward didn’t lead to much. He was solid with the ball at his feet and helped out defensively.
(11) Marco Rojas: 5.5 The first time he truly caught my eye was in the 70th minute with a nice turn on the right wing. And then he was subbed off immediately after. Not the impact you want from a player like him.
(9) Chris Wood: 4.5 Looked hungry for parts of the first half, but ultimately didn’t get any real chances. His movement was not optimal, and he never threatened the Russian defense.
Subs:
(6) Bill Tuiloma: 6.0 Didn’t really offer a whole lot for his team, but considering that not many of his teammates did much better, he did enough to hope for a start in the next game.
(10) Shane Smeltz and (13 Monty Mark Patterson): Not enough playing time/impact for a rating.
*All photos courtesy of FIFA.com*
AdvertisementsNintendo’s famed video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has spent his career developing some of the world’s most iconic and cherished video games, from the Super Mario franchise to Zelda and Donkey Kong. As video game consoles have changed over the years, so have the ways in which people play them: the Wii heralded motion controls, the Wii U introduced a dual-screen experience to Nintendo fans for the first time, and the 3DS handheld system brought Mario and others to life in 3D.
This year, Nintendo began to venture into a widely lucrative yet untapped territory for the company: mobile gaming. December 15th marks the launch of Super Mario Run for the iPhone and iPad, which will be the first time the iconic plumber will be making his way to mobile devices. TIME spoke with Mario creator Miyamoto about the challenges that come with bringing Mario to a new platform and more.
The following transcript that has been edited for length and clarity.
TIME: This is the first time Mario is coming to the iPhone. What were some of the challenges that came with bringing Mario to a new medium?
Miyamoto: I’ve been using smartphones myself for many years so I had a good idea in mind for what would be a good way to bring Mario to smartphones. But I think for us, the biggest challenge was really in zeroing in on those core elements of Mario that would be best suited for play on smart devices. We had, during the Wii and 3DS days, experimented with ideas where Mario ran automatically and you would play by making Mario jump. And after doing some of those experiments we felt that would probably be the best way to bring Mario to iPhone, where you’re just playing with one hand just controlling the jumps. And once we zeroed in on that it became relatively straightforward for us in terms of the game development.
And then in terms of actual development challenges, Nintendo has always focused its development on a single platform at a time. And of course we’re designing the hardware and the games. And so when we designed our hardware for gaming we’re doing it in a way that offers very stable performance for gaming. But because smartphones are a multi-use device, we had some challenge in trying to get the performance out of the system that we wanted. But just working through development and with the team we were able to get it to where we were able to get the performance we wanted from iPhone to offer a stable gameplay experience.
Check Out This Sneak Peek at Super Mario Run Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo Nintendo 1 of 8 Advertisement
Nintendo has always been great at using hardware in creative ways that complement gameplay. We saw that with Wii U with Super Mario 3D World, where you have to sometimes interact with elements on the tablet screen to progress through the level on the TV screen. What was it like bringing that mentality to the iPhone?
One of the challenges in game development is the very first time you make a new game, you generally design it so that as broad of an audience as possible can play. But then gradually as you make more and more sequels, you start to make the game more complex and more challenging for the fans that have played the series. And you gradually get to a point where it becomes more difficult for beginners to be able to get into the game. So this has been sort of a focus of ours during the DS and the Wii days, where we’ve sort of tried to go back to the roots of the original gameplay and reset so that it has an easier entry point for people. And that was a very important thing for us with Super Mario Run as well.
We didn’t think about bringing an existing Mario gameplay to iPhone and just porting over something that you controlled with buttons before. We really focused on, what is the best Mario experience for what you get with iPhone?
Of course one of the advantages or one of the things about interactive entertainment that people like is the ability to completely control everything themselves. But even if you have some automatic support structures built in, it can still be fun for people to interact with what’s on the screen. And with Mario games in particular, it really is that sense of satisfaction that you get when Mario gets to the flagpole at the end.
But I also think that one of the most entertaining elements of interactive entertainment is that you as the player are able to look at what you’ve done and what’s coming ahead of you. And it’s really fun to think about, ‘Oh, I should have done this a different way,’ or, ‘This is coming and now I have to adjust to that.’ By playing these levels and replaying Super Mario Run, I think people will find a lot of fun just in slight changes to the timing of their taps in order to get all of the colored coins or maximize their score.
How did you pick and choose what gameplay elements are right for the iPhone and which ones aren’t? I noticed, for example, that I didn’t see any power-ups other than the mushroom in Super Mario Run like there are in the console games. Is that something we’ll eventually see in a mobile Mario game?
I think with this being our first Super Mario game on iPhone, we’ve designed this both in what’s the best experience but also with a long road ahead of us in terms of what else we can do on iPhone. So perhaps you can look forward to some of that at some point in the future. But one thing we have done this time is that you’ll be able to play not just as Mario, but after going through the game and unlocking some things and meeting some conditions you’ll be able to play as some of the other characters as well.
In previous console-based Mario games, playing with different characters can give you various gameplay advantages. Will we see this carry over to Super Mario Run?
It’s less on having those characters to achieve or accomplish specific tasks, and more of giving players a tool to unlock more of their gameplay creativity. Even if you’re trying to collect the same group of colored coins, doing so with a different character will require you to do it in a different way. So that can be fun for the players to explore.
This is one of the first mobile games Nintendo is releasing. We saw the launch of Miitomo earlier this year, which is more of a social app, and Pokémon Go, which is a geolocation app. What other genres are interesting to you?
There’s a number of other areas that we’re looking at. But in the near term, the ones that will be coming out are a Fire Emblem game and Animal Crossing. And then of course each of these different games appeal to slightly different audiences. We see that a lot of parents often buy Mario games for their kids. From a pricing and payment structure, we felt it was important that parents would just pay once and then their kids can play to their hearts’ content. So what we’ll do with each of these games is look at who’s the main audience playing and we’ll devise a pricing structure for each game that’s applicable for each audience.
An app like Super Mario Run is more condensed than a Wii U title. How did you balance incorporating a variety of characters and level types?
Just because of the history of the franchise, we have a lot of assets to choose from. Actually for us, one of the biggest challenges was deciding what doesn’t go in because we were very quickly able to fill it up with content. Our approach was really to focus in on what are the right enemies for a game when Mario runs automatically. What are the right course styles? Those were the decisions that we were making, was zeroing in on those types of elements. But what that means is we still have a lot of ingredients left over that we can continue to cook with, so to speak.
A few things that we did, for example, is we took the Bullet Bill characters that usually come at you from the direction that you’re heading and we changed them and made them red, and now we have them coming at you from behind. The spiny characters with spikes on their shells are also little bigger so they’re easier to see.
The Kingdom Builder mode is a relatively new concept for Mario games. What made you decide to include that in Super Mario Run?
There are a couple of reasons. One is there is actually a game in Japan that I’ve been playing on a smartphone with my wife, it’s called Neko Atsume, It’s sort of a cat collecting game. From that, I really got the sense of having this thing on your phone that you interact with on a regular basis, and then you grow and build it up from there, is a very compelling feature. And certainly Nintendo has had games that have done this in the past on our own platforms.
The other reason behind it, typically with the Super Mario games, what you’re really doing is you’re sort of strategizing and working your way through individual levels. And we wanted to have a method for you to save the accomplishments that you get in each of those levels and have a place where those accomplishments can kind of build up. And that’s where the idea for the Kingdom Mode came from.
Why is this the right time to bring Mario to the iPhone?
A big factor is that over the past few years smartphones have just gotten more and more powerful to the point where the performance that we’re able to get out of the device is finally on par with what we expect from the gameplay performance and response for our games.
And then I think also there was a period, certainly for many years, our devices were the first sort of computing or interactive entertainment devices kids came into contact with. And that would be the first place where they experienced games. But now as more and more parents are giving hand-me-down phones to their kids, kids are often times coming into contact with games on smart devices at earlier and earlier ages. We wanted to be able to reach those kids on those devices so that they’ll be able to experience our games and those characters there, but then when they want to play a more in-depth experience they’ll gravitate towards our devices to do that.
And then also I think we’ve seen this with Pokémon Go, there are a lot of adults that, as they’ve gotten older, they’ve gravitated away from even purchasing gaming machines but they’re carrying a smartphone around with them. And all of a sudden, with Pokémon Go they’re reconnecting with Pokémon and playing Pokémon again. Our hope is with Super Mario Run that we’ll be able to reconnect with a lot of people that grew up playing Mario and that they’ll come back and want to play some more of our games on our platforms as well.
Contact us at editors@time.com.Part of the fun of being among the group of synesthetes and researchers drafting our history is "outing" famous synesthetes |
atures of Cooper and others. It arrived at the same time EC launched its own Mad imitation, Panic (Feb. 1954–March 1954), a scant month before Flip hit the stands. With #10 (when Mad went monthly) Elder’s “Woman Wonder” bore a striking resemblance to the DC character, but Severin’s sketchy likenesses of Shane characters dulled the impact of “Sane.” (As the Mad style was defined, issue by issue, Severin began to appear increasingly ill-suited. “Sane” was his last contribution to Mad comics.)
Then the caricatured concept took off: The Panic #2 lead featured on-target Wood caricatures of Bogart and Hepburn in “African Scream” — while Mad #11, that same month, offered its second “Dragged Net” parody, this time with a heavy concentration on all the Dragnet conventions, plus close-ups and emphasis on caricatures of Webb and Alexander (suggesting that Kurtzman and Elder had finally purchased television sets). From here it was only a half-skip to Mad’s string of movie/TV parodies, faithfully caricatured by Wood and Davis, and comics parodies, faithfully duplicated in every detail by Elder.
Thumbing through these back issues, then and now, I’ve sometimes wondered what certain stories would have looked like drawn by other artists. Such a “what if” session is, to use Nostrand’s word, “funsies.” What if Al Williamson had illustrated “Flesh Garden”? What if George Evans’s aeroplane expertise had taken “Smilin’ Melvin” to a different altitude? What if “Robinson Crusoe” had been Wolvertooned? What if Frazetta had handled “Melvin of the Apes”? What if Johnny Craig had inked “Ganefs” as a cartoon noir? What if Krigstein had revived a turn-of-the-century look for “Casey at the Bat”? What if Wood had jazzed up “Bop Jokes” and “Plastic Sam”? But mainly I wonder what if Kurtzman had hired Nostrand in March 1952? Goodbye, Bob Powell. Hello, Harvey. If — ah, the Big If — yes, if this had happened, the original Wood/Severin/Elder/Davis Mad line-up would have been Wood/Nostrand/Davis/Elder, brushes blazing as all four competed to out-cartoon each other, with Nostrand stuck in the middle to form a stylistic link between Wood and Davis. Potrzebie!
All that hoohah, all that long-ago laughter of Kurtzman’s Original Marching Cartoon Jass Band, tootling “What fools these mortals be,” echoing through the tunnel of years, echoing down below Astor Place past the Puck Building all the way back to 255 Lafayette, where the saints, where the Cartoon Saints go marchin’ in, go marchin’ in.
So now picture me in the winter of 1967–68, sitting with the Wizard King of the Cartoon Saints, Wally Wood, grinning his Woody grin and chuckling his Woody chuckle as, without any prior discussion, he pulled open a suspension file and hauled out tearsheets of “Ivan’s-Woe,” Nostrand’s parody of Wood’s “Trial by Arms” (Two-Fisted Tales #34). Nostrand, for some reason, had the notion that Wood was not happy about “Ivan’s-Woe,” but my memory is that Woody was flattered and pleased by the obvious homage. This was obvious not only in the art but in the opening line with bold italics emphasizing Wood’s name: “Yield now. Sir Knight! Thy lance will be but kindling wood beside my own!”)
When Woody introduced me to Wayne Wright Howard in 1967, it was pretty clear that he was impressed by the 18-year-old Wayne Howard’s Wood-like reflected highlights and other brush effects. During his senior year of high school, Wayne Howard had won the National Scholastic Press Association’s Best Student Cartoonist Award and, throughout the late ’60s and early ’70s, he continued to use Woodwork as a model while he whipped out pages for DC, Marvel and Charlton. Wood was fascinated by the efforts of Howard and the other artists who emulated him. And the closer they got, the more intrigued he became. So, naturally, he was still somewhat amazed, 13 years later, by the work that went into Nostrand’s “Ivan’s-Woe.” He knew that it was work, not any kind of a rip-off, and he perceived that it was a genuine homage, not a mockery.
I remember standing in the center of the Wood Studio as he handed me the torn Witches Tales page of Nostrand’s nine-panel pantomime joust and mace combat. I remember him standing behind my right shoulder, pointing at the panels, indicating how Nostrand had duplicated the “Trial by Arms” layout and the story situation carrying the combatants from horses to the ground. And mainly I remember his delight at the fact that Nostrand had not copied the combat sequence but had redrawn all the figures (with two or three exceptions) into completely new poses, setting up totally different angles, yet still maintaining a faithful simulation of the Wood look. And I also remember that at that moment I asked the only logical question.
“Did you ever meet Nostrand?”
“No.”
No? I was dumbfounded. Perhaps I had naively thought such a pastiche and the mutual respect of these two men would have brought them together. Surely in 13 years? But no, never. They had only met on paper. I left the Wood Studio that day thinking that this guy Nostrand, whoever the hell he was, had picked, even if unconsciously, an apt metaphor: the two combatants could have been Wood and Nostrand jousting it out (“CLANG! CRACK! KLONG!”) with brushes and egos instead of lances and mace. After learning that even Wood did not know anything about Nostrand, the Mystery Artist seemed to be even more of a mystery. Who was he? If he had no connection whatsoever with Wood or EC, why had he consciously produced such work?
ContinuedIntroduction
Today I want to talk about a pretty cool way to transform an input parameter of one type into a different type automatically. Of course, PowerShell does this already with all sorts of types for you. If you have a function that takes an [int] as input, you can provide a number as a [string], and the engine will take care of converting, or coercing, the string into the proper type. Another example is [datetime] coercion:
function Test-Coercion { [CmdletBinding()] param( [datetime] $Date ) $Date }
Besides providing actual [datetime] objects, you can provide a [string] or an [Int64] :
PS C:\> Test-Coercion -Date 3/1/17 Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:00:00 AM PS C:\> Test-Coercion -Date 2017-03-01 Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:00:00 AM PS C:\> Test-Coercion -Date 636239232000000000 Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:00:00 AM
Examples of coercion are all over the place, and you could spend lots of time going over all the details, so I don’t want to talk about that. Instead, I want to talk about how you can control this process to either change or extend it for custom functions (or variables).
Let’s look back at Test-Coercion, and how it changed ‘3/1/17’ into ‘March 1, 2017’. That makes perfect sense to me since I’m used to the US format, but some cultures would consider that to be ‘January 3, 2017’. If you pass that string to [datetime]::Parse(), you’ll get a culture-specific result, depending on your active culture (run Get-Culture to see yours). If you cast the string to a [datetime], though, you’ll get ‘March 1, 2017’, no matter what your culture is. What if you wanted to be able to pass a string that’s parsed using your culture’s format, and you didn’t want to change the parameter’s type to [string]?
What if you also wanted to be able to provide some “friendly” text, like ‘Today’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘1 week ago’, etc? You could make the parameter’s type a [string], and handle testing whether or not the user passed a valid string inside your function’s code, but I don’t like that because you’d be on the hook for throwing an error when an invalid string is provided. I would rather have Get-Command and Get-Help show that the parameter is a [datetime], and mention in the command’s documentation that, oh, by the way, you can provide these “friendly” strings in addition to [datetime] objects and strings that get coerced already. That way, if someone doesn’t read the help, but they look at the syntax, they’ll know that the command expects [datetime] objects.
You can handle both of those scenarios by implementing your own special PowerShell class called an ArgumentTransformationAttribute. That might sound complicated, but it actually only takes a few lines of boilerplate code when using PowerShell classes. If you don’t have PSv5+, you can still handle it with C# code, but that’s obviously going to be a little bit more complicated (it’s still not that bad, it just looks worse).
In the examples that follow, we’ll go over how to create your own ArgumentTransformationAttributes using either way, so you should be able to use this for any version of PowerShell (I have no idea if it will work in PSv2 or lower, though).
A Simple ArgumentTransformationAttribute Example
Let’s start by adding a new parameter to Test-Coercion from above that parses strings in a culture-specific way, and that allows a few hard-coded strings that normally wouldn’t be coerced into [datetime] objects. We’ll do that by creating a [SpecialDateTime()] attribute:
class SpecialDateTimeAttribute : System.Management.Automation.ArgumentTransformationAttribute { [object] Transform([System.Management.Automation.EngineIntrinsics] $engineIntrinsics, [object] $inputData) { $DateTime = [datetime]::Now $SpecialStrings = @{ Now = { Get-Date } Today = { (Get-Date).Date } Yesterday = { (Get-Date).Date.AddDays(-1) } } if ($inputData -is [datetime]) { # Already [datetime], so send it on return $inputData } elseif ([datetime]::TryParse($inputData, [ref] $DateTime)) { # String that can turn into a valid [datetime] return $DateTime } elseif ($inputData -in $SpecialStrings.Keys) { return & $SpecialStrings[$inputData] } else { # Send the original input back out, and let PS handle showing the user an error return $inputData } } } function Test-Coercion { [CmdletBinding()] param( [SpecialDateTime()] [datetime] $Date ) $Date }
The important parts:
You have to extend the ArgumentTransformationAttribute class, which is what putting : System.Management.Automation.ArgumentTransformationAttribute after your class name does
after your class name does You have to implement the Transform() method with the signature you see above. $inputData is the object that was passed in that you have the option of modifying. If you’re using PSv5, you can pretty much ignore the $engineIntrinsics. I’ll talk more about it below, because it is useful for C# implementations.
method with the signature you see above. is the object that was passed in that you have the option of modifying. If you’re using PSv5, you can pretty much ignore the $engineIntrinsics. I’ll talk more about it below, because it is useful for C# implementations. You have to return something. I usually just return the original $inputData if the code doesn’t know what to do with whatever input was provided, which will let the normal parameter binding process handle coercion or erroring out.
if the code doesn’t know what to do with whatever input was provided, which will let the normal parameter binding process handle coercion or erroring out. You need to decorate your parameter with the attribute you created. In the example above, that’s where the [SpecialDateTime()] comes in.
Once you do that, whatever a user passes into the -Date parameter will go through the code in the [SpecialDateTime()] first. Note that you may have to change the order of the parameter attributes in some cases. If I recall correctly, I used to have to put the [datetime] before the transformation attribute, but that doesn’t seem to matter in PSv5+.
Let’s see what happens when we run Test-Coercion now:
PS C:\> Test-Coercion Today Friday, March 24, 2017 12:00:00 AM PS C:\> Test-Coercion Yesterday Thursday, March 23, 2017 12:00:00 AM PS C:\> & { [System.Threading.Thread]::CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = 'en-GB' Test-Coercion 3/1 } 03 January 2017 00:00:00
It knows what ‘Today’ and ‘Yesterday’ mean, and when I switch the culture to en-GB, ‘3/1’ is interpreted as ‘January 3rd’.
A Reusable Transformation Attribute (with C#, too)
Creating these transformation attributes doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention. Out of the examples I have seen, all of them are created to do a specific job, and can’t really be reused for something else. PowerShell classes make it so that’s not too bad to handle, but I used to use these when you had to make a C# class, and creating, then testing, special classes wasn’t fun. For that reason, I made a generic one that lets you pass a scriptblock that lets you define how to transform the input while building your param() block:
Add-Type @' using System.Collections; // Needed for IList using System.Management.Automation; using System.Collections.Generic; namespace Test { public sealed class TransformScriptAttribute : ArgumentTransformationAttribute { string _transformScript; public TransformScriptAttribute(string transformScript) { _transformScript = string.Format(@" # Assign $_ variable $_ = $args[0] # The return value of this needs to match the C# return type so no coercion happens $FinalResult = New-Object System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection[psobject] $ScriptResult = {0} # Add the result and output the collection $FinalResult.Add((,$ScriptResult)) $FinalResult", transformScript); } public override object Transform(EngineIntrinsics engineIntrinsics, object inputData) { var results = engineIntrinsics.InvokeCommand.InvokeScript( _transformScript, true, // Run in its own scope System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.PipelineResultTypes.None, // Just return as PSObject collection null, inputData ); if (results.Count > 0) { return results[0].ImmediateBaseObject; } return inputData; // No transformation } } } '@ # Equivalent PowerShell class version: class PSTransformScriptAttribute : System.Management.Automation.ArgumentTransformationAttribute { PSTransformScriptAttribute([string] $ScriptBlock) { $this.ScriptBlock = [scriptblock]::Create(@" `$_ = `$args[0] $ScriptBlock "@) } [scriptblock] $ScriptBlock [object] Transform([System.Management.Automation.EngineIntrinsics] $engineIntrinsics, [object] $inputData) { return & $this.ScriptBlock $inputData } }
The important parts:
You need to provide a constructor so a script can be passed to the attribute
The C# version needs to use engineIntrinsics to invoke the script. The PowerShell class version doesn’t need this (even though it wouldn’t hurt to use it). To play around with the options for engineIntrinsics, you can use the $ExecutionContext automatic variable that’s available in your PowerShell session.
Those examples don’t do any error checking, so if an exception is thrown inside your script, it’s going to bubble up to the user of your function. You can add error handling to suppress those errors if you’d like.
You can add anything you want to the user-provided script. I automatically assign the $inputData contents to $_ so that you can use $_ in the attribute.
Let’s add some more dummy parameters to Test-Coercion to demo some simple examples of what’s possible with these attributes:
function Test-Coercion { [CmdletBinding()] param( [SpecialDateTime()] [datetime] $Date, [Test.TransformScript({ $_ | foreach ToString | foreach ToUpper })] [string[]] $UpperCaseStrings, [PSTransformScript({ $_ | foreach ToString | foreach ToUpper })] [string[]] $PsUpperCaseStrings, [Test.TransformScript({ $_ | ConvertTo-Json })] [string] $JsonRepresentation, [PSTransformScript({ $_ | ConvertTo-Json })] [string] $PSJsonRepresentation ) $PSBoundParameters }
And some examples of running it:
PS C:\> Test-Coercion -UpperCaseString some, strings, to, transform -PsUpperCaseStrings more, strings Key Value --- ----- UpperCaseStrings {SOME, STRINGS, TO, TRANSFORM} PsUpperCaseStrings {MORE, STRINGS} PS C:\> Test-Coercion -JsonRepresentation @{Key1 = 'Value'; Key2 = 'Value2'}, @{Key3 = 'Value'} -PSJsonRepresentation (dir hklm:\ -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | select Name, PSChildName) | ft -Wrap Key Value --- ----- JsonRepresentation [ { "Key1": "Value", "Key2": "Value2" }, { "Key3": "Value" } ] PSJsonRepresentation [ { "Name": "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\HARDWARE", "PSChildName": "HARDWARE" }, { "Name": "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SAM", "PSChildName": "SAM" }, { "Name": "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE", "PSChildName": "SOFTWARE" }, { "Name": "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM", "PSChildName": "SYSTEM" } ]
A note about scope
While the PowerShell class implementation of the generic script transform attribute above was much simpler to create and easier to follow than the C# version, it seems to have some problems when it comes to executing in the expected scope. Basically, I’ve had issues being able to use private module functions when these attributes are used to decorate public functions exported by a module. The C# version works fine, but the PowerShell version seems to use the wrong scope. That happens even if I use the $EngineIntrinsics value passed into Transform(). I’m hoping to dive a little deeper into this to figure out if this behavior is a bug, or if I’m just doing something wrong and/or misusing the classes (sounds like a potential blog post). For now, though, I’m going to recommend the C# [TransformScript()] version of the generic transform attribute.
Let’s wrap up with a few more self-contained examples.
Example: Friendly DateTime Strings
This is just a more fleshed out version of the first example above, along with an argument completer, all tucked away in a module. The helper function that understands the text can obviously be extended to work with even more types of words/phrases.
$DateTimeMod = New-Module -Name DateTime { function Test-DateTimeCompleter { param( [datetime] [Test.TransformScript({ $_ | DateTimeConverter })] $DateTime1, [datetime[]] [Test.TransformScript({ $_ | DateTimeConverter })] $DateTime2 ) $PSBoundParameters } Export-ModuleMember -Function Test-DateTimeCompleter function DateTimeConverter { [CmdletBinding(DefaultParameterSetName='NormalConversion')] param( [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline, Mandatory, Position=0, ParameterSetName='NormalConversion')] [AllowNull()] $InputObject, [Parameter(Mandatory, ParameterSetName='ArgumentCompleterMode')] [AllowEmptyString()] [string] $wordToComplete ) begin { $RegexInfo = @{ Intervals = echo Minute, Hour, Day, Week, Month, Year # Regex would need to be redesigned if one of these can't be made plural with a simple's' at the end Separators = echo \., \s, _ Adverbs = echo Ago, FromNow GenerateRegex = { $Definition = $RegexInfo $Separator = '({0})?' -f ($Definition.Separators -join '|') #? makes separators optional $Adverbs = '(?<adverb>{0})' -f ($Definition.Adverbs -join '|') $Intervals = '((?<interval>{0})s?)' -f ($Definition.Intervals -join '|') $Number = '(?<number>-?\d+)' '^{0}{1}{2}{1}{3}$' -f $Number, $Separator, $Intervals, $Adverbs } } $DateTimeStringRegex = & $RegexInfo.GenerateRegex $DateTimeStringShortcuts = @{ Now = { Get-Date } Today = { (Get-Date).ToShortDateString() } 'This Month' = { $Now = Get-Date; Get-Date -Month $Now.Month -Day 1 -Year $Now.Year } 'Last Month' = { $Now = Get-Date; (Get-Date -Month $Now.Month -Day 1 -Year $Now.Year).AddMonths(-1) } 'Next Month' = { $Now = Get-Date; (Get-Date -Month $Now.Month -Day 1 -Year $Now.Year).AddMonths(1) } } } process { switch ($PSCmdlet.ParameterSetName) { NormalConversion { foreach ($DateString in $InputObject) { if ($DateString -as [datetime]) { # No need to do any voodoo if it can already be coerced to a datetime $DateString } elseif ($DateString -match $DateTimeStringRegex) { $Multiplier = 1 # Only changed if 'week' is used switch ($Matches.interval) { <# Allowed intervals: minute, hour, day, week, month, year Of those, only 'week' doesn't have a method, so handle it special. The others can be handled in the default{} case #> week { $Multiplier = 7 $MethodName = 'AddDays' } default { $MethodName = "Add${_}s" } } switch ($Matches.adverb) { fromnow { # No change needed } ago { # Multiplier needs to be negated $Multiplier *= -1 } } try { (Get-Date).$MethodName.Invoke($Multiplier * $matches.number) continue } catch { Write-Error $_ return } } elseif ($DateTimeStringShortcuts.ContainsKey($DateString)) { (& $DateTimeStringShortcuts[$DateString]) -as [datetime] continue } else { # Just return what was originally input; if this is used as an argument transformation, the binder will # throw it's localized error message $DateString } } } ArgumentCompleterMode { $CompletionResults = New-Object System.Collections.Generic.List[System.Management.Automation.CompletionResult] $DoQuotes = { if ($args[0] -match '\s') { "'{0}'" -f $args[0] } else { $args[0] } } # Check for any shortcut matches: foreach ($Match in ($DateTimeStringShortcuts.Keys -like "*${wordToComplete}*")) { $EvaluatedValue = & $DateTimeStringShortcuts[$Match] $CompletionResults.Add((New-Object System.Management.Automation.CompletionResult (& $DoQuotes $Match), $Match, 'ParameterValue', "$Match [$EvaluatedValue]")) } # Check to see if they've typed anything that could resemble valid friedly text if ($wordToComplete -match "^(-?\d+)(?<separator>$($RegexInfo.Separators -join '|'))?") { $Length = $matches[1] $Separator = " " if ($matches.separator) { $Separator = $matches.separator } $IntervalSuffix ='s' if ($Length -eq '1') { $IntervalSuffix = '' } foreach ($Interval in $RegexInfo.Intervals) { foreach ($Adverb in $RegexInfo.Adverbs) { $Text = "${Length}${Separator}${Interval}${IntervalSuffix}${Separator}${Adverb}" if ($Text -like "*${wordToComplete}*") { $CompletionResults.Add((New-Object System.Management.Automation.CompletionResult (& $DoQuotes $Text), $Text, 'ParameterValue', $Text)) } } } } $CompletionResults } default { # Shouldn't happen. Just don't return anything... } } } } Add-Type @' using System.Collections; // Needed for IList using System.Management.Automation; using System.Collections.Generic; namespace Test { public sealed class TransformScriptAttribute : ArgumentTransformationAttribute { string _transformScript; public TransformScriptAttribute(string transformScript) { _transformScript = string.Format(@" # Assign $_ variable $_ = $args[0] # The return value of this needs to match the C# return type so no coercion happens $FinalResult = New-Object System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection[psobject] $ScriptResult = {0} # Add the result and output the collection $FinalResult.Add((,$ScriptResult)) $FinalResult", transformScript); } public override object Transform(EngineIntrinsics engineIntrinsics, object inputData) { var results = engineIntrinsics.InvokeCommand.InvokeScript( _transformScript, true, // Run in its own scope System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.PipelineResultTypes.None, // Just return as PSObject collection null, inputData ); if (results.Count > 0) { return results[0].ImmediateBaseObject; } return inputData; // No transformation } } } '@ echo DateTime1, DateTime2 | ForEach-Object { Register-ArgumentCompleter -CommandName Test-DateTimeCompleter -ParameterName $_ -ScriptBlock { DateTimeConverter -wordToComplete $args[2] } } }
Run this and try it out. Here’s an example of something to try to get you started (you should get tab completion at this point, so press Ctrl+Space if you’re not in the ISE):
Test-DateTimeConverter -DateTime1 1.
Example: Shadow PSBoundParameters
OK, this is a trimmed down example of one of my favorite uses for this. Some background: I’ve got a module that I use to help build commands that build dynamic SQL queries using a DSL. When you describe a column, you provide a type for it, e.g., [string], [datetime], [int], etc, and a command is created that has parameters of those types that, when specified, end up modifying the command’s internal WHERE clause. If you call Get-Command, you see their real types, but you can pass $null or a hashtable to specify advanced per-parameter options, e.g., @{Value='String'; Negate=$true} (think about how Select-Object’s -Property parameter usually takes strings, but you can provide calculated properties). Obviously, I can just make all of those commands take [object[]] types, but I prefer to let the help system and IntelliSense notify the user of what’s normally expected, and if they are aware of the advanced options, they can optionally use the other syntax.
While this isn’t the exact code I use, the concept is the same. What this will do is create a hashtable in the function’s scope to put the ‘real’ value provided into a $ShadowPSBoundParameters variable that can be accessed inside the function. It does this by using Get-Variable and Set-Variable to look into the parent scope (if you use engineIntrinsics to call InvokeScript() without creating a new scope, then the scope number will be different). NOTE: I make no claims to whether or not this is a good idea, but I think it’s a cool example showing what’s possible:
$ShadowParamMod = New-Module -Name ShadowParamMod { function Test-ShadowParams { [CmdletBinding()] param( [Test.TransformScript({ PopulateShadowParams -InputObject $_ -ParameterName Date -DefaultValue (Get-Date) })] [datetime] $Date, [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline)] [Test.TransformScript({ PopulateShadowParams -InputObject $_ -ParameterName Strings -DefaultValue '' })] [string[]] $Strings, [Test.TransformScript({ PopulateShadowParams -InputObject $_ -ParameterName Int -DefaultValue 0 })] [int] $Int ) process { 'Inside Process {} block:' foreach ($Key in $PSBoundParameters.Keys) { [PSCustomObject] @{ Parameter = $Key PSBoundParamValue = $PSBoundParameters[$Key] ShadowPsBoundParamValue = $ShadowPsBoundParameters[$Key] } } } } Export-ModuleMember -Function Test-ShadowParams function PopulateShadowParams { <# NOTE: This is assuming you're using a C# transformation attribute, and you pass $true to the InvokeScript() argument for running code in a new scope. If not, you need to change the -ScopeDepth default parameter, or modify the function to look for some sort of anchor to search for in parent scopes ($PSCmdlet would probably work) #> [CmdletBinding()] param( [Parameter(Mandatory, ValueFromPipeline)] [object] $InputObject, [Parameter(Mandatory)] [string] $ParameterName, [Parameter(Mandatory)] [object] $DefaultValue, # Function can actually walk the scope chain to figure this out. Scopes: # 0 - This function's scope # 1 - The attribute's scope (assuming engineIntrinsics is using new scope) # 2 - The function's scope that owns this attribute's parameter $ScopeDepth = 2 ) begin { $ShadowTableName = 'ShadowPsBoundParameters' } process { $ParamHashTable = try { Get-Variable -Scope $ScopeDepth -Name $ShadowTableName -ValueOnly -ErrorAction Stop } catch { @{} } $ParamHashTable[$ParameterName] = $InputObject Set-Variable -Name $ShadowTableName -Value $ParamHashTable -Scope $ScopeDepth # This is so normal parameter binding will still work. If the parameter is the proper type, # $PSBoundParameters will reflect the right value. If it's not of the proper type, # $PSBoundParameters will show a "default" value, but the $ShadowPsBoundParameters hashtable # will show the right value if ($InputObject -is $DefaultValue.GetType()) { $InputObject } else { $DefaultValue } } } Add-Type @' using System.Collections; // Needed for IList using System.Management.Automation; using System.Collections.Generic; namespace Test { public sealed class TransformScriptAttribute : ArgumentTransformationAttribute { string _transformScript; public TransformScriptAttribute(string transformScript) { _transformScript = string.Format(@" # Assign $_ variable $_ = $args[0] # The return value of this needs to match the C# return type so no coercion happens $FinalResult = New-Object System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection[psobject] $ScriptResult = {0} # Add the result and output the collection $FinalResult.Add((,$ScriptResult)) $FinalResult", transformScript); } public override object Transform(EngineIntrinsics engineIntrinsics, object inputData) { var results = engineIntrinsics.InvokeCommand.InvokeScript( _transformScript, true, // Run in its own scope System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.PipelineResultTypes.None, // Just return as PSObject collection null, inputData ); if (results.Count > 0) { return results[0].ImmediateBaseObject; } return inputData; // No transformation } } } '@ }
PS C:\> 1..2 | Test-ShadowParams -Date today -Int @{Key = 'Value'} Inside Process {} block: Parameter PSBoundParamValue ShadowPsBoundParamValue --------- ----------------- ----------------------- Date 3/29/2017 2:53:44 PM today Int 0 {Key} Strings {} 1 Inside Process {} block: Date 3/29/2017 2:53:44 PM today Int 0 {Key} Strings {} 2
In that example, we passed a [string] to the parameter that expected [datetime], a [hashtable] to the one that wanted an [int], and an [int] to the one that wanted a [string]. It’s confusing, but notice how the $ShadowPsBoundParameters shows the real, un-coerced values passed into the function. We made it past parameter binding with the raw values! That really has a ton of uses, even if this example doesn’t make it that obvious. To really use it, you would want to put some restrictions on it and not let just anything through like it currently does.
I’ll end it there, but feel free to leave a comment if you have questions.
AdvertisementsA few minutes past 8 p.m. on a chilly Thursday, the doors of Bar Zero open for the first, and only, time. Along with two dozen other people waiting along Queen Street West in downtown Toronto, I’m led inside and instructed to use the free coat check downstairs. For some reason, the woman waving us toward the stairs is yelling and gesturing wildly, as if the music were too loud to hear over. It isn’t.
There are already people mingling at the bar. There are camera operators milling around. The lighting is a little too bright. This doesn’t feel like an ordinary night out on the town. It feels more like a middle-school dance.
That adolescent vibe extends to the refreshments: None of the drinks at Bar Zero contain alcohol.
This one-night-only event, run by the LCBO, is part of the corporation’s $1.47-million social responsibility campaign for the 2016 holiday season. Footage shot tonight will be used in a TV commercial, which will make the point that you don’t need booze to have fun.
“Bar Zero is meant to change perceptions about moderation and show that having a good time and a safe time are one and the same,” says Silvana Aceto, a senior communications consultant for the LCBO. At this, it flops. Bar Zero is a clumsy attempt at social responsibility that confuses moderation with abstinence — and its failure points to a bigger problem with the way we think about alcohol and alcohol regulation in Ontario.
Bar Zero is an ordinary tavern set up like a private party. Groups of people — ages 25 to 40, mostly — huddle around high-top tables, chatting. Others colonize the few couches. None of the guests look or sound like they’re having an especially good time. There’s a conspicuous absence of laughter, except when the occasional roving camera operator ambushes a group and enjoins them to fake it.
Behind the bar is Frankie Solarik of Toronto’s acclaimed cocktail spot BarChef. We go back a few years. He says hello with a purplish concoction involving maple and a sprig of rosemary. But lacking that ethanol bite, the drink is too sweet. All the drinks are too sweet. (Overheard: “I feel like I have a headache from all the sugar.”) This has long been my experience: most virgin cocktails just don’t taste very good, no matter how much care goes into them.
The real problem with Bar Zero is not recipe-related, however. It’s that the event doesn’t show anyone how to drink responsibly or how to behave at a real bar. And too many Canadians simply don’t know. Oh, we can open our mouths and knock back a beverage. But when most of us go out on the town, we perform the trick too many times in quick succession: the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health reports that 40 per cent of Canadians in their early twenties binge drink about once a month. Canada has a problem with drunk driving, too, sporting the worst DUI death rate among wealthy countries.
Yet when it comes to the social ills wrought by alcohol (drunk driving, underage drinking, drinking while pregnant), the LCBO confronts Ontarians with a lot of don’ts: don’t do this, avoid doing that. As for dos — advice on how to drink, responsibly and legally — the corporation points to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse’s low-risk alcohol guidelines, which offer tips such as “Set limits for yourself and stick to them,” “Drink slowly,” “Have no more than 2 drinks in any 3 hours,” and “For every drink of alcohol, have one non-alcoholic drink” — all of which are easier said than done when the lights go down and your friends start pounding them back.
Read more:
Why producers can't sell cider at Ontario's farmers markets
How 12 cases of beer in New Brunswick could change Ontario's liquor rules
Meanwhile, in southern Europe, people have been reducing their already-low rates of alcohol consumption for decades, leading to fewer deaths from cirrhosis, chronic liver failure, and traffic accidents. Only 6 per cent of Italian drinkers engage in what the World Health Organization calls “heavy episodic drinking” — i.e., binging — compared with 23 per cent of Canadians over 15 who consume alcohol.
Health researchers call it “the puzzle of Italian drinking”: in a country where the government regulates consumption with a light touch, the problems wrought by alcohol are appreciably less severe than what we see in Canada.
So how do Italians — not to mention Spaniards, Maltese, etc. — manage to drink responsibly without the government having to urge (or compel) them to do so? They’re culturally trained to view moderate consumption as part of a healthy adult lifestyle.
In August, I visited Tuscany’s public health department to speak with Allaman Allamani, a researcher who has been trying to solve the aforementioned puzzle. He said example-setting parents and positive peer pressure contribute greatly to the Italian sense of moderation. (Binging, for example, is considered taboo in the region, while Italians generally frown upon drunkenness.) “Americans, if they go out, they go out to get drunk,” Allamani told me. “Italians go out to drink with friends, and sometimes they become drunk, but drunkenness is a side effect of meeting, not the aim of going out.”
Some of the patrons of Bar Zero would like to see a more mature drinking culture emerge here, too. Wearing a T-shirt that says “NO FUN,” Kalen Hayman complains that there are no social options in Toronto “when the sun goes down, other than drinking — and that bothers me.” Hayman enjoys the occasional drink; what he doesn’t enjoy is a culture that has normalized getting bombed.
The LCBO should ally itself with people like Hayman. It should stop suggesting that the only choice is between drinking to excess and not drinking at all. It should stop offering unhelpful moderation guidelines that make no real-world suggestions. It should glean whatever wisdom it can from the Mediterranean model and formulate strategies to encourage that model to take root here.
Bar Zero does nothing to help that cause — and soon after |
to create a task for each specific job first. Templates and partials As I said, Gulp tasks can be collections of plugins, but you can think of them like simple recipes. The first recipe a static site tool needs is a way to include partial html files into other template files. Ain’t no way in the ‘verse I’m repeating myself with things like nav, header, footer, etc. My recipe for this looks like: Get my template file out of this bin
Include some partial files
Rename it
Drop the new file into this other bin
Tell my browser to refresh
Notify me that this job was completed Got that? Now see if you can map that concept to the real code which executes these jobs in exactly that order:
Sorry Medium, I want code highlighting
If you aren’t familiar with this type of code, here’s the longer explanation. The core plugin for this job is gulp-file-include. It grabs files and plops them wherever you place an @@include. In my index.tpl.html file I have stuff like: <header>
<h1 class="nx-header"> Style Guidelines and Examples</h1>
</header>
@@include('./templates/_nav.html')
<main>
@@include('./templates/_type.html')
@@include('./templates/_layout.html')...etc... Where are the files Now, first I recommend establishing your paths (telling gulp where the files are) outside of your tasks so you can easily modify your file structure. var paths = {
templates: ‘./templates/’,
sass: ‘css/source/’
}; I follow a simple naming convention for template files to keep me from confusing them with generated output files. Any file that has a.tpl in it maps directly to an output file with the same name, minus the.tpl. If I want an index.html file, then the template for it is in /templates/ and it is named index.tpl.html. Partial files follow the standard naming convention using an underscore like _nav.html. Naming the task gulp.task('fileinclude', function() { This first line names the task “fileinclude” so I can call this recipe later when I want it to execute. You can name a task whatever you want: e.g. coverMePorkins. However, I name tasks based on what core job they do, and in this case it happens to be the name of the core gulp plugin I intend to use. Getting the files return gulp.src(path.join(paths.templates, '*.tpl.html')) This line establishes where the file is that you want gulp to get. In this case I want all files in /templates/ that end with *.tpl.html. path.join() simply connects the first part (directory) with the second part (file-name). If you were wondering why I use path.join instead of the simple javascript: paths.templates + ‘*.tpl.html’, here is a great explanation. (Props to my js hacker friend Cameron for that.) Running gulp-file-include.pipe(fileinclude()) At the beginning of a gulpfile we have instructions on which plugins to use. Typically we store a plugin like gulp-file-include in an object simply called fileinclude. Therefore, this line of code asks the core gulp-file-include plugin to run and insert any partials in my template file. Renaming the template.pipe(rename({
extname: ""
}))
.pipe(rename({
extname: ".html"
})) Huge shout-out to my design partner in crime Lauren for this bit. This uses a plugin called gulp-rename to strip off the.tpl from index.tpl.html. The first rename replaces the.html extension with nothing, then the second replaces the new extension (now.tpl) with.html. So now we have a file just called index.html with my html chunks inserted into it. Where do you want this new file?.pipe(gulp.dest('./')) This places the generated and renamed file index.html into the root of my project. (As a site gets more complicated — you may want generated files to be placed someplace totally different like /dist.) Hey browser! Something happened!.pipe(livereload(server)) This uses gulp-livereload to tell my browser (which is running the Livereload extension) something changed and it should refresh now that the output file has been saved. “We have clearance, Clarence.”.pipe(notify({ message: 'Includes: included' })); This uses gulp-notify to inform me (This uses OSX’s notification center. If you are on a windows system you can use gulp-notify-growl.) that everything went down successfully. That task is complete. Compile Sass into CSS Now that I have explained the fileinclude task, a task for compiling Sass should look pretty familiar:
Different, but the same
This uses a different collection of gulp plugins, but works in exactly the same manner. The core plugin for compiling Sass is gulp-sass (which uses Libsass), and you may note we pass it a couple of formatting options (e.g. style: ‘expanded’). The plugin gulp-autoprefixer totally pwns browser prefixing so I don’t have to worry about that in my Sass files. The task outputs into my /css directory, tells the browser to reload, and again, messages me that it worked. A simple server for previewing We definitely want a quick way to look at what we are building. For this I use a server plugin called gulp-connect: Port 1337…really? What kind of dorky nerd…oh yeah. We are talking about programming. nm. This task is simply called connect, and it will serve up whatever files you target from your project to http://localhost:1337. Of course you can serve your stuff to whatever port number you choose. I can’t totally remember, but I think I disabled livereload for this task because I was having trouble getting it to work the way I wanted — and I ended up calling it in my watch task later. Speaking of… A watch task Where normal tasks run on command and stop when finished, the point of a watch task is to run constantly, watching for changes to certain files (e.g. Saving a Sass file) and then kick off other tasks, such as the ones we have already created. Having a solid watch task can greatly increase the efficiency of your workflow. Why waste time manually running tasks or reloading your browser when you can automate? My watch task has two parts, because I prefer to use Libsass, but certain features of Sass 3.3.4 are not fully implemented. In my project I have another task called rubysass which uses Ruby to compile. At this point I want to be able to use either as needed. This is a great demonstration of the power of Gulp since you can write straight Javascript. Rather than have two nearly identical watch tasks, I create a function and pass it which Sass compile task to use:
I can pass in different tasks to this watch function. One uses Ruby Sass, one uses Libsass.
function watchStuff(task) { First I name the function and give it a way to pass in the Sass compile task I want. Livereload server.listen(35729, function (err) {
if (err) {
return console.error(err)
}; Then server refers to a node plugin for live reload called tiny-lr. We tell server what port to listen on (35729 is the Livereload default) and allow for errors to be reported to the console. Watch what? Do what? //Watch task for sass
gulp.watch(path.join(paths.sass, '**/*.scss'), [task]); A gulp.watch typically works like: What do you want me to watch? What do you want me to do when I see something happen? First I watch my Sass directory for any changes to files that end with.scss. When detected — we run the [task] that is passed into the function (Libsass or Ruby Sass). // watch task for gulp-file-include
gulp.watch(path.join(paths.templates, '**/*.html'), ['fileinclude']); The second watch listens for changes to files in my templates directory, and runs the fileinclude task we wrote at the beginning when it detects a change. Note that I am not doing anything in my watch function but running other tasks. In the spirit of one tool for one job, I like to keep my functions and tasks fairly focused. Lastly, we need to create two other tasks that tell my watchStuff function which Sass compile task I want my to use.
My default task is Libsass because I would like to use it as soon as it is updated. My alternate uses Ruby Sass.
The first task, just called watch runs the watchStuff function and passes in the Sass task we wrote above. The rubywatch runs another similar task (I haven’t shown here) that simply uses a different Sass compiler. Do all the things All of these tasks are great, but as I said in the beginning, we really don’t want to have to run each of them separately every time we want something done. Let’s create a master task to kick off our other tasks for us.
Default to the most common and most useful collection of tasks.NARAL Pro-Choice New Hampshire on Tuesday condemned New Hampshire state Rep. Peter Hansen (R-Amherst) after news broke that he referred to women as “vaginas” in an email.
“Shame on Representative Hansen—we will do everything in our power to ensure voters in his district know about his demeaning rhetoric,” Sara Persechino of NARAL said in a statement. “Women are more than their reproductive organs. We are daughters, sisters, mothers, students, professionals, and community leaders. We deserve more than being referenced by our body parts.”
A blog called “susan the bruce” reported Monday that Hansen referred to women as “vaginas” in a message on the New Hampshire House internal email system.
Responding to debate over the state’s Stand Your Ground law, Hansen wrote on April 1 that “children and vagina’s” were missing from “the illustrious stories purporting to demonstrate the practical side of retreat.” The law allows deadly force when someone believes their life is in danger, without the obligation to first retreat.
“Are you really using ‘vaginas’ as a crude catch-all for women? Really?” state Rep. Rick Watrous (D-Concord) replied. “Please think before you send out such offensive language on the legislative listserve.”
But Hansen was less than apologetic.
“Having a fairly well educated mind I do not need self appointed wardens to A: try to put words in my mouth for political gain and B: Turn a well founded strategy in communication into an insulting accusation, and finally if you find the noun vagina insulting or in some way offensive then perhaps a better exercise might be for you to re-examine your psyche,” he responded.Kansas City left fielder Alex Gordon is almost certain to opt out of the final year of his contract (at $12.5 million in 2016) and make himself a very popular free agent. He is looked at as a professional bat, perhaps the best defensive left fielder in the game (along with Yoenis Cespedes) and a gamer.
Though he will turn 32 in February, he should receive a four-year deal, perhaps even five years. Clubs such as the Astros and Cubs are mentioned in what should be a deep field. However, a few executives cited one team that has surprised me — the Red Sox.
After all, Boston probably has too many outfielders for too few spots. But executives tell me that Red Sox officials have always liked Gordon and so has new Boston president Dave Dombrowski from his time in the AL Central as the Tigers’ GM.
The Red Sox’s main priority is a top-of-the-rotation starter — perhaps even going for David Price — and so that is where they are expected to put their big money this offseason. In addition, Gordon’s defensive skills would be a bit of a waste in the small left field at Fenway, unless he was moved to right.
But those executives who expressed Boston could play for Gordon offered a scenario in which the Red Sox find their starter on the trade market and use outfielders to get it. One scenario presented was that if Boston officials think Jackie Bradley Jr.’s strong finish inflated his value beyond his actual skill, this may be the best time to maximize dealing a young, defensive-star outfielder.This video is no longer available
This video was hosted on Vidme, which is no longer in operation. However, you might find this video at one of these links:
Video title:
Attila Total War issue: unit auto attacking when defending
Upload date:
November 11 2017
Uploaded by:
Taro_M
Video description:
If you want to see sole, properly working formation in Attila, without that retarded automatic counter attack: https://vid.me/AopS2 Some bright mind mind at CA come to a conclusion that if unit is attacked, then there has to be an automatic attack order that will break the formation and cause unit to blob the assaulting enemy. Notice that when I tell unit to halt, they return into formation, but after a moment you can hear the horn again and units once again gets an order to attack back. I didn't use any AI groups or anything. The Guard Mode in previous games completely eliminated this issue. Completely vanilla Attila TW, no mods or anything.
Total views:
2,967The union representing liquor store clerks wants to send a message to senators as they sit down on Monday to discuss a new plan to privatize the state's liquor system.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 is calling attention to the dangers that can come with having more outlets selling alcohol. Additionally, it points out privatizing wine and beer sales will erode liquor store profits that the state has relied upon to help fund government operations, programs and services.
The union spent $300,000 to buy airtime on television and radio stations around the state on ads running for 10 days, starting today, that speaks of North Carolina’s experience where its privatized system for beer and wine sales (liquor is sold only in government-run stores) is blamed for contributing to one child per week, on average, last year dying in underage drinking-related accidents.
The ad shows two moms sitting on a bench near a playground and talking about how “politicians want booze to be sold in stores where kids and teens go and lose the pot of money that saves tax dollars too.”
"It's about greed, pure and simple," one mother says.
"It only takes a little bit of greed to kill a child," the other says.
The Senate Republican Caucus is expected to begin closed-door discussions on Monday about a plan that would allow beer and wine to be sold in limited quantities in grocery and convenience stores.
The bill would also allow beer distributors to sell six-packs, among other changes. It would keep the Liquor Control Board intact, and state stores would be the only place Pennsylvanians could buy spirits.
Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, told PennLive the plan meets the goal of giving “consumers what they want, better access and selection."
House Republican leaders see the Senate plan as a step in the direction where a majority of that chamber’s members have shown they want to the state to go. Last year, it approved a privatization plan, by a 105-90 vote, that would have led to the state getting out of the liquor sales business entirely.
While the Senate plan falls short of that goal, House Majority Whip Stan Saylor, R-Red Lion, boldly predicted that after decades of talking about liquor privatization, the Senate plan just might garner majority support in both chambers to reach the governor’s desk.
Gov. Tom Corbett is fully supportive of privatizing liquor sales in Pennsylvania. He was exuberant after the House's historic vote on its privatization plan last year. Passing a privatization plan, even a watered-down one like the Senate will discuss, would be seen as a feather in his cap to boost his re-election effort, said Wendell Young IV, president of UFCW Local 1776.
Privatization opponents, meanwhile, have no intention of letting him or lawmakers score that victory without a fight.
Beer distributors are speaking about Washington state's increase in shoplifting of alcoholic beverages that has become such a problem since it converted to a privatized system in 2012 that it already tweaked its law to address that concern. Others talk of how the Senate plan would devalue state stores if the state ever does go to a complete privatized system since wine sales account for 42 percent of state store profits.
Staving off the privatization effort not only will save union jobs, but Young said it will reduce the problems that science and research shows come with making alcohol more readily available.
“If you are going to have a bill go through the Legislature that’s going to open up sales of higher content alcohol to thousands of more outlets across Pennsylvania, there’s going to be consequences,” he said. “Those consequences are going to be how it affects people, in some cases, death, and it’s also going to be how it affects the revenue in Pennsylvania.”
*Staff writer Jeff Frantz contributed.
*This post was updated to clarify how beer, wine and liquor is sold in North Carolina.Hubert Newcombe Alyea (October 10, 1903 – October 19, 1996)[1] was an American professor of chemistry at Princeton University. His explosive chemistry demonstrations earned him the nickname "Dr. Boom." He was famous around the world for his"zany, eccentric" public lectures on science, which "were as much performance as professorship."[2] Alyea served as inspiration for the title character in the 1961 film The Absent-Minded Professor.
In 1984, Alyea received the Joseph Priestley award.[3]
Career at Princeton [ edit ]
The New York Times described his Princeton lectures as follows: “Dr. Alyea had a genius for bringing science to life in the classroom. With his 'armchair chemistry', he endowed chemical principles with the drama and verve of a sound-and-light show, which now and then burned his suits beyond repair. His hands flew above test tubes and Bunsen burners. Amid explosions and swishing clouds of carbon dioxide he explained the mysteries of chemistry with contagious enthusiasm”.[4]
Public lectures [ edit ]
According to Time Magazine, he “lectured with an animated, dynamic style that drew enthusiastic audiences of all ages”. “Grimacing with fiendish delight”, Life Magazine reported at the time, “he sets off explosions, shoots water pistols and sprays his audience with carbon dioxide in the course of 32 harrowing experiments dramatizing complicated theory”.[5] A shortened version of the lecture was featured on a 1955 NBC TV series, “Princeton '55: An Exploration into Education through Television”. It won an Emmy.
Lucky Accidents, Great Discoveries, and the Prepared Mind [ edit ]
Alyea also was well known for a lecture he gave frequently about the nature of scientific discovery.[6]
Retirement [ edit ]
After his retirement, Alyea continued to deliver lectures at Princeton reunions. His memoir, My Life as a Chemist, was published in 1991.[7]
Honors and awards [ edit ]
Alyea was presented with honorary degrees by various colleges and universities, including Beaver College. He won the New Jersey Science Teachers Award (1954), the New Jersey Education Citation (1957), the Chemical Manufacturers Association Award (1964), an award from the New Jersey Chapter of the American Institute of Chemists (1966), the Award in Chemical Education from the American Chemical Society (1970), the James Flack Norris Award from the Northeast Section of the American Chemical Society (1970), and the Robert H. Carleton Award from the National Science Teachers Association (1991). Dickinson College presented him with the Priestley Award in 1984.[8][9]
Alyea, who was born in Clifton, New Jersey, died at his home in Hightstown, New Jersey, on October 22, 1996, at the age of 93.[4]Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Rowley would not be drawn on specific plans or operations
The so-called Islamic State group may be planning a "spectacular" attack in the UK, the national head of counter-terrorism policing has warned.
Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said there was evidence IS was "trying to build bigger attacks" globally, and the UK was among its targets.
He said IS had expanded its ambitions from smaller-scale targets to attacks on "Western lifestyle".
However, he would not be drawn on any specific plans or operations.
Several attacks, including last year's gun and bomb attacks in Paris, were inspired by IS, also known as Daesh.
Who are Britain’s jihadists?
Speaking at a briefing in London, Mr Rowley revealed the number of terrorism-related arrests in Britain hit record levels last year.
There were 339 arrests in England, Wales and Scotland - the highest yearly figure.
Scotland Yard - which published the data - said there had been a 57% increase in the last three years compared with the previous three.
The UK's terror threat level is currently rated as "severe".
This means that security and intelligence chiefs have concluded that a terrorism-related attack is highly likely.
Image caption Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said IS has big ambitions for "enormous and spectacular attacks"
Mr Rowley said in the past few years, IS had called on would-be jihadists to attack police and the military.
"In recent months we've seen a broadening of that - much more plans to attack Western lifestyle, and obviously the Paris attacks in November," he said.
"Going from that narrow focus on police and military as symbols of the state to something much broader.
"And you see a terrorist group which has big ambitions for enormous and spectacular attacks - not just the types that we've seen foiled to date."
IS is trying to get supporters who have received military training in Syria into northern Europe to stage attacks, he added.
Analysis - By Dominic Casciani, home affairs correspondent
Some 800 people from the UK have gone to fight in Syria or Iraq. Do they all pose a threat?
When police, spooks and official deradicalisers assess returnees from Syria, only a few will be subject to substantial surveillance because intelligence suggests they could be immediately dangerous.
It's that group that worries counter-terrorism chiefs most, not least if there are suspicions that the individual is being directed from Syria.
Another major dilemma for security chiefs is what to do with those bent on going to Syria who can't be charged with a crime. If they are stopped, such as by cancelling their passport, will they turn their attention to Britain? What would they be capable of achieving?
Plans such as a knife attack in the street are easy to organise.
Major plots need detailed plans, skills and the ability to evade detection until it's too late.
Mr Rowley said psychologists were being deployed to work with counter-terrorism units because of increasing concern that people with mental health problems were being radicalised.
The use of psychologists was becoming "increasingly standard" he said, adding: "Having that insight is critical."
Analysts say that although the UK has sustained far fewer casualties from jihadist violence than France, evidence indicates that incidents such as the Paris attacks could happen here.
The official assessment that there is a "severe" threat from international terrorism is one notch down from the extreme situation of "critical" - when an attack is judged to be imminent.
'Stress-testing' London
Last year, the Metropolitan Police carried out a major exercise in London to "stress-test" how it would respond to attacks such as those in Paris.
The conclusions have been kept secret, but commentators on security issues have noted various physical and organisational changes implemented in the city.
Many of London's buildings are now surrounded by bollards designed to withstand lorry bombs, CCTV and number plate cameras have proliferated, and specialist armed police - trained to a military standard - carry out daily patrols designed to strategically cover as much of the capital as possible.Pablo Zabaleta will leave City at the end of the season, bringing the curtain down on an incredible nine-year association with the Blues.
The 58-times capped Argentina international is out of contract in the summer and has informed the Club he will move to pastures new, but leave behind many happy memories.
Fans will have the opportunity to show their appreciation for one of the Club’s most loyal and loved servants of recent times against West Brom on Tuesday evening, which will be Pablo’s last home appearance.
Though there are a number of first-team player contracts currently under consideration, Pablo's situation is the only one that has been fully finalised.
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One of the most popular players of recent times, Pablo has been a firm crowd favourite with the City supporters who have resonated with his passion, heart and willingness to put his body on the line time and time again.
With 332 appearances made since his bargain £6.5m move from Espanyol, Zaba joined City the day before it was announced Sheikh Mansour was the Club’s new owner.
Only Joe Hart and Vincent Kompany have been with the Blues longer - Hart signing in 2006 and Kompany having joined just nine days earlier than the Argentinian.
He made his debut for City in September 2008 – the same day as fellow new arrival Robinho – as Chelsea triumphed 3-1 at the Etihad. He scored his first goal against Wigan Athletic in January 2009.
By that point, the tough-tackling right-back had already cemented his place in the fans’ hearts and would remain a crowd idol throughout his time at the Etihad.
enlarge LEGEND: Pablo Zabaleta celebrates with the City faithful LEGEND: Pablo Zabaleta celebrates with the City faithful
His father was involved in a serious car crash not long before the Blues reached the 2011 FA Cup final and Pablo flew back to Argentina to be by his bedside.
He returned in time for the final and came on as an 88th-minute sub for Carlos Tevez as City ended their 35-year wait for silverware with a 1-0 win over Tony Pulis’ side.
Pablo shared right-back duties with Micah Richards during the 2011/12 campaign but it was his goal that broke the deadlock against QPR as the Blues went on to clinch a dramatic last-day title triumph.
He was voted the MCFC Player of the Year for 2012/13 and captained the Blues several times during Kompany’s absence with injury. At the end of the campaign he was also voted into the PFA Team of the Year.
He would add another Premier League title in 2014 as well as a Capital One Cup victory over Sunderland in his best season yet in terms of silverware and made 48 appearances in all competitions. This season he has played 30 times to date, scoring two goals to make a total of 12 for the Blues.
There will also be plenty of Pablo Zabaleta tributes coming up on mancity.com in the coming days...The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs were shut out three times in four games, they were riding high in the standings, off to a 23-12-8 start before the goals suddenly dried up.
Top scorers Sid Smith and Harry Watson inexplicably went cold against Detroit, Montreal and Boston back in January of 1954, part of a disappointing season in which the Leafs were eliminated in the first round in five games.
Sixty-one years later, life is a little more dire than that for Toronto.
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Everyone knew when the Leafs set out on their trip through California and St. Louis that this would be a significant test. What they couldn't have imagined is how badly they would fail. they would match a 61-year-old record by being shut out three times in four games.
It was so bad that defenceman Roman Polak led the team in scoring on the trip with one goal.
How uncommon is one goal in four games? Well, the average NHL team in this era scores about 11 goals every four games. That ebbs sometimes in short stretches, and last season the Leafs had one ugly patch in which they scored just four times in five games in November.
They pulled out of it and went on a run in January – only to have their scoring dry up again late in the year.
According to A.C. Thomas from the terrific stats website war-on-ice.com, only six teams leaguewide have had a four-game stretch with only one goal in the past 12 seasons. It's so rare it happens only once every 4,800 games or so – or every 50-plus years per team, depending on league scoring levels.
Historically speaking, the Leafs were due for one, but it's the timing – with a new coach and the team already mired in a losing skid – that has been so demoralizing for the group.
"We have to just get through this tough time," coach Peter Horachek said. "We're going to have to be mentally tougher."
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"We're cold as ice right now," winger James van Riemsdyk added. "These things happen. I've never seen it quite like this."
The Leafs are also cratering in the standings. Three points from first in the East a month ago, they've picked up only six of a possible 30 points in their past 15 games, falling to 21st in the NHL entering Sunday's games.
It's to the point where the rest of their season matters only in the way it can serve future seasons.
Toronto currently has a 3.5-per-cent chance to win the first overall pick in the draft lottery – and those odds are rising fast.Hello everyone! I’m Koji, a Solutions Engineer working in Japan. This is my first post under couchbase.com and I’m really excited about it!
In this blog, I’m going to explain how you can integrate Couchbase Server with Apache NiFi.
Table of Contents:
What is NiFi
Apache NiFi is a top-level Apache project that supports powerful and scalable directed graphs of data routing, transformation, and system mediation logic. Recently, Hortonworks announced that they provide Hortonworks DataFlow (HDF). NiFi is used in HDF as a core data flow processing engine in order to support IoAT (Internet of Anything) use cases. Please look at those links for further information.
NiFi, Couchbase, and Me
My official title at Couchbase is ‘Solutions Engineer’, and pre-sales is my main task. However, I love to write code, too. Writing code keeps my tech knowledge fresh, which ultimately helps me provide our customers better solutions.
A few days ago, a set of NiFi processors for Couchbase Server access was added into Nifi’s codebase. The contribution was made by ME! It was a great experience working with NiFi committers through the detailed review processes. The comprehensive developer guide documentation really helped me to get into the project.
In case you’re interested in how the contribution process worked, here are some links to look at:
Ok, enough introduction. Let’s dive into NiFi configurations to describe how to integrate Couchbase Server!
NiFi key components
After downloading NiFi, you can start it and access the GUI data flow designer via your browser. Here are some key components you should be familiar with:
FlowFile: Every piece of data streamed within NiFi flow is transferred as an object called a FlowFile. It has opaque contents and an arbitrary set of attributes. Yes, it looks like a file indeed.
Processor: A small processing module that is supposed to be good at a single task, sort of like a Linux command. There are about 80 processors available as of today. They perform functions such as handling files, accessing databases, and handling HTTP and other protocols.
Relationship: Each processors is connected by a pipe called a Relationship. Some processors have multiple relationship like success, failure or original. The processed FlowFile will be transferred to the next processor via this relationship.
Organize Data Flows by Process Group
In NiFi Data Flow, a “Process Group” can be really handy when the flow get more complex. It allows you to organize multiple flows, then each Process Group can be started/stopped individually. In this demo data flow, I set up two Process Groups, “Tweets to Couchbase sample” and “Dump Couchbase Documents sample”.
Couchbase Server Connection setting: CouchbaseClusterService
Let me describe how to configure a connection to a Couchbase Server cluster.
Within a realistic NiFi Data Flow, you will have to use Couchbase processors multiple times in order to put and get data from the cluster. So, it wouldn’t be a good idea to configure connection settings at each processor. If you did that, it would be hard to change the target cluster because the cluster settings would be scattered all over.
To avoid this problem, NiFi provides a mechanism called ControllerService to configure a central component that can be shared among processors. NiFi includes some existing Controller Services such as the one that provides connection pooling to an RDBMS. So I followed the design and implemented CouchbaseClusterService.
It allows you to set the Connection String to specify which Couchbase Server cluster to access. If buckets require a password, you can set it here, too. NiFi configuration has two types of properties, static and dynamic. “Connection String” is a static one, and “Bucket Password for {bucket_name}” is dynamic. You can add new Dynamic Property settings by clicking “New property” button to specify passwords for different buckets.
So, again the important thing is, all of the cluster level configuration is managed by this CouchbaseClusterService. If you’d like to work with another Couchbase cluster, then you simply add another CouchbaseClusterService and configure it appropriately.
PutCouchbaseKey example: Store Tweets in Couchbase Server
Twitter feed processing is a common example that we can use to illustrate stream data flow. With NiFi and Couchbase, it’s incredibly easy, as shown in the following image:
GetTwitter: NiFi has a variety of useful Processors like this, and can easily integrate with other systems. PutCouchbaseKey: Each Tweet is sent as a FlowFile. Here, I store it using FlowFile UUID as the Couchbase document ID. As the image shows, PutCouchbaseKey has a self “retry” relationship. If a FlowFile fails with CouchbaseExceptions and it can be retried, such as might happen with a temporary server-side error, then transfer it to the “retry” relationship. If the error isn’t recoverable, such as mis-configuration or some other hard error, then those FlowFiles are transferred to the “failure” relationship. LogAttibute: I added a LogAttribute processor at the end of the flow.The LogAttribute can output log messages about a FlowFile’s properties and contents. This is handy for debugging any issues that may arise.
Let’s look at the PutCouchbaseKey configuration:
Couchbase Cluster Controller Service refers to the centralized Couchbase controller service that was described earlier.
Bucket Name is the name of bucket you want to store the contents in.
Document Type is either Json or Binary.
I left the Document Id property blank to let the processor use the FlowFile UUID as the document id. Alternatively, you could specify NiFi Expression Language here to use another property value or to calculate a document id.
Now that we’ve configured the CouchbaseClusterService and Processors, let’s start NiFi Data Flow. The only thing you need to do is push the green triangle button. Then you can confirm that Tweets are being stored in Couchbase!
GetCouchbaseKey example: Download specific Couchbase docs as a single Zip file
You may want to download a particular set of documents from Couchbase Server in order to send them to another system or to make a partial backup.
In order to do that, I’ve configured the data flow like you see in the following image. It’s more complex than the previous Twitter example and uses a few different types of processors:
Let me explain what each processor does:
GetFile: This watches the specified directory and once target file is put into it, it transfers the contents to the next processor. SplitText: Splits the content in the file and send each line as a FlowFile. GetCouchbaseKey: Gets a document from Couchbase using the incoming FlowFile content as a document id. UpdateAttribute: In order to use Couchbase document id for the actual filename that is used in the final Zip file, I copied “couchbase.doc.id” attribute to “filename” here. MergeContent: Merges and compresses multiple FlowFiles into a single Zip file. UpdateAttribute: Sets the Zip filename to current date, using the expression “${now():format(‘yyyyMMdd_HHmmss’)}.zip” PutFile: Finally, puts the Zip file into the specified directory.
The actual directories and file look like below:
# Directory and File drwxr-xr-x 2 koji wheel 68B Oct 2 16:19 couchbase-dump-in/ drwxr-xr-x 2 koji wheel 68B Oct 2 16:29 couchbase-dump-out/ -rw-r--r-- 1 koji wheel 111B Oct 2 16:25 in.dat # Specify Couchbase Document Ids to get koji@Kojis-MacBook-Pro:tmp$ cat in.dat 000069ee-cf4d-46bb-a11d-de09a00cd82c 00021100-bb6c-4327-8cad-16474f5cd928 0004b561-1ea4-4e46-8455-2040481d638e # GetFile deletes original file so that it won’t be processed again. # It’s recommended to create the file in different dir, # then put the file into the input dir. # (Optionally, you can keep the original file) koji@Kojis-MacBook-Pro:tmp$ cp in.dat couchbase-dump-in/ # After NiFi processing, a Zip file is created. koji@Kojis-MacBook-Pro:tmp$ ll couchbase-dump-out/ total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 koji wheel 3.8K Oct 2 16:51 20151002_165136.zip # Extract the Zip file and confirm JSON files are stored in it. koji@Kojis-MacBook-Pro:couchbase-dump-out$ unzip 20151002_165136.zip Archive: 20151002_165136.zip inflating: 000069ee-cf4d-46bb-a11d-de09a00cd82c inflating: 00021100-bb6c-4327-8cad-16474f5cd928 inflating: 0004b561-1ea4-4e46-8455-2040481d638e 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 # Directory and File drwxr - xr - x 2 koji wheel 68B Oct 2 16 : 19 couchbase - dump - in / drwxr - xr - x 2 koji wheel 68B Oct 2 16 : 29 couchbase |
wants the hot stud she dreamed about, but it's the curse that gets her the Prince, not her own actions. Maybe "I Want" is not a label that unquestionably distinguishes one type of song from the others, but these "I Want" songs Menken talks about are so full of active action, I think it successfully represents what he means. Either way, the concept itself (and the sort of narrative revolution it started) is pretty fascinating.
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What do you think? Tell us about some of your favorite "I want" movie numbers (Disney or otherwise), and what it was they did for the story, in the comments.Linda and Patrick Boyle, parents of Joshua Boyle, leave their home to speak to the media in Smiths Falls, Ontario.—AP
WASHINGTON: The United States has said that it will not forget the critical assistance that Pakistan provided in rescuing a North American couple from the clutches of the Haqqani network.
“I want to be clear on saying how grateful we are to the government of Pakistan. Without their assistance, this would not have been made possible,” said US State Department’s spokesperson Heather Nauert. “It was critical, and we will certainly not forget that.”
In a separate statement, the White House said the Haqqani network had captured Caitlan Coleman, an American citizen, and her husband, Joshua Boyle, a Canadian, from a mountain near Kabul in 2012 and kept them in custody for five years.
At a Thursday afternoon news briefing at the State Department, Ms Nauert also spoke about relations between the US and Pakistan which, until recently, were close allies in the war against terrorism. Their relations began to strain after a US raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in 2011 and deteriorated further after President Trump’s Aug 21 speech in which he announced the new US strategy for South Asia.
Editorial: Sense returns to Pakistan-US relations
“Our overall relationship with Pakistan …We’ve certainly had points where that relationship has had some challenges. That relationship isn’t going to just turn around overnight, but this is a terrific step in the right direction,” said Ms Nauert while explaining the current status of Washington’s relations with Islamabad.
Responding to a question about Pakistan’s role in the rescue operation, she said: “The Pakistani military, acting on information that we provided, were able to secure the release of this family. We are tremendously happy to have these folks returning, coming home.”
ISPR chief Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, while talking to reporters in Islamabad, said that “no prisoner exchange or ransom money” was involved in freeing the hostages.
Asked to confirm the ISPR’s statement, the State Department’s spokesperson said she was not yet in a position to confirm or deny it.
Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2017Italian police are hunting for a gang of bandits who broke into a convent in Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer retreat, on Christmas Day and took the mother superior hostage.
Three men forced a window at the Pius XII Insitute in the Alban hills south of Rome just after midnight on Christmas Eve and began ransacking the mother superior’s office on the first floor.
The noise woke the nuns sleeping or praying in their bedrooms on the second floor, the police said.
When the mother superior appeared in her office to investigate, the men grabbed her and walked her to her bedroom where she was forced to hand over 5,000 euros (£4,000) from the convent's cash box.
The men then grabbed her mobile phone and locked her in her bedroom before escaping through holes cut in the fence at the back of the convent's grounds. Outside, an accomplice was waiting with a getaway car.
Italian police are now checking the closed-circuit television footage and dusting the convent for fingerprints.
Il Messaggero, a newspaper, said the nuns were in "a state of shock". The convent also houses a junior school and locals in Castel Gandolfo expressed their outrage that anyone would rob nuns at Christmas.
The men were said to be between 30 and 40 years old and were unmasked. They spoke with southern accents, perhaps from Campania, the regional stronghold of the Camorra mafia.
Castel Gandolfo and the nearby volcanic lake of Marino is a fashionable residence for well-off Romans to escape the summer heat of Rome. Pope Francis recently opened the papal palace and its gardens to the public for the first time.JustBrowsing is a bootable Linux "Live CD" that does not make any changes to the existing operating system on the computer. Enjoy a simple computing experience with only a web browser (your choice of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome). Bundled webapps include a calculator, text editor, timer and more that are always one click away. Try JustBrowsing, it's safe, secure and no install necessary.
Just the right
amount of
bookmarks
included Handy addons
are already
installed
Designed with old machines in mind. Don't throw out your old computer, put JustBrowsing on it! No logins, no malware, no sluggish boot. Perfect for guests. Boot from CD-ROM, USB, hard drive, I-ODD, or Virtual Machine. Releases are built with the latest version of Firefox (stable) and Chrome (stable). Both are loaded up with useful bookmarks and sensible extensions "out of the box" with the freedom to add your own and even to sync your profile with Firefox Sync or Chrome Sign-in.
DuckDuckGo
or choose
another
search engine Intruder
detected!
4 failed
attempts
Privacy is important and your browsing history is erased when you turn off the computer. The default search uses DuckDuckGo which does not track your search history and does not "filter bubble". Ad blocking is installed to protect you from misleading links and tracking advertisements. "Do not track" is enabled too. JustBrowsing comes with a lockscreen to protect your privacy if you have to leave the computer and alerts you of intruders. The JustBrowsing project is free and open source. Based on ArchLinux i686 (32-bit). Also available optimized for x86_64 (64-bit). Now, by popular demand, OnlyChrome and OnlyFirefox flavors too.Michael Copps, former FCC commissioner, on net neutrality Ex-commissioner says people know what's at stake
Former FCC commissioner Michael Copps is a fierce advocate of net neutrality and opposes more media consolidation. Former FCC commissioner Michael Copps is a fierce advocate of net neutrality and opposes more media consolidation. Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Michael Copps, former FCC commissioner, on net neutrality 1 / 3 Back to Gallery
The public has blistered the Federal Communications Commission with a record 780,000 responses to its proposal that Internet service providers no longer be required to treat all online traffic equally.
But does the onslaught - more than the agency has received for any proposed rule change - even matter to the five commissioners who are expected to consider it later this year?
"I can tell you that I didn't go read all 3 million of those messages, but I knew they were there," former Commissioner Michael Copps said during a visit to San Francisco this week, referring to a similar deluge that were sent to the FCC, Congress and elsewhere in Washington when the commission considered loosening media ownership rules a decade ago. "But did they make an impact? You bet they made an impact. There was no question about it."
Much of this round of feedback is from critics who say that gutting the net neutrality provision would create a two-tiered Internet where people and companies who could afford a stronger broadband connection could drive in the digital fast lane.
This feedback storm was so intense - at least by the FCC's normally sleepy standards - that the agency extended its deadline to sound off until Friday. And that made Copps smile.
Copps, who served on the commission from 2001 to 2011, has long been a fierce advocate for preserving net neutrality and an opponent of further media consolidation. These days, the 74-year-old is advising the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause on its "media and democracy reform initiative."
Here are tidbits from his visit to The Chronicle, when Copps riffed on how disappointed he is in President Obama and how he thinks the proposed Comcast takeover of Time Warner should have been "dead on arrival" before it hit the FCC:
On whether he thinks the FCC will preserve net neutrality:
"You cannot answer that question right now. It depends on what they hear from grassroots America," Copps said. "We still have a long way to go. I'm not here to declare any victory has been won... but I am encouraged.
"What encourages me is that now people seem to understand what the stakes are."
On Obama and net neutrality:
When he was running for president, Obama said, "I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality." But once in office, Obama appointed Tom Wheeler, a former telecommunications industry lobbyist who crafted the proposed rules that would essentially ruin net neutrality by creating a system that is friendlier to the big telecommunications companies.
Obama "seems to be in the back seat now," Copps said. "He may be in the rumble seat of the old Model-T. I don't know where he is."
On how Obama squandered his chance for real media reform after he was elected in 2008:
"I think the country was in the mood for more reform at that time," Copps said. "I don't underestimate the challenges that President-elect Obama faced when he came in. He couldn't fix everything. But I think the American people were in favor of more reform than what we got. I think we missed a wonderful opportunity. I think there's nothing more important, in my mind, that you have a communications infrastructure that allows for the expression of popular will."
On Comcast's proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc.:
In 2010, Copps was the only commissioner to vote against Comcast's purchase of NBC-Universal. Copps would spike the new Comcast deal, too.
"This deal should be dead on arrival. We have no business doing this after Comcast 1," Copps said. "To take this footprint that Comcast has developed over so much of the rest of the United States and impose it on so many other subscribers and so many other areas... is totally inimical to the public interest. I don't see any conditions that would be ameliorative of that, that would make it acceptable to the public interest."This year, Eater is teaming up with James Beard award-winning Southern Foodways Alliance to spotlight their documentary work, premiering a short film every other week. This next piece focuses on Vietnamese-style crawfish boils, which have become a mainstay in Houston, a city that boasts one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the United States.
The Vietnamese crawfish boils in Houston are similar to traditional Cajun boils except the chefs add Asian aromatics to the boil — lemongrass and ginger — and serve it on top of a sauce of butter and garlic and spices. Says Kit Dong of Crawfish Cafe, "It's the same thing as Louisiana crawfish, boiled and soaked just the way Louisiana people do, except we add a little extra layer of flavor to it... it gives it a Vietnamese twist to it." The film tells the story of a dish but really it tells the story of Vietnamese immigration and the hybridized foodways they honed on the Texas coast.
Watch this video on YouTube | Read more about Southern Foodways AllianceDanger, Will Robinson! Without our exclusive clip from the new Lost in Space: The Complete Adventures Blu-ray box set, you might not get a peek at the lost Lost in Space Saturday morning cartoon spin-off.
A pilot episode for the proposed animated spin-off aired as part of ABC’s Saturday Superstar Movie, a weekly movie series for kids featuring animated versions of hit primetime series like The Brady Bunch, Nanny and the Professor, Gidget, and The Munsters. The Lost in Space ‘toon, which featured voice work by original series star Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith, aired in September 1973, but failed to spark enough interest to rate follow-up episodes.
The exclusive clip above shows the original concept pitch video for the cartoon, featuring snippets of animation along with drawings yet to be animated, from a scene in which Dr. Smith comes face-to-furry face with a cyclops monster.
The entire cartoon pilot is among the more than eight hours of supplemental materials on the new Lost in Space complete series Blu-ray set, which also includes vintage and new cast interviews; the unaired original series pilot; an original cast performance of series star Bill Mumy’s unproduced 1980 script for a proposed sequel episode; two full-length Lost in Space documentaries; vintage versions of four episodes, complete with original commercials; and all 83 episodes of the 1965-68 CBS series created by Oscar-winning filmmaker Irwin Allen.
Lost in Space: The Complete Adventures is now available on Blu-ray from Fox Home EntertainmentA A
SEATTLE -- An 80-year-old Orca whale has been missing for about six weeks and Orca spotters are presuming her dead.
The Orca J8, also known as "Speiden," was last seen on Sept. 19 near Victoria and has not been seen the last two times the J Pod was in the Puget Sound's Saratoga Passage, officials with Orca Network said. Speiden has a distinct sound when she breathed and a notch at the base of her fin making her easy to identify, day or night.
"At 80 years old, she was right in the upper limits of longevity for females," said Howard Garrett, co-director of the Orca Network. "It was probably just a natural passing after a long life."
Garrett said that Speiden was not known to have any offspring during their studies, but it's hard to know for sure since their research didn't begin until after the whale capture era from 1966-1976, when dozens of whales were taken from the area waters.
"Over 40 were delivered from her family, so she may have lost several offspring during those years," Garrett said.
Garrett says Speiden is especially missed now that her J Pod and neighboring K Pod families have both been sighted in the Puget Sound waters this week.
"She was always great to have out there because she was so familiar," Garrett said. "We'll miss her. It's always reassuring to see the whales that we know and recognize out there. She was one of the ones that everybody who watched these whales knew very well."
The Orca Network said Spieden was not the most senior Orca in the pod. Orca J2, "Granny," is believed to be 102 years old.It’s expensive to be black in America. From cradle to grave, for everything from starter home loans to burial insurance, African Americans are confronted with a paywall that demands they fork over more than whites. Driving a car, a critical element of the American Dream, is yet another area where being black incurs a surcharge. Studies find blacks are charged higher interest on car loans, quoted higher prices by car dealers and, according to a new ProPublica and Consumer Reports investigation, given far heftier car insurance bills. The report finds that between 2012 and 2014 in California, Illinois, Missouri and Texas, top insurers including Allstate, Geico and Liberty Mutual leveraged “premiums that were on average 30 percent higher in zip codes where most residents are minorities than in whiter neighborhoods with similar accident costs."
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Those premium variances can ultimately amount to significant differences in blacks and whites' monthly cash expenditures, hurting African Americans’ buying power in other areas and life outcomes in general. ProPublica cites Chicagoan Otis Nash, who is black and lives in a majority-black neighborhood, and pays $190.69 a month in insurance costs for his Honda Civic LX, the only means he has of getting to his two jobs during his six-day workweek. Across town, Ryan Hedges, who is white and lives in a white neighborhood, is billed just $54.67 a month for insurance on his 2015 Audi Q5 Quattro. Based on a series of issues, from car cost to the number of accident claims filed in their respective communities, Nash’s insurance premiums should be lower than Hedges'. Instead, as ProPublica notes, Geico “actually give[s] a discount to the riskier white neighborhood.”
This practice of price gouging on insurance premiums for residents of black neighborhoods — which is another way of saying black drivers — held true again and again. The investigation looked at “more than 100,000 premiums charged for liability insurance” in the “four states that release the type of data needed to compare insurance payouts by geography.” Investigators defined “minority zip codes” as those with more than 66 percent non-white residents in California and Texas, and 50 percent in Missouri and Illinois, due to demographic demands.
The authors point out that while regulation of the car insurance industry varied in the states surveyed (California has the most government oversight in this area while Illinois rates near the bottom of the national list), those differences offer a broad-view look at how racist car insurance policies proliferate around the United States. “Some insurers whose prices appear to vary by neighborhood demographics operate nationally,” they write. “That raises the prospect that many minority neighborhoods across the country may be paying too much for auto insurance, or white neighborhoods, too little.”
"In all four states, we found insurers with significant gaps between the premiums charged in minority and non-minority neighborhoods with the same average risk. In Illinois, of the 34 companies we analyzed, 33 of them were charging at least 10 percent more, on average, for the same safe driver in minority zip codes than in comparably risky white zip codes. (The exception was USAA’s Garrison Property & Casualty subsidiary, which charged 9 percent more.) Six Illinois insurers, including Allstate, which is the second largest insurer in the state, had average disparities higher than 30 percent. While in Illinois the disparities remained about the same from the safest to the most dangerous zip codes, in the other three states the disparities were confined to the riskiest neighborhoods. In those instances, prices in whiter neighborhoods stayed about the same as risk increased, while premiums in minority neighborhoods went up. In Missouri and Texas, at least half of the insurers we studied charged higher premiums for a safe driver in high-risk minority communities than in comparably risky non-minority communities. And even in highly regulated California, we found eight insurers whose prices in risky minority neighborhoods were more than 10 percent above similar risky zip codes where more residents were white."
As always, respectability politics — America’s favorite lie, which holds that success will save black folks from racism — proves useless. ProPublica spoke with Los Angeles-based businessman Pernell Cox, a resident of a “wealthy enclave in South Los Angeles sometimes referred to as the ‘Black Beverly Hills.’” Turns out the Liberty Mutual subsidiary that insured Cox's cars “charges 13 percent more for a 30-year-old female safe driver in his neighborhood than in a zip code with comparable risk in Woodland Hills, a predominantly white suburb in north Los Angeles.” Cox’s two Mercedes-Benzes, career success and address couldn’t surmount the extra price of race.
"Learning that our community might be targeted for higher insurance rates than the risk is a reason for people to be angry," Cox told Chicago’s ABC affiliate.
Redlining, common American discriminatory practices that historically kept black people from buying middle-class homes and acquiring equity-building loans, was outlawed decades ago. But while anti-discrimination is a critical element in combating pervasive racism, laws can only curb unfair business practices to a point. From the moment ordinances were passed to stop bias in selling and lending, covert workarounds were created to ensure the system remained unchanged. Bill Corley, an African-American car insurance agent in the field since 1977, describes how the subterfuge works.
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“Officially, you could write insurance anywhere you wanted to write insurance,” Corley told ProPublica. Unofficially, too many minority clients inspired questions Corely rarely saw asked about white clients. “They would ask you questions about people’s income levels and questions about neighboring properties — which I don’t really recall ever having to address when I was writing policies in other neighborhoods in the city.”
Today, the use of neighborhood racial demographics is an altogether unsubtle way insurers continue to shortchange black drivers. The effects of those discriminatory practices do more than siphon off dollars once they month; they cause a ripple effect, hurting black financial prospects overall. ProPublica found that “households in minority-majority zip codes spent more than twice as much of their household income on auto insurance (11 percent).” That’s money diverted not just from short-term necessities but from long-term investments as well, such as homeownership, which blacks are still denied loans for far more often than whites.
A 2017 study found that education attainment, spending, working endlessly or raising kids in a two-parent family never closes the ever-expanding racial wealth gap, the $13 to $1 net wealth difference between white and black households. Longstanding racial privilege, codified into programs like the GI Bill, helped build white wealth. Those assets and monies, particularly in the form of property, were handed down, giving successive generations of whites a leg up on their black contemporaries.
“Homeownership is the central vehicle Americans use to store wealth,” Demos senior policy analyst and study co-author Catherine Ruetschlin told Forbes, “so homeownership and access to homeownership are at the heart of that widening wealth gap.”
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Who can save for a house when you're being unfairly nickel-and-dimed at every turn, on every front? The extra expense of being poor, we've long known, keeps people trapped in cycles of poverty. Add institutional racism to that equation, and the ante is effectively upped. As the case of Pernell Cox proves, a nice home and the right degree can’t break the system, which was fixed long ago.
Otis Nash says he’s on the "verge of homelessness” because his car costs are so exorbitant. ProPublica reports that he was nonplussed by the discovery that race weighs so heavily in his insurance payments.
“When you go to the richer neighborhoods, the red-light cameras kind of go away,” he told the outlet. “That system is kind of designed for you to fail.”Supervisor Breed Calls for Removing Some of SF’s Parking Mandates
Supervisor London Breed has proposed a “Parking Flexibility Ordinance” that would make it easier for building owners and developers not to build car parking when it would impinge on the street environment for walking, bicycling, and transit. It would also count parking spaces against density limits, unless they’re built underground.
The ordinance [PDF] was approved by the Planning Commission last week and is expected to be approved by the Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.
SF’s 1950s-era parking mandates increase the cost of building housing and limit the space available for apartments, storefronts, and other uses. Minimum parking requirements encourage car ownership, make buildings more susceptible to earthquake damage, cut up SF’s sidewalks with driveways (which also reduce street parking and encourage sidewalk parking), and diminish the pedestrian realm with blank garage doors.
The proposal would amend the planning code so that “builders, businesses, and homeowners can have more say in where and if they put parking on their property,” Conor Johnston, an aide for Breed, told the Planning Commission Thursday.
Breed’s proposal would waive parking mandates in certain situations, including when parking spaces require drivers to cross a curbside bike lane, transit-only lane, or a sidewalk that’s at least 25 feet wide. The additional flexibility will allow existing parking spots to be converted to other uses and let developers forego building new ones.
The legislation adds to the Planning Department’s efforts in recent years to relax the city’s “very strict minimum parking requirements,” said Johnston. “They do not limit anyone’s ability to construct parking if they choose, they simply give people more options.”
As parking minimums are relaxed, space opens up for other pursuits. Last year, three cafes and restaurants were built out of former personal parking garages in the Castro, thanks to a 2011 ordinance pushed by Breed’s predecessor, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.
Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich, who helped craft both Mirkarimi and Breed’s ordinances, said Breed’s new bill “has a lot of smart policy changes in it” that would “create opportunities to improve safety and transit reliability by reducing conflicts with driveways,” and “help green the city, and restore neighborhood character.”
Johnston said the proposal would also encourage homeowners to turn paved driveways into green yards which are required by the planning code. Even though it’s illegal to park on any part of a sidewalk — including the “setback” space between a sidewalk and building — many homeowners, particularly in SF’s outer neighborhoods, have paved over their front yards to park on them with impunity.
The ordinance would also count above-ground parking spaces against density limits by including parking in a building’s “gross floor area” (GFA). Currently, said Johnston, “There are limits on how much commercial space or housing you can have, but not on parking.” The only existing exception is in high-density “C-3” commercial zones. The ordinance, he said, “will encourage new developments to put their parking underground, and use the floor for active uses like retail and housing.”
Under the status quo, Johnston said building owners are “almost forced” to use the ground floor for parking. “Do we really want to prioritize parking over jobs and housing?”Daniil Kvyat will become the first driver to take a ten-place grid penalty for using his sixth Power Unit component this year, after Toro Rosso used their sixth Internal Combustion Engine in his car this weekend. According to the FIA, “the internal combustion engine used by the above driver [Daniil Kvayt] is the sixth new internal combustion engine for the 2014 Championship season” which is “not in conformity with Article 28.4a of the 2014 Formula One Sporting Regulations.”
There were fears of drivers using their sixth of the allocated five Power Unit components heading into the latter part of this season, particularly for Pastor Maldonado who is now on his fifth new unit for every component. There were also fears Sebastien Vettel was going to take a penalty this weekend, after he ran into Internal Combustion Engine issues last time out in Spa. The team have since said he will be taking this penalty eventually later on in the season.
We’ve also saw some teams being able to recover some parts from what would otherwise be classed as written off components this season. Yesterday we heard Mercedes’ Paddy Lowe reveal to Sky Sports F1 that Lewis Hamilton was running the Internal Combustion Engine that caught fire in Hungary during Qualifying, after they were able to replace some parts.At conservative convention, 'Hillary-haters' take the low road
Michael Roston and David Edwards
Published: Monday February 11, 2008
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While Republican Party leaders including likely presidential nominee John McCain gave lofty speeches at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference, participants at the event hawked anti-Hillary Clinton merchandise that a CNN broadcast described as "the low road."
"She is the white hot focus of conservative scorn," reflects Joe Johns in the Sunday report. "And the more successful she is, the angrier they get and the easier it is to incite like-minded conservatives. And, oh, by the way, use her to raise money."
But while Johns highlights conservative scorn for Sen. Clinton, longtime supporter and campaign surrogate Lanny Davis argues that Republican ire for the former First Lady doesn't guarantee her defeat in the general election.
"Because the ideological right says they prefer Hillary doesn't mean that HIllary is not the stronger candidate," Davis argues. "It means they see an advantage to running against Hillary for their own fundraising."
At CPAC, conservative activists peddled Hillary the Movie tapes and t-shirts with messages that read "Same Old Socialism" and another that showed Clinton sitting beside Joseph Stalin who declares, "Keeping the dream alive."
This video is from CNN.com, broadcast February 10, 2008.House Republicans aren’t ready to raise the debt ceiling for nothing.
In their never-ending quest to get something in exchange for a debt limit increase, Republicans in the lower chamber are now considering a plan to attach two unrelated policy measures to a bill that would extend the nation’s borrowing authority to 2015.
From the Wall Street Journal:
One measure would attach to the legislation a nine-month “doc fix,” which would halt a Medicare payment reduction for doctors that is rooted in a 1997 budget law. The other would reverse a planned decrease in annual cost-of-living adjustments for military retirees still of working age.
Aides said Friday that leaders were deciding on their strategy, and could look to other policy ideas.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) in a letter Friday that the U.S. will hit the debt ceiling on Feb. 27.
Republicans have been stymied thus far in their efforts to get policy concessions from Democrats in the debt ceiling negotiations.Torch 5
What's Torch?
Torch5 provides a Matlab-like environment for state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms. It is easy to use and provides a very efficient implementation, thanks to an easy and fast scripting language ( Lua ) and a underlying C implementation.
Torch5 is the official successor of Torch3, and is now developed at NEC Laboratories America and Google Labs.
License
Torch5 is distributed under a BSD license. It makes now heavy use of the QT cross-platform framework, distributed under the GPL license with an exception when linked against BSD free software. You may want to buy a commercial version of QT if it better suits your needs.
Availability
Torch5 runs on Linux, MacOS X and native Windows. It is hosted on Sourceforge.
See the installation manual for download and installation details.
If you use Torch5 on a regular basis, it is recommended to subscribe to the devel mailing list, to be aware of bug corrections, possible API changes, or new features.
News
October 3, 2008 QT is now our default GUI backend. Installation instructions updated. We also provide now binary installers for several common platforms.
September 16, 2008 SVN repository has been cleaned up. You will have to checkout again the repository using the new download instructions. Sorry for the inconvenience.
August 16, 2008 We moved our Torch repository from CVS to SVN. Please checkout the new repository.
August 14, 2008 Torch Tensor and Storage can now address more than 2G of RAM (on 64 bits systems), as we converted the size type from int to long. This should have few impacts on the code. Previously saved models should still load, as a versioning procedure has been introduced in the class system.
June 4, 2008 Thanks to Leon Bottou, we now have a powerful interface between QT and Lua integrated in Torch. Note that CMake 2.6 or higher is now required under Windows, and CMake 2.4.8 or higher is required under MacOS X.
May 13, 2008 The Torch5 website is now up. The official version is now Torch 5.1. Please be careful: the CVS location changed.
June 21, 2007 Stable version Torch 5.0 available on SourceForge CVS.
December 06, 2006 Preliminary Torch5 version available on SourceForge CVS.“But there was slavery in ____,” “White people didn’t create slavery” “Africans sold their own people”
1) What does slavery in another country/continent have to do with white people enslaving others because of their race?
2) Nobody said white people created slavery, but they sure as hell brought the slavery of African people to the Americas and created this amazing racial dynamic we have today.
3) Africa is not a country, stop saying “Africans enslaved their own people.” North America consists of the U.S. and Canada. Canadians are not my people. Nor would I say all of America is my people. That being said, different countries have different relationships with each other just like any continent. So no, Africans did not enslave their own people. ‘x’ ethnic group enslaved 'y’ ethnic group because of war, 'x’ crime or debt. Stop acting like Africa is a country and everyone is the same ethnicity.
4) Oh, and a lot of white people (probably mostly non-Irish) like to bring up Irish Slavery like they cracked some new Da Vinci Code or some shit. Why are Black people talking about their enslavement from White people being interrupted by a White person talking about their enslavement from other White people? Like what the hell does that have to do with us?
It’s easy for Irish people to say “we were slaves too”, in attempts to tell Black people to get over slavery. When Irish people aren’t being denied jobs today because they are Irish. When Irish people aren’t being racially profiled. When irish people aren’t being told their skin is dirty. When Irish people don’t go overseas and have people try to rub their skin color off. When Irish people can go through daily life undetected of being Irish (unless you have red hair because then everyone assumes you are either Scottish or Irish). White Irish people are classified as White people and get benefits from such.Innovation: A Portable Generator Charges Devices With Fire
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of FlameStower Courtesy of FlameStower
Updated Oct. 18 to include comments from BioLite.
In our Weekly Innovation blog series, we explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Do you have an innovation to share? Use this quick form to send it to us.
Hikers and campers can now keep their cameras charged with FlameStower, which uses heat from a campfire, stove or even candles to charge any device powered by a USB connection. While this can seem superfluous — powering up while getting away from it all — creators Andrew Byrnes and Adam Kell says the device can also bring power to people in developing countries where wireless technology has leapfrogged others, places where people have cellphones but not electricity.
Byrnes and Kell were both studying materials science at Stanford University and at first thought about a generator wired to a toaster, but they quickly dismissed that idea. They spoke to a business school professor, who told them something that's been their guiding principle since — build something that can cook a pot of rice and charge a cellphone at the same time.
The technology is fairly simple. The FlameStower has a blade that extends out over the fire, while the other end is cooled by a reservoir of water. That means one part of the blade is hotter than the other. The temperature difference generates electricity, and semiconductors amplify the voltage to a useful amount. It gives you the same charge as connecting your phone to a laptop. The Mars Curiosity Rover uses the same technology, though its heat source comes from decaying radioactive materials.
This phenomenon of heat to electricity is called the Seebeck effect, and it doesn't generate a lot of energy, which means it wasn't that useful until people started walking around with cameras and smartphones.
"Now you have these tools that are insanely powerful, and increasingly are stingy on their energy use, so that value of the low amount of electricity is getting higher," Byrnes says.
He and Kell want to bring the FlameStower not only to stores in the U.S. but to developing countries as well. Kell recently returned from a trip to rural Kenya and Ethiopia to refine the FlameStower for users there, because around 65 percent of people in Africa have cellphones, but only 42 percent have electricity.
"[The cellphone] has been the first technology that people in rural villages are actually buying," Kell says.
Kell says products sold in developing countries are usually made to be cheaper than their counterparts in the U.S., with the exception of energy, which is much more expensive and less reliable.
Kell and Byrnes aren't the only people to come up with something like this. The PowerPot will charge a device and cook your food or boil water at the same time, while the BioLite CampStove burns wood without releasing toxic smoke and also generates power. Kell says the people in developing countries often want to use their own pots and stoves, so the FlameStower founders focused on something that can work on any stove and costs less. Jonathan Cedar, the co-founder of BioLite, acknowledges that, but points out smoke from traditional cook stoves may be killing the people who use them.
At the moment a FlameStower costs $80, and the project is being funded on Kickstarter until late October.
Alan Yu is a Kroc fellow at NPR.What does open source software mean? When you are explaining it to someone else, how do you convey the value and essense of open source without reinventing it? There have been many hard won lessons in open source since the phrase was first coined in 1997, and we should not forget those lessons.
To help with that, I've collected 12 memes that are meaningful to me to help share the history, set the stage, and provide context for what open source software is and what it means to the software industry at large.
These first memes relate to software as it's constructed. I believe they define what we see as successful open source projects because they are fundamentals about software itself. Projects that understand these memes succeed. Software that is liberally-licensed and worked on in communities may be the best and most efficient software re-use mechanism we have for creating and maintaining good software.
Meme #1: We have shared software since we have written software.
IBM began a computer conference in the late 1950s that continues to this day called SHARE. DEC started in the 1960s and supported the DECUS community, where you could purchase at their conferences (for the cost of the media) mag-tapes full of software that was written and contributed by other people. USENIX began in the 1970s concurrent with the tape distributions of early UNIX releases. But this sharing goes all the way back to work on the first programmable computer in the 1940s at the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies.
Meme #2: Writing good software is hard work.
I believe that sharing comes down to the simple reality that writing good software is difficult. Two ratios dominate software creation: The number of lines of code an average developer can write in a day, and the number of errors per thousand lines of code from a reasonable process. All software advances from language evolution to architecture re-use have been about trying to write more and better software with fewer lines of code. Advances in software construction reliability, configuration management, review tools and processes, and testing are targeted at reducing the bug count from a reasonable software delivery process.
Meme #3: There is no scale without discipline.
There is discipline that goes along with writing good software. When you look at software |
writings on Magna Carta introduced it to a whole new audience and helped give rise to the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, famously declared: [T]he house of every one is to him as his Castle and Fortress as well for his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose.’ Here, Magna Carta’s promise that no baron should be stripped of his rights or possessions was expanded to ‘every one’, whose ordinary home, said Coke, should be treated in the same way a baron’s castle was once treated: a place to be left alone. The liberal promise of Magna Carta was being spread. The idea of liberty, and privacy, was being expanded. Also in the 17th century, the Levellers, the most radical movement of the English Civil War, frequently cited Magna Carta, explicitly arguing that its promise of liberty should be enjoyed by all. John Lilburne, the Leveller who fought hard for freedom of speech, described Magna Carta as ‘the Englishman’s legal birthright and inheritance’. Leveller sympathiser Henry Marten cut to the heart of Magna Carta when he described it as ‘brazen wall and impregnable bulwark’ between authority and man, which ‘defends the common liberty of England’. This captures what was so meaningful about Magna Carta to those groups who desired greater freedom: it proposed erecting a ‘brazen wall’ between those with power and those with none, between the authority of a few and the liberty of the many; it restrained the state, acting as an ‘impregnable bulwark’ against its power.
In the eighteenth century, American revolutionaries built their entire new nation on the promises of Magna Carta. In 1761, the Massachusetts-based American revolutionary James Otis gave a fiery speech against Britain’s use of ‘writs of assistance’ in America, which allowed it to access citizens’ homes and their personal records. Such arbitrary interference in people’s lives and effects went against the ideals of Magna Carta, he said. At the sealing of that document in 1215, said Otis, ‘American independence was then and there born’. The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which articulates ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects’, granted to all Magna Carta’s suggestion that people (barons) should not be ‘stripped of [their] rights or possessions’ without good reason. Further afield, Magna Carta inspired the French revolutionaries of the late 1700s. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 states that, ‘No man may be indicted, arrested, or detained except in cases determined by the law’, showing, as one historical account puts it, that Magna Carta’s influence ‘had expanded beyond the English-speaking world by the late 18th century’. Only in France, as in America, all men were to be treated as deserving of the protection of the ‘brazen wall’ of liberty — ‘reflecting how Magna Carta’s provisions had expanded to include everyone instead of only the landed nobility’ (1). In the modern era, Nelson Mandela appealed to Magna Carta when he was on trial in 1964, demanding that South Africa’s Apartheid regime recognise his, and all blacks’, right to be protected against the excessive power of the state. In Tiananmen Square in 1989, some of the pro-democracy dissidents cited Magna Carta. As one account says, ‘They freely quoted passages from the Western pillars of democratic freedoms’, and they stuck on their ‘Democracy Wall’ various historic documents, ‘ranging from Magna Carta to the American Declaration of Independence’ (2).Marcus Smart is a lot of things on the basketball court. He’s a fierce competitor that won’t back down against anyone. He’s also a notorious flopper, willing to sell any contact to get a call. He’s a defensive ace that can guard nearly every position. He’s an offensive liability that teams can flat out ignore at times. He’s a guy that earned multiple nicknames in “the junkyard dog” and “the cobra”. But most importantly for the Celtics, he’s the guy that inspired the term winning plays for this timely heroics.
His defense was the strongest part of his game this season. Smart consistently provides aggressive perimeter defense, and can even mix it up inside when the Celtics play small. He led the team in steals, deflections, and was third in blocks. He finished as the best Celtics guard in DRPM, ESPN’s fancy stat measuring defensive impact.
Smart actually made some strides this season on offense. Smart is getting to the line more often, and his FT% has increased each season in the league. He improved his scoring in the post, and was rewarded with almost triple the possessions compared to last season, per Synergy. Smart actually passed more frequently out of post-up looks this season, compared to last season. This really added to his effectiveness. Counting passes, Smart was top-5 in efficiency among with players with at least 100 post possessions, per Synergy.
He may be the most talented passer on the team too. That ability is what made him an effective pick and roll player despite his lack of scoring. Per synergy, Smart placed in the 82nd percentile when passing out of the pick-and-roll.
That brings us to the biggest problem with Smart’s game: scoring.
Smart struggled basically everywhere. His finishing was poor. His outside shooting was only good in the left corner. Marcus Smart, given his volume, is one of the worst three-point shooters in the history of the league. He shot 28% on 332 attempts, one of the worst marks ever.
A excuses have popped up to explain some of this. Smart takes plenty of contested/late shot clock attempts and heaves at the end of quarters. That’s sort of true. Smart was second only to Steph Curry in FGA greater than 40 feet, and takes relatively more late shots compared to his teammates. But that’s not enough attempts to really skew the data.
Also, 78% of his three-point attempts were at least "open", and 39% were "wide open", per NBA.com. He shot just 27% on the wide-open attempts. I don't care how many late attempts or heaves he's taking, shooting that poorly on wide open threes is not encouraging.
Not to get all "Marcus Smart is a land of contrasts", but it's hard to know exactly how valuable Smart is. You can quantify almost anything in the NBA now. Smart’s “winning plays” are no exception. Every time he’s ripped the ball away from an opponent, tipped a pass, or fought for a loose ball at a key time, it’s been recorded. But it still feels like these plays mean a little more to the team. Smart brings a level of intensity to the court that seems to ignite something in everyone else. He does all the little things, and that’s why the good outweighs the bad with him.
You can’t overstate how important next season is for Smart. It’s his last year under his rookie contract. Ainge reportedly floated his name in trade talks last offseason, so nothing is certain. But if he keeps adding to his game, he’s going to get paid by someone in free agency next summer. The only question becomes whether it’s the Celtics that do it.Advertisement
Sheltered away from the society that marginalises them, these are the waria of Indonesia.
Transexual and transgender people are often shunned in the largely conservative country, and many choose to move to a community on the island of Java.
Here they could, until last year, attend an Islamic boarding school for transgender learners, thought to be the only one in the world.
Now the waria - a term which combines the Indonesian words 'wanita' and 'pria', which mean woman and man - often gather in the building to pray, but the school shut after a public outcry last year.
Shintra Ratri, who founded the Pondok Pesantren Waria Al-Fatah religious school in 2008, before it was forced to close
The building acts as a haven for Indonesia's waria community, who face increasing discrimination
Transexual and transgender people are often shunned in the largely conservative country, and many choose to move to a community on the island of Java
Nevertheless, defiant teachers continue to hold occasional classes for those of the 42 students who continue their learning.
A series of photographs taken in the community of Yogyakarta, where around 300 waria live, give a fascinating insight into the lives of the marginalised group.
Last year Shinta Ratri, a waria activist who founded the Pondok Pesantren Waria Al-Fatah religious school, told Human Rights Watch: 'It was a place to pray together, to learn about Islam together.
The series of photographs taken in the community of Yogyakarta, where around 300 waria live, give a fascinating insight into the lives of the marginalised group
In the past 12 months, the community has come under fire. The Indonesian higher education minister led calls to ban LGBT groups from campuses because they were not 'in accordance with the values and morals of Indonesia'
The building now serves as a community centre for the waria, who can be victims of ridicule, violence and poverty
'Waria were uncomfortable praying in public mosques, so I thought it would be better for us to be together than sitting alone in our homes with our spiritual questions only in our hearts.'
The building now serves as a community centre for the waria, who can be victims of ridicule, violence and poverty.
A large proportion have no families or legal identities, and few can afford gender reassignment surgery, so often retain their male genitalia.
A large proportion have no families or legal identities, and face an increasing wave of discrimination across Indonesia
Around 300 members of the waria community live in Yogyakarta on the island of Java
In the past 12 months, right-wing politicians have called for homosexuality to be criminalised, but president Joko Widodo has called on authorities to defend LGBT people from violence
Many have silicon inserted straight beneath their skin in order to create their breasts, and only some have stable relationships with men.
In the past 12 months, the community has come under fire. The Indonesian higher education minister led calls to ban LGBT groups from campuses because they were not 'in accordance with the values and morals of Indonesia'.
With the surge in public condemnation, Shinta found herself under attack and conservative politicians called for the LGBT society to be criminalised and advocated 'cures'.
The school was closed last year after opposition from the Islamic Jihad Front, but classes continue to be held by defiant teachers
Shinta said: 'We want to prove that Islam accepts transgenders, that Islam is a blessing for all mankind'
In October last year, after months of silence on the issue, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo said homosexuality should not be criminalised and called on the police to defend LGBT people from violence
The building now serves as a community centre for the waria, who can be victims of ridicule, violence and poverty
Last year fundamentalist Indonesian group the Islamic Jihad Front (FJI) called for the school to be closed.
Shinta told Human Rights Watch: 'I told them about how Islam accommodates diversity: people with disabilities, waria, all kinds of people deserve Allah’s love.
'I recited passages of the Qur’an, and explained how we teach waria how to face death as Muslims, how to pray as Muslims. I told them about how I was a boy when I was born, but my soul is that of a woman.'
Shinta Ratri, a waria activist who founded the Pondok Pesantren Waria Al-Fatah religious school, said: 'It was a place to pray together, to learn about Islam together'
She said: 'I told them about how Islam accommodates diversity: people with disabilities, waria, all kinds of people deserve Allah’s love'
After the school shut in February last year, Shinta told AFP: 'We want to prove that Islam accepts transgenders, that Islam is a blessing for all mankind.'
But a leader from the Islamic Jihad Front said: 'We can't be tolerant towards something that is bad.'
In October last year, after months of silence on the issue, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo said homosexuality should not be criminalised and called on the police to defend LGBT people from violence.
But a new report by campaign group OutRight International has warned of a new wave of discrimination sweeping Indonesia, and called for the government to take stronger action to protect the community.Hi all.
I’d like to introduce rustup, the fabulous new way to install and manage Rust toolchains. This is the successor to multirust, and began as multirust-rs by @Diggsey. Although there’s a lot of work yet to do on it, it is feature complete and I’d like to get some feedback. To try it just go to http://www.rustup.rs and follow the instructions - everything you need to know should be reachable from there. I strongly recommend uninstalling any existing version of Rust before doing so.
After you’re done come back here and consider the questions below and leave your feedback. This is an early beta, and there’s still a lot of churn to come over the next month, so I caution against recommending it for wider use yet.
Thanks to @Diggsey for creating multirust-rs, to @chriskrycho for reviewing the rustup CLI, @alexcrichton for setting up the build infrastructure, and to all the multirust and multirust-rs users and contributors.
Does grouping commands into subcommands help?
In order to make the CLI interface more approachable and leave more room for expansion I’ve grouped commands together logically, so commands that just manage toolchains are under rustup toolchain [subcommand], those that deal with overrides rustup override [subcommand]. While this makes the CLI in some ways feel more consistent it also makes some common commands more verbose: for example adding a target is now rustup target add instead of rustup add-target. To then combat this verbosity there are some top-level commands that can be thought of as shortcuts, most notably the rustup update command, which could also be thought of as rustup toolchain update (which isn’t implemented to to avoid duplication).
The three ‘sub-command’ commands, toolchain, override and self also notably don’t do anything intersting when not provided a subcommand. In other words, whereas rustup toolchain list is a real command, rustup toolchain, the shorter command, doesn’t do anything. I could imagine rustup toolchain for example displaying the current toolchain like rbenv version (but I have other reservations about using rustup toolchain for this).
I still feel mostly good about this direction, but not sure if the ergonomics are in order yet.
Do rustup and rustup update do the right thing?
The simple rustup command is the ‘update all the things’ command. It updates all toolchains and self-updates, without confirmation. Originally I wanted this to be the only update command, but pretty quickly found myself just wanting to update nightly, so added rustup update. Now there are three ways to update toolchains: rustup, rustup update nightly, which does what you expect, and rustup update which updates the active toolchain.
I’ve already found myself typing rustup update and mistakenly wondering why it wasn’t ‘updating all the things’, which makes me think there are too many ways to update.
Are the verbs right?
A lot of the rustup commands are transactional: add or remove some piece of the system. For example
rustup update <toolchain> / rustup toolchain remove <toolchain>
/ rustup target add <target> / rustup target remove <target>
/ rustup override add <toolchain> / rustup override remove
So the ‘add’ / ‘remove’ verbs are consistent except for with toolchains, which use ‘update’, not ‘add’. And again, update being its own command for convenience makes the lack of a rustup toolchain add command inconsistent.
I happen to prefer three different verbs for adding here - ‘update’ for adding (or updating) toolchains, ‘add’ for adding targets to an existing toolchain, and ‘set’ for setting the override. If we were to follow that though then it would provide no intuition at all for adding different types of things.
What information is missing from the website?
The website is supposed to be very slim, just enough to convince you to run the installer and get you on your way. Is there any other information that you were expecting to be given during install?
If anybody wants to try their hand at the website style too, I’m not wedded to this. I generally am going for something simple, strong, and authoritative. People who encounter it should think, “yeah, this website knows what’s up; I’m going to do what it says”.Two polls over the weekend confirmed the lopsided numbers—a Philly Inquirer poll gave Obama a 51-42 lead, while a Muhlenberg University poll gave him a 49-40 advantage.
In fact, the only pollsters to give Romney as much as 44 percent of the vote in the state was Rasmussen (of course), and Quinnipiac way back in March. The most recent Q-poll, in late July, had Obama winning 53-42.
The only surprise in Pennsylvania was that conservative groups were willing to keep pissing away their money in a state that clearly wasn't going anywhere. One of the few left is finished:
@chucktodd via Twitter for iPhone Americans for Prosperity (the Koch group) has cancelled the rest of their PA TV ad buy. Still up in other swing states including MN and NM
That leaves Mitt Romney's Super PAC as the only conservative outfit left in the state, having spent nearly a million in the Keystone State this past week. Hopefully they keep pissing their money away here, because this state ain't going nowhere.
Interestingly, AFP has started advertising in New Mexico—$115,000 this past week. It is the first presidential ad spending by anyone in the state all year. Not sure what they see there that no one else does. And Minnesota is not a swing state, which is why only the Koch Bros are wasting their money there.
Of course, Pennsylvania's gain is Wisconsin's loss. Expect the money to shift there now that Paul Ryan has given the GOP ticket a home-state boost.As Trump’s falsehoods go, these were hardly the most dramatic – indeed, they’re not even the most shocking lie he’s told about Barack Obama – and it didn’t take long before the claims were discredited in bipartisan fashion. But there was something about this lie that gained traction in ways most of Trump’s other lies don’t. Apparently, when a sitting president makes demonstrably false claims about his predecessor committing a felony, many are inclined to believe there should be some kind of consequences for dishonesty at this level.
Making matters much worse, when FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Monday, confirming an investigation into the Trump campaign and further debunking Trump’s wiretap conspiracy theory, the president used his official White House Twitter account to make a variety of related claims, was plainly untrue.
The same day, the White House
And as a result, the bough is breaking. Discussions of the president’s uncontrollable dishonesty are becoming more open, more explicit, less guarded, and more widespread. Take, for example, The funny thing about Donald Trump’s wiretap conspiracy theory is that, from the outset, everyone knew he was lying. The sitting president accused his predecessor of ordering an illegal surveillance operation, as part of a Watergate-like scheme, and nearly the entire political world quickly reached a consensus: these claims are clearly not rooted in reality.As Trump’s falsehoods go, these were hardly the most dramatic – indeed, they’re not even the most shocking lie he’s told about Barack Obama – and it didn’t take long before the claims were discredited in bipartisan fashion. But there was something about this lie that gained traction in ways most of Trump’s other lies don’t. Apparently, when a sitting president makes demonstrably false claims about his predecessor committing a felony, many are inclined to believe there should be some kind of consequences for dishonesty at this level.Making matters much worse, when FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Monday, confirming an investigation into the Trump campaign and further debunking Trump’s wiretap conspiracy theory, the president used his official White House Twitter account to make a variety of related claims, each of which The same day, the White House tried to tell the public that Trump’s former campaign chairman and National Security Advisor were unimportant, peripheral figures.And as a result, the bough is breaking. Discussions of the president’s uncontrollable dishonesty are becoming more open, more explicit, less guarded, and more widespread. Take, for example, this new editorial from the Wall Street Journal, which argued that Trump’s falsehoods “are eroding public trust, at home and abroad.”
If President Trump announces that North Korea launched a missile that landed within 100 miles of Hawaii, would most Americans believe him? Would the rest of the world? We’re not sure, which speaks to the damage that Mr. Trump is doing to his Presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods. […]
Two months into his Presidency, Gallup has Mr. Trump’s approval rating at 39%. No doubt Mr. Trump considers that fake news, but if he doesn’t show more respect for the truth most Americans may conclude he’s a fake President.The pint-sized Raspberry Pi computer now has its very own app store.
Offering a mixture of free and paid apps, the Pi Store features 23 free titles at launch, ranging from the productivity suite LibreOffice and utility Asterisk to classic games like Freeciv and OpenTTD, as well as the Raspberry Pi exclusive Iridium Rising. There's also one paid app, the puzzler Storm in a Teacup, which is priced at $3.18.
"The Pi Store will, we hope, become a one-stop shop for all your Raspberry Pi needs; it's also an easier way into the Raspberry Pi experience for total beginners, who will find everything they need to get going in one place, for free," the nonprofit Raspberry Pi Foundation announced in a blog post Monday.
Raspberry Pi is a $35 Linux and ARM-based computer on a small circuit board that aims to promote computer programming for kids. The brand-new Pi Store, however, allows developers of all ages to upload their own games, apps, tools, and tutorials for moderation and release. Users can choose whether to make their content available for free or as a paid app. The store also has a tip jar mechanism, so users can donate money to developers they would like to support.
"We hope that the Pi Store will provide young people with a way to share their creations with a wider audience, and maybe to a make a little pocket money along the way; as well as offering commercial developers an easy way to get their software seen by the Raspberry Pi community," the Foundation said.
The store features a recommendation engine that is tailored to a user's preferences, offering up suggested apps they might like. The feature will learn a user's tastes over time, based on app reviews they have submitted. The highest-rated content will be featured near the top of the store for everyone to see.
The Foundation launched the app store today in partnership with IndieCity and Velocix. An updated Raspbian image that includes the Pi Store is available from the Raspberry Pi downloads page. The store is also available on the web.
For more, see PCMag's review of Raspberry Pi and the slideshow above.
For more from Angela, follow her on Twitter @amoscaritolo.Canadiens coach Michel Therrien was inducted into the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League Hall of Fame Wednesday night for his time with the Laval Titan and Granby Prédateurs.
“It’s an important night for me,” said Therrien, who teared up when accepting the award. “It’s really emotional. I’m surrounded by people I have a lot of respect for.”
He coached three full seasons in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, winning the Memorial Cup with Granby in 1996. He then coached four seasons in the American Hockey League before joining the NHL.
It’s a privilege to coach in the NHL and an honour to coach the Montreal Canadiens. We’ve had success over the last three years, but it started over here. It’s been a fun ride so far. — Michel Therrien
Also named to the QMJHL Hall of Fame were:
Martin Brodeur (formerly of the St. Hyacinthe Laser)
Martin Gélinas (Hull Olympiques)
Billy Campbell ( Montreal Junior and Verdun Junior)
Junior and Verdun Junior) Jean Rougeau, posthumously (former president of the QMJHL)
The honours were handed out Wednesday night in Montreal as part of the hockey organization’s annual Golden Puck Awards.
With 129 points in 67 games this season, Conor Garland of the Moncton Wildcats won the Michel Brière Trophy as the league’s most valuable player and the Jean Béliveau Trophy as the league’s top scorer, the latter of which was presented by Béliveau’s wife, Élise Couture.
“To have an award in his name, it’s tough and special at the same time,” said the Wildcats winger of Béliveau, who died in December. “It’s obviously a nice honour.”
The 18-year-old’s 35 goals and 94 assists — 27 more points than the league runner-up — led the Wildcats to the top of the Maritimes division, and second place overall.Homeland Security Gets Walmart To Tell You To Inform On Your Neighbors
from the are-they-serious? dept
Sometimes you just wonder what folks in our government are thinking half the time. The latest is that Homeland Security, when it's not busy seizing domains of hip hop blogs, is apparently on a campaign to enlist shoppers at Walmarts in a somewhat creepy attempt to get people to spy on their neighbors. The program is officially called "If You See Something, Say Something" which could be shortened to "Inform on Your Neighbors" if DHS is looking for efficiency.More bizarre is the Walmart tie-in. As you check out, you'll see a video from Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano reminding customers to watch and report any "suspicious activity."Does anyone in Homeland Security actually think this sort of thing is effective? I think most people know perfectly well to report anything really suspicious that they see. But seeing Janet Napolitano's talking head at Walmart checkouts telling people to keep an extra special eye out just feelsand Big Brother-ish.
Filed Under: homeland security
Companies: walmartWhen Alex Sharpe decided to transform a garage into a coach house in The Pocket neighbourhood in 2011, all city planners saw was a second home on the same lot. The former “garage” had all services in place for years, like separate electrical and gas meters, but because it was not routed through Toronto’s planning process, it violated a bylaw, said Sharpe. And when he approached the city to convert it into the one-and-half storey, 1,800 square foot residence he lives in today, the city’s reaction was as expected.
Alex Sharpe, co-founder of Lanescape, a design and planning organization, purchased this property on Jones Ave. in 2011 and has been living there since, renting out the conventional house that faces Jones Ave. to supplement his income. ( Conrad Stocks )
“They didn’t support the application,” said Sharpe, co-founder of Lanescape, an urban design and planning organization. “They called it at the time ‘a house behind a house,’ so I was going into the Committee of Adjustment with a fight on my hands.” The struggle to circumvent a zoning bylaw can squelch most opportunities to construct a laneway home, even for those with the proper savvy. But Sharpe’s experience, along with a new report, could give properties of a similar class a needed boost: “laneway suites,” small rental units wired to principal residences. The report, which was released last month by Lanescape and Evergreen, a charity working to inject sustainable principles into urban planning, takes aim at roadblocks hindering the development of the laneway units, offering bolstered performance standards to streamline the city approval process.
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It passed a Toronto and East York Community council meeting on June 13 and is onto the next phase before final approval. Councillors Ana Bailao and Mary-Margaret McMahon have thrown their support behind it. “City staff are to take the report that was done by the non-profits and go and do consultation with the public so they can give us some guidelines and criteria for how we can implement laneway housing,” said Councillor Joe Cressy, who was in attendance. “Our laneways are a tremendous untapped resource and they should and need to be activated. The question is what type of activation and on what laneway?” The report looks to other Canadian municipalities that have implemented laneway housing, like Vancouver and Ottawa. Hamilton is currently considering the concept, too, said Michelle German, senior manager of policy and partnerships at Evergreen. There are over 300 kilometres of laneways in Toronto, according to the joint report, raising the prospect of unused housing potential. “Essentially what we’re asking (the city of Toronto) to do is consider laneway suites as another thing,” said German. “We’re not repealing the house behind a house bylaw. Instead, we’re saying laneway suites are something very specific.”
Laneway suites are proposed as dependent on main residences for utilities and city services — likened to basement apartments with a better view. This falls in step with provincial legislation introduced in 2011 underpinning the development of secondary units, including detached ones, which pertain to laneway suites. “Because there was no permitting process for laneway suites specifically, the only people who were actually able to build one were people who knew the system, had a lot of time, capital, usually architects,” said German.
Lanescape and Evergreen released a report supporting the construction of laneway suites, housing units touted as a solution to increasing density and rent in Toronto. ( Ralph Kroman )
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The organizations are trying to make these types of homes accessible to everyone and, simultaneously, increase Toronto’s scant rental stock. “Right now we have a very low number of purpose-built rentals, period, and this could add more to the market,” said German. “It could make people’s living situation more affordable, too, because it could offset costs.” Sharpe rents out the conventional house that faces Jones Ave. to supplement his income, for example. “We have built a lot of infrastructure in the city and we can accommodate more density,” continued German. “This is one way we can do that, instead of building out and continuing to sprawl, which is not good for the environment.” But some neighbourhood associations think that development of this kind could impact certain parts of town if the lay of the land isn’t accounted for. Issues like character, narrow laneways, parking and access to main roads are some concerns raised in city addressed letters sent by the Annex Residents’ Association and the Harbord Village Residents’ Association. “We’re not against laneway suites,” said Rory “Gus” Sinclair, chair of the HVRA during the committee meeting. “What we want to say is that it may be appropriate in some parts of neighbourhoods but not others. We hope that this will be a city process, whereby this would be examined by everybody. We are not the NIMBY people at all, but we do have cautions about this.” In a followup interview, Sinclair said that the association is particularly concerned about affordability, green space and emergency vehicle access, due to the tightness of certain lanes in the neighbourhood. All of these issues require a thorough vetting process, he said, conceding that laneway suites could be a “better fit” than other forms of housing above garages. “Laneway suites have no severances and are smaller in stature, 400 square feet seems to be the benchmark, making them a little more workable than laneway housing which are serviced out to the lane.” Consultation seems to be king: it helped Sharpe bring his coach house to fruition, after all. He canvassed his neighbours, bringing them up to speed with his plan. It was then checked and approved by the city and — at long last — erected. “Everyone was supportive and no one showed up to the Committee of Adjustment in opposition to it,” he said. “Thankfully with the plan and application we made we were successful. We got a 2-1 ruling at (the Committee of Adjustment) permitting the variances to what I ultimately live in now. My experience was that, not only was it a great lifestyle, but completely achievable, functional and it worked really well within the context of the inner-city neighbourhood.”Go with a custom size and give us your body measurements in inches:
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Bust SELECT 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
Chest SELECT 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
Hip SELECT 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
Shoulder SELECT 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Under Bust SELECT 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
Upper Arm SELECT 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
Waist SELECT 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
The measurements below are optional. If you have a long torso or long legs, please consider providing them to help us achieve a great fit. For best results, please ask someone to help measure you High Point Shoulder to Bust Point SELECT 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 |
inspired our encounters and actions, have.remained invisible to us. We are Everywhere will attempt to redress this balance, bringing to light some of these often-unacknowledged uprisings. As these voices mingle with the voices on the Northern streets, we begin to see that a unique revolutionary situation is emerging, where seemingly separate movements converge and the wave of global resistance becomes a tsunami. We have begun to recognise each other as allies, to struggle together, to take actions which cause turbulence thousands of miles away, as well as create ripples which lap at our neighbours doorstep. Together, our hope is re-ignited, hope that everything can be transformed, hope that we have the power to reclaim memory from those who would impose oblivion, hope that history belongs to us if only we believe we can make it with our own hands. If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time... But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
Lilla Watson, A Brisbane based Aboriginal educator and activist. < previous | index | next >"My target demographic was the intersection of People Who Like it When Numbers Go Up and People Who Like Exploring the Unknown."
"I was very worried about the'vengeful 1-star reviews.'"
"A good story, like a good game, is a co-operative work between the teller and the listener."
It starts in a single dark room. You light a fire, and the room grows warm. A stranger blunders in, falls unconscious. You gather wood to keep her warm. When she wakes up, she tells you she can build things.You build things.A shelter becomes a shantytown, as you, the builder and a handful of stragglers live off the small animals you trap. Strange noises and unseen beasts come from the shadows that pool around you in the wood, and sometimes they leave their teeth behind.You build. You stoke the fire. And as it grows, and as your village grows, so grows in you a hunger to explore the outside world for its resources, to forage, to dig and mine and burn and be ready to confront the lonesome and forbidding evils that lie outside the places your light reaches. iOS version here ] is a minimalist, text and ASCII-only resource-gathering and adventure game, a grim, meditative collision ofand. Creator Michael Townsend played Aniwey's Candy Box for about 10 minutes before the hunger to go further with narrative was stirred."I�d seen idle games before, but nothing with with the sense of exploration and wonder that Aniwey�s game evoked," he tells Gamasutra. "Right away, I started thinking about how that framework could be applied to a more narrative-focused experience. It seemed like such a natural fit to have the player�s understanding of the world expand along with the game mechanics."Like, the gradual evolution of's world surprises and delights the player. A weathered family takes up in one of the huts you built. You learn to turn fur into leather. The incredibly simple interface, dark text on white space, creates a sense of mystery, of frontier spirit.When you realize you can turn leather into armor, build torches from the scraps of cloth you find in your traps, so too comes the revelation there's an entire world outside your tiny encampment. The same compulsion with which you gather resources pushes you to expand into the land around you.A shivering madman charges at you from somewhere inside a house you thought was abandoned. An invisible sniper takes a shot at you from far across the grassland; a scaled monstrosity trundles up from the underground of a ruined metropolis.Although the world ofis enormous, freckled and scarred with constant surprises, it feels like spoiling to reveal even this much. The sense of mystery, the sense ofand, drives the player ever onward as if chasing relief from thirst. The first time I played the game I thought I'd let it idle in a browser like other similar ones while I went about other things.I ended up fixated on it late into the night, alone in the light of my tiny netbook, committing my villagers -- my hunters, my trappers, my gatherers, my tanners -- to more and more work, slightly horrified at my own course but unable to avert it."My target demographic was the intersection of People Who Like it When Numbers Go Up and People Who Like Exploring the Unknown," says Townsend. "I think those are two pretty fundamental human drives, and they form the foundation of many of the games we create for ourselves."Every confrontation the game gave me made me feel vulnerable, inadequate, afraid. Every one.Adds Townsend, "I�m missing out on People Who Like to Crush Their Enemies, but whatever."Townsend has been building games "for as long as I've been able to use a keyboard," and maintains a long-held fascination with supply chain games and. "The'second act' ofwas entirely borne from that perverse love," he says. "It never got as maddeningly complex as I wish it could have, but it did the trick."He built the initial browser version ofon his own, with narrative input and playtesting from friends and family. After the first release, the game went up on Github and built enough interest to yield a newer version with added content.Hackathon regular and web game builder Amir Rajan fell in love withafter discovering it through Twitter. He'd just quit his job to take a sabbatical, and to preserve as much of their savings as possible, he and his wife downsized to a car, a bed, some clothes and only a backpack's worth of worldly possessions. The unspoken question that the game poses to the player -- how much do youneed, how much is enough for you to feel safe and fulfilled? At this time in Rajan's life especially, the game resonated.He decided to reach out to Townsend to see whether the latter would be interested in an iOS port. "I connected with the game, and then simply emailed Michael to see if I could port it over the iOS," Rajan says. Townsend said yes, and sent over a snapshot of the code."A virtual handshake, 70 emails, one video conference and four months later,shipped," says Rajan. "It's crazy to say, but I haven't met Michael in person and have only spoken with him once, for an hour over video conference. Welcome to the future, I guess."Townsend's original game involves hover-states and other elements that made it hard to imagine doing a touchscreen version himself. But just as in, where allies blow in from nowhere and get to work, Townsend trusted Rajan's ideas."He came back later to show me what he�d built, and I was super impressed. He�d totally redesigned the interface, which I hadn�t expected (though I totally should have), and tweaked a bunch of things to make ADR more conducive to a mobile experience," says Townsend. "I�m thrilled that the two versions of the game support one another rather than compete."In particular, the iOS version of the game as implemented by Rajan features extensive VoiceOver support to be accessible to blind players. "I was asked to do the same with the web version, and I ran away in terror. In retrospect, I wish that I�d had it in mind from the beginning," Townsend says.Implementing the requested accessibility features didn't meaningfully impact the number of downloads on iOS, according to Rajan: "It's just the right thing to do," he says, reflecting on messages of gratitude and connections made with sight-impaired players who appreciated the experience.Rajan had the interesting challenge of not only adapting the browser game for touchscreen play, but also making adaptations and enhancements to Townsend's Cormac McCarthy-inspired world. "Idle web games don't translate as well to mobile devices," he points out."There was a big risk with pacing," Rajan says. "I wanted to avoid having someone pay money for, open it up and see the single'stoke fire' button for too long. I was very worried about the'vengeful-1 star reviews.' I can't count the number of times I mulled over the timing for the first part of the game."He experimented with adding quotations, and trying the game out on friends to see at which point they lost interest. Adding just a few messages at the right times turned out to do the trick, and things grew from there."I did end up adding a more explicit storyline to the mobile version that were directly inspired by Nietzsche and some of my recent life events," says Rajan. Some players were so affected by some of the story's darker moments that they would restart the entire experience to try to avoid those situations.Townsend's original plot is rooted in the idea of unspooling understanding about the story to the player slowly, as they progress mechanically. "I�ve always found revelatory moments in narrative a lot more fulfilling when they�re not spelled out for me," he reflects. "It makes me feel clever, and I like feeling clever.""I tried to leave as much of the world up to the imagination as possible," says Townsend. "A good story, like a good game, is a co-operative work between the teller and the listener. Nothing ruins a story for me like an author who refuses to acknowledge that partnership. Filling in all the blanks takes away any potential for mystery or wonder."Rajan loved the fact the game didn't come with instructions, leaving everything up to the player -- and therefore giving players a sense of ownership over everything they achieve. Townsend, who says he prefers "the comfort and philosophy" of developing open applications in Javascript, says 630,000 games have been started in the game's web version, and only 50,000 of those players have completed the game."The app store is extremely saturated. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for a game to even have a small amount of success," says Rajan. "Beforewas ported to iOS, it was essentially vetted (and went viral) on the web. So the game had a bit of a following, which helped the iOS version get some initial popularity."Rajan's mobile version was released late in 2013, and has seen about 14,000 downloads -- more than half of them coming from a free two-day promotion in February. It's one of the top 50 RPG games in the App Store, but hasn't yet made it to a top spot in the Games category.Ifhas a message, it might be the hidden cost of watching numbers go up, and of thirsting for more. Its iOS developer has felt some similar stresses on the App Store market:"You have to care about what you're building," Rajan adds. "You need to have unrelenting persistence.""It's extremely difficult waking up every morning and being disappointed with the number of downloads your game gets. So if you're thinking you can make a quick buck off of iOS, you've got another thing coming to you, unfortunately."Howdy all,
Can you feel Pebble Time approaching?
Before diving into this week's update, take a look at Happy: a new watchface live now on the Pebble appstore.
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Happy is great in black-and-white and totally pops in color. Three cheers to u/czmanix on Reddit for making a face that Pebblers can enjoy both now and when Pebble Time lands.
Field Testing Pebble Time
Starting next week, Pebble Time delves a bit deeper into the wild :)
To ensure an amazing experience from the get-go, we've recruited 100+ developers and users from the community to field test pre-production Pebble Times. These beta testers are will provide a fresh set of eyes to put Pebble’s new software through its paces. We’re looking forward to their feedback on the 3.0 interface's look and feel so far.
We’ve hooked up some of our rockstar community developers with pre-production Pebble Times as well. With live samples to test and build on, they’re bringing color to classic favorites, cooking up creative new concepts, and even kickstarting their own projects. Check out some of what's in store:
Jonathan Reno shows off his work on Weather Land in color:
Reboot’s Ramblings is having a ball updating Music Boss for Pebble Time—can’t wait!
Thanks to Alex Kirov and Neal Patel, these Fresh, Hot, and Fly variants of their Material watchface are going make serious waves on the Pebble appstore :)
Developers: got an app you’re working on and want to see a pic of it on Pebble Time? Send your PBWs to us at devsupport@getpebble.com. Interested in building your first app or watchface? Check out the Pebble SDK and resources available on our Developer site and pick @PebbleDev's brain on Twitter.
That’s all for today, everyone! Have a happy Friday and restful weekend—see you in the next update!
<3, Team PebbleHave you noticed that most Americans seem to know far more about American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Justin Bieber and their favorite sports teams than they do about world affairs? Most Americans cannot even find Tunisia and Algeria on a map, and if you told them that food riots are happening in those nations right now most of them would not even care anyway. We have become a very self-centered, self-involved and self-absorbed nation. Quite a few people have accused this column of being obsessed with “doom and gloom”, but the truth is that the world really is falling apart out there. What are we supposed to do? Are we all supposed to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is going to be okay? Should we all not try to warn others so that they can prepare for what is coming? Until people understand that we are facing absolutely massive problems they are not going to be motivated to take significant action, and hopefully those of us that are proclaiming “doom and gloom” are doing a good enough job of describing what is really going on out there that some people are starting to wake up and actually make changes.
Most Americans may not care, but the food riots that are starting to erupt around the globe are actually very serious.
Do you remember what happened back in the summer of 2008?
That summer, the price of oil spiked to an all-time high of $147 a barrel and that caused a substantial increase in the price of food all over the globe. Suddenly millions of poor people couldn’t afford to feed themselves anymore and food riots erupted all over the world.
Well, here we are in 2011 and the price of oil hasn’t even reached $100 a barrel, and yet the food riots are already beginning.
Violent food riots are being reported in Tunisia, in Algeria, in Chile and in Mozambique.
In Tunisia, the riots have been so intense that the President of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has been forced to step down and flee for his life.
Yes, that is how serious things are getting already.
Unfortunately, it looks like the global food situation is only going to get even worse.
Australia is a major food producer and right now they are experiencing flooding of Biblical proportions. In fact, it has been reported that at one point the flooding covered an area greater than France and Germany combined.
In Brazil, another major food producer, horrific flooding has killed more than 500 people so far. This flooding is being called the “worst-ever natural disaster” in the history of Brazil.
Meanwhile, record cold temperatures and record snowfalls are playing havoc with winter crops all over the Northern Hemisphere.
But even before all of these weather disasters struck the price of food had been going up significantly. The UN recently announced that the global price of food hit an all-time high during the month of December, and world leaders all over the globe are openly expressing concern about what 2011 is going to bring.
Sadly, the truth is that there has been a trend of rising food prices for quite some time. According to Forbes, corn is up 94% since June, soybeans are up 51% since June, and wheat is up 80% since last June.
As one of my readers recently pointed out to me, it usually takes about six months for the prices of agricultural futures to filter down into the supermarkets. So the very high prices for agricultural commodities that we are seeing right now should really start to be felt around the globe by the middle of 2011.
In addition to everything else, reports continue to come in of thousands of birds and millions of fish suddenly dying all over the globe, and nobody seems to really know what is causing it.
Do you want some more doom and gloom?
*There are reports of “panic buying” of silver and other precious metals right now.
*Investors are bailing out of municipal bonds at an absolutely staggering rate.
*S&P and Moody’s have both warned once again that the United States is in danger of having its credit rating slashed if it does not get government debt under control.
*U.S. housing prices have now fallen further during this economic downturn than they did during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Meanwhile, America’s economic infrastructure continues to be taken apart piece by piece.
The United States is losing more jobs to China. In fact, the United States is losing more high technology “green jobs” to China.
Evergreen Solar, a company that manufactures solar panels, is closing their factory in Devon, Massachusetts and they are moving their production facilities to China. This is going to result in the loss of 800 good American jobs.
The following is what the company had to say in a statement about the move….
“Solar manufacturers in China have received considerable government and financial support and, together with their low manufacturing costs, have become price leaders within the industry.”
Is it any wonder that a recent survey found that 47 percent of Americans now believe that China is the world’s leading economic power while only 31 percent still believe that the United States is the world’s leading economic power?
As America continues to lose good jobs, millions of Americans find themselves simply unable to pay the bills. In fact, at this point one out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one government-run anti-poverty program.
As things have fallen apart in the United States, many private citizens have tried to step forward and do what they can to help people, but now in many areas of the country the government is actually stepping in and shutting down these private avenues of assistance.
For example, in the city of Houston, Texas a couple named Bobby and Amanda Herring has been feeding homeless people for over a year. They never left behind any trash and no trouble was ever caused.
But now the city of Houston is shutting them down.
Why?
Because they don’t have a permit.
So will they be able to get a permit? Well, it turns out that city officials are saying that this “Feed a Friend” effort most likely will be denied one.
Apparently the city “officials” believe that the homeless “are the most vulnerable to foodborne illness” and that therefore the warm meals that the Herrings were providing for them were potentially dangerous.
Can you believe this?
This is what happens when political correctness and bureaucracy get wildly out of control.
Now it is illegal to go out and feed homeless people?
What is American turning into?
As the economy continues to fall part, the iron grip of the government is likely only going to get tighter as it desperately tries to keep order.
But do we really need to be giving tickets to 6-year-olds?
Yes, you read that correctly.
According to one recent report, police in Texas have given “1,000 tickets to elementary school children in 10 school districts” over the past six years.
For more examples of how America is turning into a police state, please see my recent article entitled “Almost Everything Is A Crime In America Now: 14 Of The Most Ridiculous Things That Americans Are Being Arrested For“.
America is rapidly becoming a very dark place.
The truth is that there is a reason why so many websites are now reporting so much “doom and gloom”. Things really are getting bad out there.
Sadly, most Americans have only known tremendous prosperity all of their lives, so they can’t even conceive of what it would be like to go through difficult times.
Most Americans have been conditioned to believe that while we may have brief “recessions” once in a while, in the end our economy will always get better and the good times will continue to roll.
But the good news is that an increasing number of Americans are waking up and are trying to warn their family and friends about what is coming.
So do you believe that the food shortages and the food riots are going to get even worse throughout the rest of 2011? Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below….Demonstrators in Thailand have been calling for the removal of their head of state for six months. Now, a Thai court has ordered the nation’s prime minister to step down over charges she abused her power.
Yingluck Shinawatra’s ouster raises questions about the stability of one of America’s major trading partners in Asia, not to mention a favored vacation spot among the jet set.
Patrick Winn, senior Southeast Asia correspondent for the Global Post, says Yingluck’s ouster is the latest of a series of moves by the Thai judicial system to remove democratically elected leaders from power. In this instance, the court ruled that Yingluck’s decision to transfer a civil servant three years ago amounted to an abuse of power. The court ordered her to step down, sacking all members of her cabinet who were in office when the transfer occurred as well, according to The New York Times.
“It’s becoming disturbingly routine,” says Winn, who is based in Bangkok. “In the past 10 years, this has happened multiple times; the voters will send someone to the PM seat, and the courts will remove them in what a lot of people call a ‘judicial coup.'”
This is the third time since 2006 a prime minister from Yingluck’s party has been forced out by the high court. The party was founded by Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra.
Winn says the most recent prime minster “comes from a political clan that is very powerful in Thailand... known for coming up against the old guard and challenging the powers that be in Bangkok.”
Her ouster leaves many questions unanswered, including the fate of her Pheu Thai Party — which is calling for elections as soon as possible in an effort to retain power — and the future of democracy in one of America’s oldest allies in the region.
“You can think of Thailand and the US as strong allies and old war buddies,” Winn says. “Thailand is considered the stable linchpin in Southeast Asia. Or at least it was. Now it appears increasingly chaotic... gripped by this battle over who gets to choose the leaders of the country.”
Winn says Thais are already discussing civil war as a potential outcome in Thailand, if the political climate can’t be stabilized.
“The protesters working to get rid of the prime minister are, of course, elated,” Winn says. “But their mission isn’t complete. They want to completely tear down the ruling party.”The ParticipACTION logo
ParticipACTION is a national non-profit organization, originally launched as a Canadian government program in the 1970s, to promote healthy living and physical fitness. It shut down due to financial cutbacks in 2001, but was revived on February 19, 2007 with a grant of $5 million from the Canadian federal government.[1][2]
ParticipACTION emerged from Sport Participation Canada, a non-profit private company formed on July 12, 1971 in response to a 1969 study commissioned by the National Advisory Council for Fitness and Amateur Sport that found that the future of Canadian health was at risk from poor physical fitness and apathy on the part of Canadians.[3] Council Chair Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien recommended that the Government of Canada provide seed money for an independent agency with public and private funding that would work to promote physical fitness.[3] Marketing consultant Keith McKerracher was appointed to lead the new organization.[3] Former Prime Minister of Canada Lester B. Pearson chaired the board from 1971 to 1972, while Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien served as president.[3] In 1972, the company was nationalized by then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to battle exorbitant health care costs. The resulting government program was renamed ParticipACTION.
ParticipACTION is well known for its television public service announcements (PSAs) and segments such as Body Break during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. A 1973 commercial, comparing the health of a 30-year-old Canadian to a 60-year-old Swede, started a national discussion on the state of physical education in Canada. The spot had its origin in juxtaposed pages of a book by Dr. Roy Shephard,[3] then the Director of the Graduate Programme in Exercise Science the University of Toronto[4]. On one page, a table of international fitness comparisons showed Swedes at the top of the ranking and Canadians significantly lower in the list; on the other side, an illustration showed that a sixty-year-old active man could be as fit as a sedentary thirty-year-old.[3] When Russ Kisby (an early hire of McKerracher) showed McKerracher the book, the separate he ideas were fused into the famous PSA.[3] The ensuing outcry of alarm and embarrassment triggered a debate in the Parliament of Canada.[3]
ParticipACTION was led by President and CEO Kelly Murumets from 2007 until 2014,[5] when Elio Antunes was named to lead the organization.[6]
Body Break [ edit ]
Body Break is a series of 90-second television programs dedicated to informing television audiences of ways to "keep fit and have fun". Funded in part by ParticipACTION for only 2 years, the programs are hosted by Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod and air regularly on Canadian television. The programs are designed to briefly introduce tips for healthy living to a television audience.
Both Hal and Joanne are accomplished athletes with backgrounds in sports medicine and nutrition. Johnson, a native of Toronto, Ontario, was an all-star baseball player while he attended the University of Colorado on athletic scholarship, and was among his team leaders in the Big 8 conference in home runs, RBIs, and batting average. He finished his business degree. Formerly an expert golfer, he now plays golf at a recreational level. Joanne was a 4-time Canadian hurdle champion who competed in the Commonwealth Games.[7]
In 1992, a Body Break fitness video was released through Quality Music & Video. It was a smash, selling about 30,000 copies.
The two hosts of Body Break married in 1999, having kept their relationship secret from the public for several years.[8]
The couple participated in the first Amazing Race Canada, being eliminated in the fifth leg.
The couple returned to their BodyBreak roles in 2017 to promote the Netflix original show Santa Clarita Diet in a faux infomercial.[9]
See also [ edit ]
Lack of physical educationIlie Nastase earned his 'Nasty' nickname long before his Fed Cup tirade
Updated
As someone who claims to have slept with anywhere from 800 to 2,500 women, it should have come as no surprise when Ilie 'Nasty' Nastase asked for the room number of British Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong.
The Romanian sex symbol from the 1970s and 80s is probably more synonymous with the word sleazy these days and his outbursts during and before the tie between Romania and Great Britain are far from out of character.
He is known just about as much for his ego and womanising as he is for his tennis.
Ilie Nastase the tennis player Top ranking: 1 (1973-74)
1 (1973-74) Major singles titles: 2 ('72 US, '73 French)
2 ('72 US, '73 French) Major doubles titles: 3 ('70 French, '73 Wimbledon, '75 US)
3 ('70 French, '73 Wimbledon, '75 US) Major mixed titles: 2 ('70 and '72 Wimbledon)
2 ('70 and '72 Wimbledon) Major singles finalist: 3 ('71 French, '72 Wimbledon, '76 Wimbledon)
It is perhaps unfair considering he won the 1972 US Open and the French Open in 1973, reaching two Wimbledon finals (1972, 1976) and finishing as French Open runner-up in 1971.
Because of his exceptional skill, he is thought to have not won as many titles as he could have, had he been more stable.
Off the court, more has come out about Nastase's activities since he retired and the media landscape changed, but the sleaze was always there as Pam Shriver revealed in the wake of his most recent incident.
The former world number three told BBC this week Nastase would regularly ask her if she was a virgin when she first came on the tour as a teenager.
"Whenever I saw him at any tournament he would ask me the same question," she told BBC Radio.
"This man has not been respectful of women for a long, long time."
Case in point, Nastase once thought a serve by Australian star John Newcombe was long during a doubles match, but the linesman disagreed.
Nastase asked the chair umpire if he had the guts to overrule the man on the line.
"Can you overrule your wife? Doesn't look like it, huh?" he lamely joked.
'Call me Mr Nastase'
During his playing days he appeared to toe the line between bad guy and entertaining character.
He was actually the first world number one when the ATP introduced its rankings system, which came just months after he had defied a player strike to compete at Wimbledon in 1973.
The previous year's finalist was eventually fined $5,000 by the ATP and is still not a member of the All England Club as a result, which he sees as an injustice.
"You have to win Wimbledon to become a member, but there are sometimes exceptions. They made other finalists members but not me. I played in 1973 and then I was shafted by the All England Club," he told the Independent in 2003.
"I might get a chance one day if I see one of those old guys at Wimbledon and push him down the stairs. Then there might be room for me."
At the 1977 edition of Wimbledon, perhaps frustrated with his inability to win tennis' most prized trophy, the Romanian flared up at officials in consecutive matches.
First he held up a fourth-round clash with Andrew Pattison for 10 minutes while waiting for the match referee. Then, in the quarter-finals against Bjorn Borg the umpire dared to refer to him as "Nastase" when he refused to get ready to return a serve.
"Don't call me Nastase. You call me Mr Nastase," he told umpire Jeremy Shales.
"I'm reporting you to the referee. You call me Mister."
A bigger brat than McEnroe
Perhaps the best illustration of Nastase's volatility is the fact that he once outdid John McEnroe.
Coming to the end of his career, Nastase had a match-up with the up-and-coming super brat who, although he was not yet at the peak of his playing powers, was the superior player.
As a result, Nastase turned the match into "the circus of all circus'", according to McEnroe.
"Nasty was going to do absolutely everything he could to get under my skin and make it not a tennis match," he said.
"It was just going to be some crazed event."
Flicking off the let-chord judge's hat, refusing to leave his seat when the chair umpire called time, constant complaints, it truly was a debacle.
Eventually, after repeated warnings, point penalties, game penalties and code violations, veteran umpire Frank Hammond had to award the match to McEnroe while the American was leading the fourth set 3-1.
The crowd had hoped for an old-versus-new showdown between two of the game's most enigmatic characters and almost rioted when they did not get what they wanted.
Beer cans and other projectiles were hurled from the stands and the police were called onto the court.
Eventually the match referee took the extraordinary step of overruling and replacing the umpire himself.
A 19-year-old McEnroe eventually won the match in four sets anyway and went on to score his first major singles title.
Nastase once tried to draw a distinction between his on-court antics and those of someone like McEnroe.
"I did it, usually, with a smile on my face," he said.
But no-one was smiling on the weekend as his sexism and temper got the best of him and brought the Fed Cup to a halt.
One wonders if he has kept on grinning after he was suspended from all events by the ITF, the same organisation that made him a hall of famer in 1991.
Topics: tennis, sport, romania
First postedA Miami-Dade County, Fla. resident on Tuesday threatened to shoot county officials if they took his house, according to the Miami Herald.
“My constitution gives me the right to shoot every one of you,” Jose Fernandez said during a county commission meeting. “Shoot ’em!”
Two sergeants-at-arms then removed Fernandez from the meeting and arrested him.
The Miami-Dade Police Department charged him with 13 felonies and a misdemeanor. He was charged with threatening to harm public servants — 12 county commissioners and Mayor Carlos Gimenez.
Fernandez was the first public speaker at the Tuesday meeting. He arrived in an anti-Agenda 21 tee-shirt. Agenda 21 is a United Nations action plan to encourage cities to promote sustainable development. It has developed into a conspiracy theory that the UN is trying to confiscate homes and collectivize land.
According to the Herald, a judge ruled in 2011 that the home Fernandez claimed as his address at the meeting owed the county $316,000 in restitution. The house will be sold in a foreclosure auction this month.
Fernandez lives in a rural part of Miami-Dade that has been fighting the state’s environmental agency over wetlands violations, according to the Herald.
“You confiscated my land already,” Fernandez said at the meeting. “Now you want my house.”
“I came here to tell you in public, if you sell my house, then bleep is going to hit the fan,” he continued.
He then accused the county commission of being corrupt before threatening to shoot them.
“I dare you to sell my house. You have become tyrants. You have become a corrupted government. You have destroyed my family. And hundreds of families,” he said.
Watch the video via the Miami Herald:SALT LAKE CITY — Snow this week did nothing to help with the abnormally dry conditions that continue to grip the state.
The Farm Bureau is inviting everyone around the nation, including Utah, to a Harvesting Faith event Sunday. The group wants everyone to join in prayer and fasting to ask for moisture for livestock and crops — and when it comes, to give thanks.
“We all believe in a greater good and in a higher being,” said Leland Hogan, president of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation. “Through that belief, we feel that there can be intervention into what we have, that if we can show forth faith, and through faith and through prayer we can bring about a better situation, and that we could have more moisture than what we have today.”
The federation is the state's largest volunteer organization of farmers and ranchers. More than 29,000 member families in all of Utah's 29 counties belong to county Farm Bureaus, which comprise the federation.
We all believe in a greater good and in a higher being. –Leland Hogan, president of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation
While snow remains on the ground and in the mountains of northern Utah in many places, the U.S. Drought Monitor indicates the state remains in severe drought, drought or abnormally dry conditions.
The drought impacts ranchers in two ways, Hogan said.
“The first way it hits you is in your crop production, where your ability to feed the cattle that you own," Hogan said. "And when it begins to lessen the amount of feed you have available, that begins to affect the second part.
“You can't have as many cattle because you haven't got as much feed. You shorten the amount of feed you’ve got. You have to get rid of cattle, which decreases your overall income and puts you in a much more vulnerable position economically to survive throughout the rest of the drought.”
"We can't go to the Legislature to ask for help, (so) we decided to go to the Guy upstairs," said Ron Gibson, a dairy farmer in Weber County.
Gibson plans to join in the fast Sunday at his church.
Satellite images show how low the snowpack over the western United States is compared to last year.
"One thing you learn as a farmer is most of the things that happen in your life are totally out of your control," he said. "I personally know where that source is, and so I don't feel awkward at all about having a day of fasting and prayer."
Utah isn’t the only state dealing with drought. Early indications are the western part of the West is expected to be very dry, according to the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service's National Water and Climate Center.
Farmers and ranchers are the first to feel the impact of the drought because of what they do for a living. While the state is in dire need for moisture, Hogan said, the agricultural community remains optimistic.
“We always think that there's a silver lining in the clouds somewhere, and we look for the bright spots,” he said. “We will survive through the drought. We will be able to produce through the cycle and beyond.”
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Related StoriesMackinaw Trail Winery, partnering with Michigan By The Bottle, is excited to bring you Michigan’s very first crowd sourced wine!
Each week a new question will be asked which dictates the direction our crowd-sourced Riesling will be going. YOU the consumer will get to choose how your Riesling is made! Choose one answer each week to help curate the wine. Decisions which may slightly increase the end bottle cost of the wine will be indicated with a ‘$’ sign.
MTW Crowdsourced Riesling Press Release
MTW live on WXYZ Detroit
See the results from each week or take the current weeks survey below:
Week 1 8/24-8/29: Hand Picked vs Machine Picked Closed
Week 1 Results
Hand picked ($): 64%
Week 2 8/31-9/5: What style (sweetness) should this Riesling be? Closed
Week 2 Results
Medium Dry: 40.83%
Week 3 9/7/15-9/12/15: Which strain of yeast should be used? Closed
Week 3 Results
Vin13, Cross Evolution, 58w3: All within |
debt is good debt for the company. Still, $800M is quite a bit to borrow for originals. In some ways, this increase in original content has been a boon to Netflix users worldwide. It has given us shows as varied as Luke Cage and The Ranch, and it has provided a platform to bring back originals like Arrested Development and Longmire. In other ways, however, it has contributed to a decline in popular content on the streaming service. In November, Netflix is losing Chuck and a slew of other popular TV programs and movies. At the same time, fewer big TV shows and films have been added to the streaming service. Some big programs that have left Netflix have found homes elsewhere. Doctor Who hopped from Netflix to Amazon Prime last spring, so it wasn't a huge disaster when that series left Netflix. Still, for users who prefer Netflix to catch up on shows that originally aired elsewhere, the downward trend in non-original content has not been a boon for the service. The good news is that if you do like a lot of Netflix's originals, the company does not look to be slowing down anytime soon. There are a slew of new programs headed to Netflix in the coming months, and the streaming service has even announced some 2017 programs already. You can take a look at those here. Velvet Buzzsaw Ending: What Happens and What It Means Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topfroopinghiddles answered:
Shiro pressed a soft, final kiss to Allura’s cheek, and he smiled at the way she scrunched up her nose before falling back to sleep. The missions and duties of Voltron aside, these late night rendezvous were exhausting for the both of them; as much as he wished he could, however, Shiro couldn’t sleep in the princess’ chambers – not when he knew that her loyal advisor would arrive at the crack of the day cycle to wake her. With the assistance of the dimmed lights and a few helpful squeaks from the mice, he padded his way over to the doors and slipped silently into the hall.
As the door slid closed with a hydraulic hiss, Shiro allowed himself a moment to press his forehead against the metal and heave a weary sigh.
“Uhhhhh…”
Shiro whipped around at the voice, shocked to find himself not as alone as he had assumed. A wide-eyed Lance stood slack-jawed, his finger pointing accusingly at Shiro’s chest. “What are you doing awake at this hour?” Shiro asked, internally begging that he came off as stern and commanding instead of panicky and oh my god what did he see.
“Is that Allura’s room?!” Lance squeaked. Shiro shushed him quickly, eyes darting to the door they were both parked outside. “That’s Allura’s room!” Lance whisper-yelled. “What were you doing in Allura’s room?!”
“Why are you out here?” Shiro returned, finally getting a good look at the teenager in the low light. “Is that Keith’s shirt?”
“Is that a hickey?!”
Shiro slapped a hand quickly over the telltale mark with a scandalized gasp. “Go to your room!” He hissed, knowing his face was turning the same shade as a tomato.
“You’re not my-”
“At the moment, yes, I am your dad, now go to your room this instant!” Shiro managed between clenched teeth. Lance huffed and spun on his heel, scurrying down the corridor without a backwards glance. Shiro slumped against the wall with a groan.
Breakfast was going to be miserable.Mourners react during a packed overflow service at Clayton Baptist Church Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, in Clayton, N.J., as the small town tries to begin healing after missing 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale was found dead. Her body was found around 10 p.m. Monday, just blocks away from her house. Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean Dalton said two teenage brothers were charged Tuesday with murdering Pasquale, who had been missing since the weekend, prompting a frantic search by her small hometown. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
CLAYTON, N.J. (AP) — A teenage boy lured a 12-year-old girl into his house under the guise of getting parts for her treasured bicycle and then, with his older brother, killed her, police said Tuesday. The girl's disappearance had sparked a frantic search by residents of her small town until a tip from the boys' mother led police to her body, stuffed into a home recycling bin.
The boys, ages 15 and 17, were charged with murdering Autumn Pasquale, who disappeared while riding her BMX bike Saturday, a little more than a week before what would have been her 13th birthday. She appeared to have been strangled, Gloucester County prosecutor Sean Dalton said at a late-day news conference.
The boys' mother had come forward with information about a posting on a son's Facebook account, Dalton said. He wouldn't say what was on the website or discuss a possible motive for the killing, but said there was no sign of sexual assault.
Autumn was lured to the house, where they apparently lived with their mother and stepfather, for the purpose of getting parts for her treasured BMX bike, which she rode frequently and talked about on her Facebook pages.
Both brothers were charged with counts including first-degree murder, body disposal and tampering with evidence. The 15-year-old was also charged with luring.
The boys' names were not released because they are juveniles, but Dalton said his office is considering trying to have the case transferred to adult court. The boys turned themselves in with their attorneys, public defenders, but it could not be immediately determined who they are. The boys are expected in court for detention hearings Friday.
The girl's body was found around 10 p.m. Monday in a recycling bin on a vacant property next to the home where the boys live, police said. The suspects had attended a community vigil for her shortly before the discovery, several residents said.
Autumn's BMX bike and other belongings were recovered from the boys' home, the prosecutor said. He did not detail all the items, but a backpack matching a description of the girl's was also seen being taken out.
One of the three teenage brothers who friends said live at the house traded BMX bike parts, according to a according to a young man, Corey Hewes, 19, who said he was among those who traded with him.
Neighbors also said the house was a place where teens frequently hung out and had parties.
The home is just blocks from Autumn's house and from the town hall, where thousands of people gathered for the tearful candlelight vigil to pray for her safe return in this town of 8,000 about 25 miles south of Philadelphia.
"The search for Autumn is over," Dalton said Tuesday morning in the first of two news conferences, at which he was asked to assure residents they were safe with an apparent child-killer on the loose.
The girl's great-uncle, Paul Spadofora, thanked the community for its help in the search.
"There's evil everywhere, even in the small town of Clayton," Spadofora said.
Tuesday was trash collection day, and many residents had dragged their trash cans and recycling bins to the curb the night before. The covered recycling bins are collected by an automated truck that picks them up and dumps the contents into the back.
Police barricaded the block Tuesday morning, and friends and neighbors came by. Some mothers said they were keeping their kids out of school for the day. Even before the body was found, students reported that Spirit Week had been canceled because of the sorrow.
One young man rode a bike up, sat on a porch of a home and cried, then biked away.
Clayton Mayor Thomas Bianco walked to the scene, cried, hugged a police officer and gave a brief statement to the gathered reporters.
"You hear about it in other places but never think it would happen in our little town," he said.
Autumn was last seen around 12:30 p.m. Saturday pedaling her bike away from the home where she lives with her father, her two siblings, her father's girlfriend and the girlfriend's children, authorities said.
Relatives said they believed she was heading to see a friend, and they became worried only after she did not return by her 8 p.m. curfew.
Sunday morning, her disappearance became not only a crisis but a town-wide cause in Clayton. Volunteers by the hundred joined the search, scouring malls, nearby towns and passing out fliers.Um. Wow. Despite being kinda glad about restricting low IQ people from procreating, this is a horrible precedent. So now courts can dictate who has sex or who doesn’t based on the medium intelligence level? I hate the slippery slope mindset but who’s to say it will stop there? Stopping previously convicted criminals from having sex? Etc, etc. Also, it kinda pains me to read that article because it makes me hate the media and our society in general - is nothing private anymore? Everytime something “interesting” happens it has to make the news?
And how are they supposed to enforce that sort of thing?
And that teacher that slept with five students is not hot. Seriously, I don’t care what anybody says I was nowhere near horny enough in HS to want to bone chicks like this. This is just sad.As many as a third of obese adults are considered metabolically healthy, meaning they have normal cholesterol and blood pressure levels and show no signs of developing diabetes. Still, they're considered a medical mystery, but new research has shed some light on why some people can be healthy at any size, while others cannot.
It has to do with fat cells, according to a new study in the journal of Diabetologia. Compared to obese people who are healthy, those who are metabolically unhealthy have "impaired mitochondria" and a "reduced ability to generate new fat cells."
What researchers found was that in a healthy obese person, new cells are generated to help store fat as it accumulates, whereas the cells of an unhealthy obese person "swell to their breaking point," making their fat cells larger than any other group.
They were swollen and riddled with inflammation. The breakdown and mobilization of their fat stores was suppressed, and a closer look showed that their mitochondria were malfunctioning. Their ability to burn fuel and produce adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the body’s energy currency, was reduced.
It leads to ectopic fat accumulation, meaning that fat gets into organs like the heart and liver. (A fatty liver is linked to Type 2 diabetes.)
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However, for a healthy obese person, the fat doesn't travel throughout the body, and remains just beneath the skin, where it doesn't seem to cause any physical harm.
A study that appeared in the journal Diabetes Care in August found that metabolically healthy obesity is more frequently found in younger adults, but it may be a transition state, and that "some, if not many, people in this category will eventually develop the expected metabolic disturbances."
Dr. Jussi Naukkarinen, the lead researcher in the fat cell study, said that anti-inflammatory drugs have been shown to "protect mitochondrial function and improve diabetic symptoms and glucose metabolism." He also suggests that high glycemic foods (like sugar and white flour) play a role in spiking blood glucose and insulin levels.
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But ultimately, he believes that studying healthy obese people will help those that are unhealthy.
"People haven’t really paid that much attention to metabolically healthy obesity, but I think it can teach us a lot about usual obesity,” he said. “It’s only recently that people studying depression have done happiness studies showing what goes right, and I’m thinking about the metabolically healthy obese phenomenon in the same way.”
Image via xrender/Shutterstock
The ‘Healthy Obese’ and Their Healthy Fat Cells [NYT]President George W. Bush pauses while speaking in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington March 17, 2008. REUTERS/Larry Downing
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged on Monday that the economy is going through “challenging times” and said he supported actions taken by the Federal Reserve to restore order to roiled financial markets.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with top economic advisers, Bush said his message to the country and the world is that “the United States is on top of the situation.”
“We’re in challenging times,” Bush said after the Fed on Sunday announced emergency measures to stem a fast-spreading global financial crisis.
“We’ve taken strong and decisive action,” Bush added.
“The Federal Reserve has moved quickly to bring order to the financial market. Secretary Paulson is supportive of that action as am I,” he said.
The Federal Reserve on Sunday lowered the discount rate it charges on direct loans to banks and announced a new lending program to provide credit to other big Wall Street firms, the latest in a series of moves to try to stabilize financial markets.
The Fed also agreed to fund up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns’ less liquid assets as part of JP Morgan’s proposed acquisition of the troubled investment banking firm.
“Our financial institutions are strong and... our capital markets are functioning efficiently and effectively,” Bush said. “We obviously will continue to monitor the situation and when need be we’ll act decisively in a way that continues to bring order to the financial markets.”
“In the long run our economy’s going to be fine. Right now we’re dealing with a difficult situation.”After a handful of natural disasters caused damage and devastation around the globe these past few months, Sony decided to ease some PlayStation players' woes.
In a thoughtful gesture from Sony, a bunch of PlayStation 4 owners in areas affected by recent natural disasters received a free, one-month extension on their PlayStation Plus online memberships.
Reddit users in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Florida have reported receiving free extensions of PlayStation Plus today.
SEE ALSO: Walmart has deals on PS4 and Xbox One consoles this Black Friday
Reddit user Bbat24 shared a screenshot of the email they received from Sony, which reads: "We recognize many members of the PlayStation community have been affected by recent natural disasters. We have extended your PlayStation Plus membership by [one month]."
Under another Reddit post about Sony's thoughtful gesture, a handful of commenters corroborated that they also received one-month extensions on their subscriptions.
Many of the areas affected are still recovering and rebuilding, and for some people a free month of PS Plus may be a great way to relax and have fun.
Some lucky PS4 owners received PS Plus gifts from Sony even though they claim they don't live near any place that experienced one of the handful of hurricanes or earthquakes that caused unthinkable damage this year.
Some Redditors that say they live in affected areas did not receive PS Plus extensions, so it's not quite certain how Sony determined who to give the gifts to.
Sony has not responded to our request for comment.Four potential options for interpreting this image (via Reddit, via djacobs). (You may want to click and view it in a larger size.)
A real woman was in real labor in her real car and pulled over in front of this real house on this real street and gave birth to a real baby which was held up just as the real Google Street View car came by and snapped this photo. Real people knew the street view cameras were making their way through this real neighborhood, and they staged this event, and raised up a real doll up from the real sidewalk just as the Google Street View car came by and snapped this photo. A real woman was in real labor in her real car and pulled over in front of this real house on this real street and gave birth to a real baby which was held up just as someone across the street snapped this photo. Then someone used a real copy of Photoshop (or something similar) to add details that simulate the effect of this photo being snapped by a Google Street View camera. Real people staged a birth on a real street, and help up the real doll just as someone across the street snapped this photo. Then someone used a real copy of Photoshop to add details that simulate the effect of this photo being snapped by a Google Street View camera.
If you plotted the real / fake options on a 2x2, it'd look something like this.
Each of those quadrants is impressive on its own merits. Starting in the upper right and working clockwise...
Real baby / real Google: wow, what a coincidence. Fake baby / real Google: wow, nice stunt. Involved not an insignificant amount of planning...least of which is understanding just when that street view car would come by. Fake baby / fake Google: wow, nice stunt. Involves getting people out on the street, staging the scene, snapping the photo, doing the right Photoshop work, and seeding it in the right communities where it finds its way to, you know, bloggers. Real baby / fake Google: wow, creepy. Amazingly, impressively creepy that (a) someone would grab this shot and then (b) do the right Photoshop work, seed it in the right communities, etc.
I honestly don't care which quadrant this item actually lives in. Because even if this is a faked baby with a faked Google street view, it's still real.Francesca Washtell
The pound slumped more than one per cent to a three-month low this evening, on fresh concerns the government is preparing to pursue a hard Brexit.
As market trading resumed in Australia and New Zealand, sterling fell by as much as 1.6 per cent to $1.1983, taking it below $1.20 for the first time since the October flash crash.
The pound's fall has come off the back of reports in Sunday newspapers that later this week Prime Minister Theresa May will say the UK is prepared to leave the Single Market, customs union and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
The speech, on Tuesday, will set the course for the UK's exit from the European Union.
Read more: Sterling's post-referendum collapse didn't provoke a foreign takeover rush
"The FX market has spoken, and, as of Sunday night, it is not confident that Theresa May can deliver the necessary clarity and confidence when she lays out her Brexit plans in a speech on Tuesday," said Kathleen Brooks research director at City Index Direct.
"GBP/USD fell below the key psychological level of $1.20 at the start of play, suggesting that Theresa “pound slayer” May, could strike once again and we may see further declines in sterling this week."
From Deutsche. In short: tin hats on. pic.twitter.com/rWRdysoTgw — Katie Martin (@katie_martin_fx) January 15, 2017
In October, sterling was rocked by an overnight freak flash crash in which the currency dropped six per cent against the dollar in a matter of minutes.
In June, the pound fell to a (then) 31-year low against the dollar in the days following the surprise, pro-Brexit result of the EU referendum.Turn on the news, read the newspaper or talk to a friend. There is no avoiding talk of financial trouble these days. It can get kind of overwhelming. Many are wondering how they are going to pay their bills. Times can be especially stressful for those trying to find work. How can we manage financial stress in these uncertain times?
Control What You Can
Financial Stress can be especially difficult as it can seem that nothing is in your control. Sure you can’t make your employer give you more hours or fix the economic troubles that surround us. However, you can control some things. You control over how you use your money. You can pay your bills on time to reduce late fees. You can choose not to use credit cards for everyday purchases. Choosing to control your finances puts you in a position of control. This will lead to reduced stress.
Organize Your Life
Think for a minute about your bills. Where do you keep them? Many people simply have stacks of unorganized bills and financial papers. This can also increase your stress levels. It can be difficult to know how much money you have, what you owe and what you have spent. Take a few hours and organize your finances. Knowing where everything is will do wonders with helping you control your stress.
Don’t React
Stress can cause many different reactions in people. Some shut down when they feel overwhelmed. This can lead to missed work and lower wages. Others choose to shop their stress away. This leads to high credit card bills and financial trouble. When you notice that financial stress is leading you to destructive behavior stop it. Make yourself choose to pull through the stress rather than letting it destroy you.
Enjoy Simple Pleasures
Times are tough. From the look of things, this isn’t going to change any time soon. Find ways to enjoy simple and inexpensive pleasures. This can be very relaxing. Throw a movie night. Go for a walk. Play with the dog. Watch a sunset. Make a great dinner. The options are endless. Take time out of your day to de-stress and do the things that you love. Learning to enjoy life in spite of financial difficulties will help you to weather these difficult times.
How do you make sure to not get stressed out about money?
photo credit: rappensuncleIn the first Albion Armory Spotlight of 2017 we take a closer look at the build that won the Battle Royale Tournament earlier this year. Prepare to get confused!
February 14, 2017 at 5:15 PM by UrzakeFrostgard
What could be better to restart the Albion Armory series but a build that won a tournament? I thought the same, and after FDPS was crowned as the winner of the Battle Royale final, I met up with him and we talked about the build that made him the winner.
Trickster’s Origin
“This build came up my mind exclusively for the Battle Royale Tournament,” FDPS starts. “As one of the underdogs in the tournament, I figured out that the only way to succeed would be to go in with a strategic approach. Playing for the points I realized that on some stages vanishing from the battlefield would be the best option and this is where the Trickster build takes action. After the tournament, I tweaked the build to fit into the daily routine of Albion Online.”
Trickster - Overview
“The Trickster build is completely focused on avoiding the direct conflict with an enemy and to buy time for you allies to either arrive at the scene or flee into the woods.” - FDPS
Every skill in this build is picked to confuse your enemies. To improve upon its effectiveness the build utilized a high damage burst combo, creating additional pressure and panic in your opponents’ minds.
Given the high specialization level of this build the skill cap is fairly high and once engaged in combat your sustained damage, as well as your personal defensive capabilities, are quite low compared to bruiser builds. It is important keep in mind that your core skills have a high cooldown; you are done for if you cannot properly execute your combos.
Equipment: Weapons
To avoid as much conflict as possible in addition to being able to burst as often as possible, the Trickster build utilizes stealth and displacement in combination with cooldown reduction.
Main hand: Bloodletter
First Spell: Sunder Armor
An attack dealing Physical Damage and reducing the target's Armor and Magic Resist by -15 for eight seconds. (Stacks up to three times)
Second Spell: Infiltration
Set a destination that you will jump to after a short delay, releasing a smoke bomb at your destination. The bomb deals damage, and puts any enemy target in the area to sleep.
Third Spell: Lunging Stabs
Dashes to a ground target location, dealing Physical Damage to any enemy in the way. The damage amount depends on each enemy's remaining health. The damage is higher if the target's health is below 40%.
Passive: Life Leech
Every normal attack, your restore health.
The Bloodletter combines mobility with a high burst/execution skill. Even while Lunging Stabs (your burst spell) is on cooldown, Sunder Armor can be used to keep up the pressure on your enemies by reducing their Armor and Magic Resistance in preparation for your next Lunging Stabs to hurt even more.
Infiltration allows you to quickly position yourself out of combat. As this skill has a small delay, it allows for perfect baiting by using your Lunging Stabs into a totally different direction than anticipated. Another way to utilize Infiltration is by targeting your enemies for the sleep effect, interrupting their actions and making them vulnerable to your allies’ attacks or giving your allies time to flee or reorganize.
While your burst damage is high, the sustained damage of Sunder Armor is mediocre and you will catch yourself quite often waiting for your Lunging Stabs to be ready again. To give you those crucial extra seconds alive, the passive spell Life Leech should be picked to keep your health up when you are alone or when your healer is occupied.
Off-hand: Mistcaller
Mistcaller’s single purpose is to further reduce your cooldowns as much as possible. Changing to a Shield or a Torch would also be an option but lower cooldowns mean less time visible and a shorter timeframe before your next burst.
Equipment: Armor
As all your skills but Sunder Armor have a high cooldown, your mobility once engaged is completely based on your movement speed. Due to that, all your armor pieces will use the passive spell Increased Move Speed to ensure at least a minimum amount of mobility.
Assassin Hood: Meditation
While channeling, all spells on cooldown will recover much faster. It can shorten cooldown times by up to ten seconds.
As the build focuses as much on as much cooldown reduction as possible, Meditation is the obvious choice. This handy two second channel can either be used to shorten the time for your stealth, burst and crowd control.
Assassin Jacket: Ambush
Turn invisible for maximum eight seconds. Your first attack out of invisibility will have increased damage, the longer you stay invisible, the higher the damage buff (up to 60%). Attacking or casting or moving too far away from the activation spot breaks the invisibility.
Ambush can be used in a lot of different situations. Offensively it will greatly increase the damage dealt by Lunging Stabs and used on a target below 40% often ensures a quick kill. The combined burst could also be used to panic your enemies’ healer. Jumping on them from out of nowhere will pull their attention away from their team and allow your team to go for another target.
Ambush can also be used defensively, especially if you have a damage over time effect ticking on you. Unlike your boot’s Invisibility spell, it cannot be broken by being damaged, meaning you can safely relocate and wait for the damage over time to wear off before going into Invisibility.
Mercenary Shoes: Invisibility
You stay invisible as long as you keep channeling, for up to 30 seconds. While you are invisible, your move speed keeps increasing by 5% per second (stacks up to ten times). You keep the movement increase for five seconds after you leave invisibility.
While the cooldown of Invisibility is fairly high and it also blocks your sprinting ability, it is vital in the Trickster build. This skill allows you to vanish from your opponents eyes for up to 30 seconds. This time can be used waiting on your cooldowns, your allies, the passing by of your opponents or the scouting of the same. Combining this skill with Ambush or Infiltration will cause a lot of confusion in your enemies’ heads and helps you perfectly position yourself for your next move.
(Alternative) Mage Sandals: Delayed Teleport
Choose a ground target within 15 meter. One second after activation, you will be teleported to the desired position.
Depending on the size of your opponent’s group, swapping your Mercenary Shoes for Mage Sandals will increase the range of your poke and bait combos. This allows for another option in your (dis)engaging playstyle.
Food: Omelette
Going for as much cooldown reduction as possible the Omelette is the only option for the Trickster build as it will decrease your cooldowns close to 20% allowing all your abilities to be used a lot more often.
Tips, Tricks, and Combos
While there are builds that deal more damage, have more crowd control or bring more direct utility into a fight, the Trickster is excels at playing tricks on your opponents’ minds. Your skill set allows you to quickly switch from defensive into offensive plays and vice versa.
The bread and butter of the Trickster is the combination of Infiltration and Lunging Stabs, both offensively and defensively. If you use Infiltration right before Lunging Stabs you will be ported to the Infiltration position right after Lunging Stabs animation ends, allowing you to go for risky engages or for defensive and confusing maneuvers around your enemy.
Here is an example of Infiltration and Lunging Stabs used defensively:
For your basic offensive combo, you have two options. Either directly engage your enemies from Ambush via Lunging Stabs and then disengage with Infiltration into Invisibility without being hit once, or go in with Lunging Stabs and only utilize your Ambush in case something goes wrong.
This combo can be used for a lot of different purposes in a lot of situations. For example: you could engage onto your enemies’ healer, causing them to lose their focus and allowing your teammates to go for an easy kill. Alternatively, you could bait your enemies’ skills by directly jumping into them and then vanishing into thin air.
Doing this once or twice will increase your opponents’ awareness and they will keep their eyes open looking for you. This is the moment they will drop their guard somewhere else, creating the perfect opportunity for your allies to go for a full engage. Furthermore, while in combat they will always have to watch their back for you to come back in, finishing them once they drop low on health.
If you are facing over ten enemies, adding more area of effect attacks to their disposal, you should consider swapping your Mercenary Shoes with Mage Sandals. While this will remove your Invisibility, your mobility will greatly increase, enabling long range combos. This can be extremely efficient in case you and your team are in a deadlock with your enemies. If used correctly you will get out of the engage unharmed while your enemies have a few of their cooldowns wasted allowing your team to gain the upper hand in the following clash.
Here is an example of long range baiting:
Another option for your Infiltration skill is to hard crowd control (sleep) your enemies, however, this needs some training with the delay of ability to be effective. You will need to predict your enemy’s movement but if you hit multiple opponents you will buy yourself or your team a lot of time.
What is your opinion about FDPS’ Trickster build? Have you ever played a similar build or even faced this build in combat before? Let us know in the comments below on our forums!
Want your build to be featured on the Albion Online website? Contact UrzakeFrostgard via the forums or on Discord (UrzaKeFrostgard#5431).It’s a bit ironic; the people making Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ hats are mostly immigrants — people who don’t fit into Trump’s vision for America.
For any other candidate this would be a non-issue. But for Trump, who has constantly lamented immigration and cheap labor as sources of economic hardship for Americans, it is yet another example of how he fails to walk the walk. We all know that Trump’s suits and ties are made in Mexico and China, but that pales in comparison to having immigrants sew the hats of an anti-immigrant candidate.
LA Times reports:
Yolanda Melendrez is one of them. Melendrez, an immigrant from Mexico who was brought to the United States by her parents when she was a baby, has worked at the Carson-based Cali-Fame headwear company since 1991. “When we first got the order [for the Trump hats], I said to myself, ‘Just wait until he sees who’s making his hats. We’re Latinos, we’re Mexicans, Salvadoreños.’” Melendrez, 44, started out as a machine operator, stitching the seams of baseball caps. She now works as a lead on the floor, roaming as she checks on the flow of work, supervising other sewing machine operators and embroiders. She became a citizen when she was 20; her parents are permanent residents. Melendrez was 14 when she had her first child, and the job has helped her pay rent and put food on the table for her kids, she says… …The company employs about 100 people in a 30,000-square-foot warehouse. About 80% of the company’s workforce is Latino, Kennedy estimates. He says that every worker has his or her immigration status verified.This week almost 50 million Americans will take planes, trains, automobiles (and even boats) to travel miles from home for Thanksgiving festivities according to AAA. The auto club sees more than a million extra travelers leaving home this year between now and the end of the month.
Thanksgiving is traditionally of as a time for turkey and dinner with family, but given these statistics perhaps it ought to be thought of as a time for travel. After all, the first Thanksgiving was really about travel as well with Europeans having just finished the perilous journey across thousands of miles of ocean in wooden boats.
So echoing far too many Charlie Brown holiday specials, what is the true meaning of Thanksgiving – turkey or travel? Well, setting aside the philosophy we can answer that question based on cash spent by families around the holiday. Do families spend more on turkey or gasoline for the holiday?
Let’s start with the gasoline. Assuming AAA’s figures are right and that roughly 49 million Americans will take to the roads this year, and households travel together, that implies about 12.5 million families are going to travel (2 parents plus around 1.9 children per household). About 90% of these trips are by car, with 3% going by train, boat, etc. and 7% traveling by air.
If the average trip by car is 400 miles total (about 3-4 hours each way), then that implies five billion miles of road traveled. The average age of a car is now almost 12 years old, so assuming the average car gets 18 miles per gallon on the trip, that means about 278 million gallons of gasoline used. With gas prices averaging $2.13 per gallon, that means $592 million in gas expenses. Related: Near Record Low Gas Prices This Thanksgiving
Boats and planes use considerably more gasoline (albeit in alternative fuel forms), especially since these tend to be longer trips as well. With that said, assuming the 6 million individuals traveling that way all use 500 miles each way of fuel, that suggests 6 billion miles traveled. Using a simple 10 miles per gallon of gas equivalent fuel economy, means 600 million gallons of gasoline equivalent. This would actually add an additional $1.3 billion in fuel expenses to our total. Again though, this half is a rougher calculation.
On the turkey side, the U.S. eats an estimated 50 million turkeys on Thanksgiving based on historical data and population growth rates. Some sources report that the average American eats 16 pounds of turkey – that’s a mindboggling number which doesn’t fit with the rest of the data, but perhaps each American family eats that much. The average 16 pound turkey probably costs about $24 this year given inflation. That means Americans spend about $1.2B on turkeys for Thanksgiving – 50 million turkeys at $24 each.
Overall, if we just count true gasoline versus turkeys, the turkeys come out on top. Adding in jet fuel and ship fuel, fuel comes out ahead. Of course, if we are counting related fuels, perhaps we should count related foods as well. Perhaps the turkey table has a stronger argument overall then, but both turkeys and gas are important components in a true American Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving!
By Michael McDonald for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:PAYSON, Utah — A man was taken to a hospital and faces several charges after police say he crashed into a home while driving under the influence.
Sgt. Spencer Cannon of the Utah County Sheriff’s Office said they received report of the crash around 8:30 a.m. Sunday.
The driver of the vehicle struck a home near 12700 South Springlake Road in Payson.
Cannon said the man appears to have been “on a cornucopia of illegal drugs” and will face charges for DUI and other traffic offenses.
The driver broke multiple ribs and was taken to a nearby hospital before being transported to Utah Valley Hospital for further treatment.
The car sustained significant damage in the crash, and police believe it was traveling at a speed of around 50 mph when the driver left the road.1996 studio album by A Tribe Called Quest
Beats, Rhymes and Life is the fourth studio album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Released on July 30, 1996, by Jive Records, it followed three years after the highly regarded and successful Midnight Marauders. Produced by The Ummah, the album is a departure from the joyful, positive vibe of the group's earlier albums and is regarded as their darkest album in content. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on October 27, 1998.
Background [ edit ]
In September 1993, shortly after the recording of Midnight Marauders had concluded, Phife Dawg moved to Atlanta.[1][2] Along with Q-Tip's conversion to Islam the following year, the addition of Jay Dee to the group's new production team, The Ummah, and the enlistment of guest rapper Consequence, Q-Tip's cousin, the group dynamic changed drastically.[2][3][4] Phife Dawg later stated that "the chemistry was dead, shot", while Q-Tip felt that becoming a Muslim "made the atmosphere much more serious."[2][3]
Music and lyrics [ edit ]
For Beats, Rhymes and Life, The Ummah created a minimalist sound reminiscent of The Low End Theory, which Ali Shaheed Muhammad described as "nothing extravagant, nothing far out."[2][5] Miles Marshall Lewis of The Source praised The Ummah for being "the most proficient in the rap game at using samples as instruments in themselves."[6] Regarding Jay Dee's five contributions to the album, Q-Tip stated, "He would just send me the beats and then I would lay them."[7] One of his contributions, the lead single "1nce Again", was hailed as "one of the few successes" on the album and a "surprising R&B crossover."[5]
Lyrically, the group addresses "everything from O.J. to spirituality" and were recognized for the complexity of their messages.[5][8] However, they were criticized for sounding "bored", "confused, hostile, and occasionally paranoid."[2][5] In the song "Keeping It Moving", Q-Tip responds to the diss comments made about him in MC Hammer's songs "Break 'Em Off |
117 grams of fat, and 3,556 milligrams of sodium.
While Trump & Co. have sometimes struggled to articulate on key issues like the travel ban and Native American history, he had clear parameters for himself and his team when it came to food on the campaign trail. Lewandowski and his co-author write, “On Trump Force One there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, and Diet Coke.”
Here are some of Trump’s other food “secrets”:
Besides the potentially carcinogenic effects of the well-done steaks he insists upon, Trump puts ketchup on top.
He’s crafty when it comes to the grease from KFC buckets: Note the napkin layer between his two plates.
He’s also big on foods that don’t exist. (If it’s not real, neither are the calories?) Favorite presidential non-foods range from McDonald’s “ Fish Delight ” sandwich to Latin America’s least-existing, most-favorite treat, the taco bowl:
— Josh Marcus
Day 319 Dec. 4
Trump is attending a civil rights museum opening in Mississippi
President Donald Trump will reportedly attend the opening of a civil rights museum in Mississippi on Saturday, according to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
Trump will head to Jackson to visit the museum that chronicles the Jim Crow era, as well as the history of the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump has a notoriously turbulent relationship with minority groups. After Heather Heyer was killed by a white supremacist, Trump equated racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, with leftist counterprotesters.
“I think there is blame on both sides,” Trump said in Manhattan’s Trump Tower back in August. “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.”
Just last week, Trump referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” at an event honoring Native American code talkers who served in World War II. Warren has, in the past, claimed to have Native American heritage.
The opening of the museum will put Trump in close proximity to Alabama just days before its Senate special election. The contest is a controversial, dramatic one that pits Democrat Doug Jones against accused sexual predator Roy Moore, the GOP candidate. Despite allegations that Moore molested multiple teenage girls, Trump tacitly supported Moore before throwing his full endorsement behind the candidate on Monday.
— Rex Santus
Trump goes all in on alleged child molester Roy Moore
Donald Trump gave Roy Moore a full-throated endorsement Monday, despite the Alabama Republican Senate candidate facing multiple accusations of sexual assault against teenage girls.
Ignoring the mounting allegations, Trump said it’s important to elect Moore in the Dec. 12 special election because of “tax cuts.”
The president, who himself has been accused of sexual misconduct, added that a vote for Democratic candidate Doug Jones would undermine the country’s economy and security.
Many prominent Republicans have called for Moore to step aside, citing the credible accounts given by the victims of the alleged historic assaults.
Trump’s backing comes a day after a CBS News poll found 71 percent of Alabama Republicans believe the allegations against Moore are false.
Moore, who is battling Jones for the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is ahead by six points, according to the same poll.
— David Gilbert
Day 319 Dec. 4
Billy Bush on pussy grab tape: “Of course he said it”
Billy Bush, the man Trump bragged to about grabbing women “by the pussy,” pushed back Sunday against the president’s reported attempts to deny the comments.
“Of course he said it,” the former TV host wrote in an editorial, following recent reports Trump had claimed the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape that resurfaced in October 2016 was fake.
In the New York Times op-ed, Bush accused the president of “indulging in some revisionist history” by privately telling people he did not believe the voice on the tape was him.
“This has hit a raw nerve in me,” he wrote.
Bush added that when Trump made the comments, he and the other men present laughed along, as if they were “listening to a crass standup act.”
But he has since become aware of complaints about Trump’s behavior made by 20 woman – including one who claimed Trump had touched her crotch through her underwear in a nightclub in the 1990s.
“That makes the “grab ’em by the pussy” routine real,” Bush wrote. “I believe her.”
Bush lost his NBC job when the tape resurfaced during the 2016 election campaign.
Recorded on a hot mic when Trump was a guest on Bush’s show, Trump boasted about being able to kiss and grope women because of his fame.
“I just start kissing them. And when you’re a star, they let you do it… You can do anything,” he said.
Trump apologized for the tape at the time, dismissing it as “locker room talk.”
— Tim Hume
Day 316 Dec. 1
Trump is holding a pep rally for Roy Moore in Floribama
Former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a revival, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017, in Jackson, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
President Trump is doing everything he can to get Alabama Republican Roy Moore elected to the Senate. That is, everything except going to Alabama to campaign for Moore, whom five women have accused of pursuing sexual relationships with them when they were teenagers and he was in the 30s.
But next week, Trump is planning to do the next best thing: hold a political rally in Pensacola, Florida, a mere 25 miles from the Alabama border and solidly in the Mobile, Alabama TV market.
Despite Trump’s now frequent tweets attacking Moore’s Democratic challenger, Doug Jones, the president isn’t specifically campaign for Moore, according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “The President is not planning any trip to Alabama at this time,” she said earlier this week. “Frankly, his schedule doesn’t permit him doing anything between now and Election Day.”
But the rally is scheduled just four days before Alabama’s Dec. 12 special election to fill the seat left vacant when Jeff Sessions was appointed attorney general.
In total, eight women have come out with accusations against Moore ranging from sexual misconduct to sexual assault. Of the five women who were teenagers at the time, two of them were 14 — under the legal age of consent in Alabama at the time.
Trump’s vocal support of Moore has made him an outlier among the national Republican leadership. Both Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican House Majority Leader Paul Ryan have said they believe Moore’s accusers and that he should stand down.
Still, the latest polls show Moore has regained his lead over Jones, even with limited campaign appearances since the scandal broke.
— Michael Learmonth
Trump leaned on top Republicans to shut down Russia probe
Donald Trump pressed senior Republicans to wind up a probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to a bombshell New York Times report.
Among those Trump reportedly leaned on was Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee handling the investigation.
Burr told the newspaper the president had said “something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible.’” Burr replied: “When we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish.”
Trump also reportedly told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Roy Blunt, another member of the intelligence committee, to wrap it up quickly.
The panel is one of several official investigations into claims that Moscow sought to swing the U.S. election in Trump’s favor.
The newspaper described Trump’s comments to the senators as “a highly unusual intervention from a president into a legislative inquiry involving his family and close aides,” and quoted California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein as saying Trump’s “inappropriate” approaches constituted a breach of the separation of powers.
But White House spokesman Raj Shah denied the president had acted improperly, saying Trump had not “attempted to apply undue influence on committee members.”
Trump has called Russian collusion allegations a “made-up story” concocted by the Democrats as an excuse for losing the election. He has previously made a number of comments easily interpreted as pressuring key figures to drop their scrutiny of Russian meddling.
Just days after he fired FBI Director James Comey, Trump told NBC News he asked Comey whether he was under investigation – an approach legal experts told the network was improper.
In June, Trump publicly denied he had obstructed the FBI probe into the issue.
— Tim HumeBreaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Dec. 11, 2015, 8:01 PM GMT / Updated Dec. 11, 2015, 8:01 PM GMT By Erik Ortiz and The Associated Press
Four of the nine people killed during a biker gang brawl in Waco, Texas, last spring were shot by the same caliber of rifle used by police at the scene, new evidence obtained by The Associated Press shows.
The detail is the latest uncovered that may indicate whether any of the officers responding to the May 17 melee were responsible for the fatalities. At least 20 others were wounded.
Related: 106 People Indicted in Waco Biker Brawl That Killed Nine
Cops arrested more than 170 people amid the chaotic clash at the Twin Peaks sports bar — and last month, a Texas grand jury returned indictments against 106 of them. They face charges of engaging in organized criminal activity, with the underlying offenses being murder and aggravated assault.
The ballistics reports reviewed by the AP indicate that four of those killed were struck by bullets from.223-caliber rifles — the only type of weapon fired by police. It's not clear if any bikers had weapons of a similar caliber, the AP reported. Twelve long guns were among the weapons recovered from the scene.
Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman said in June that cops fired 12 rounds from their rifles.
While all four victims had wounds from.223-caliber rounds, two of them were also hit by other kinds of bullets, according to the evidence.
Police have released few details about how the violence unfolded. Police and the district attorney's office would not comment on the ballistics reports to the AP.
Investigators have said officers had to shoot their weapons in self-defense after the violence spilled out of the restaurant and escalated from fists to firearms. The dead were members of either the rival Bandidos or Cossacks gangs, police said.
Many witnesses — from the bikers to the Twin Peaks waitresses — say the shooting began after a Bandidos member hit a prospective Cossacks member with his bike, according to evidence made public last month in September.Arsenal loan star dropped by Ipswich after mum's abusive Mick McCarthy voicemail
Not a headline one types every day.
Mothers. They're great. They love us, support us, cherish us and back us to the hilt.
Sometimes, however, they can be a tad pushy.
That certainly appears to be the case with Jules Niles, mother to 18-year-old Arsenal prospect Ainsley Maitland-Niles.
Late last season, Maitland-Niles' mother interrupted an Arsenal U21 match after he picked up a knock. She threatened to drag him off the pitch, roared at Gunners chief negotiator Dick Law and was arrested on suspicion of assaulting two individuals on the sidelines.
The winger, who made his Arsenal debut at 17, in December 2014, was loaned to Ipswich Town this season and was ticking along at a reasonable rate. Until recently, that is.
Maitland-Niles, according to The Sun, has been dropped after his mother attempted to reach Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy for a frank discussion. She could not reach McCarthy and, instead, is reported to have left an abusive voice-mail. An Arsenal source told the paper:
"Mick's a Yorkshireman and he's prepared to tolerate most things, but not something like this. "The language was disgusting and so poisonous that it even shocked Mick. "He's only ever tried to do what's right for the kid and protect his career, but this is something new to him. "He likes the boy and thinks he has potential to be a top player, but he's worried that his mother is having a detrimental affect on his career."
The dispute apparently arose when the former Ireland manager advised Maitland-Niles against going back to London for an FA bash and, instead, prepare for a midweek fixture.
Since the voice-mail was deposited in McCarthy's phone, the young midfielder has not featured for The Tractor Boys.Part of the conspiracy feedback loop? Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, shown speaking at a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz last year. (Rick Scuteri/AP)
To save Tinkerbell, all you had to do was clap your hands and really, really believe in fairies.
To send a conspiracy theory on its vicious way around the world, you need to do more than just believe. You need help.
Luckily for those who wanted to elect Donald Trump, that help was available during the presidential campaign, and still is. It comes from a collection of new right-wing hyperpartisan media outlets that are having a huge effect on politics.
Consider, for example, one outlandish idea from just last week: that the CIA hacked the Democratic National Committee’s emails, gave them to WikiLeaks and then framed Russia.
Business Insider traced it: from replies to the WikiLeaks Twitter account, through conservative radio and then Breitbart News, and out into the semi-mainstream — Sean Hannity on Fox News — all within 48 hours.
Similarly, the right-wing radio host Mark Levin may have started the evidence-free idea that President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of now-President Trump. It made its way quickly through the media ecosystem, after Trump saw it, apparently on Breitbart News.
Once the president tweets it, it’s undeniably news, picked up everywhere and re-amplified — especially by right-wing sites.
Derek Thompson of the Atlantic called this a “conspiracy-theory feedback loop.” And a very effective one it is.
A major new study, published in Columbia Journalism Review, detailed just how influential the new media ecosystem has become, calling it a determining factor in Trump’s election.
“A right-wing media network anchored around Breitbart developed as a distinct and insulated media system, using social media as a backbone to transmit a hyperpartisan perspective to the world,” the report concluded, after studying 1.25 million stories.
(Breitbart, of course, was run by — and maintains close ties to — Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist.)
As right-wing sites concentrated during the campaign on immigration stories — often with exaggerated or false claims about the dangers of refugees and immigrants — they also endlessly attacked Hillary Clinton over Benghazi and her use of a private email server.
These sites often traffic in “decontextualized truths, repeated falsehoods, and leaps of logic to create a fundamentally misleading view of the world,” the report said.
This brings to mind a Trump voter I met in northeast Pennsylvania who took right-wing talking points and put them in a blender. She told me she couldn’t trust Clinton because “I didn’t like how she stole those emails and it got people killed in Benghazi.”
This tainted media sphere not only set the conservative media agenda, “but also strongly influenced the broader media agenda, in particular coverage of Hillary Clinton.”
Kyle Pope, editor of CJR, explained: “On the right, there was an intense focus on Trump’s policies,” especially immigration.
But in covering Clinton, the right-wing sites often served as stenographers for conservative politicians.
And the mainstream media often went along for the ride, obsessing about the presidential horse race and failing to understand how all of this was resonating with voters. Plenty of excellent investigative reporting on Trump was published, but to some extent, it was drowned out by the noise.
There’s another way that the traditional press has allowed right-wing media to flourish — by moving too far to the left itself.
Mainstream newsrooms were once much more ideologically diverse, said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.
“The best data out there shows that there are fewer Republicans working in traditional newsrooms and news generally than there used to be,” he told me.
As right-wing media sprang up over the past few decades, reporters and editors with more conservative beliefs migrated there. That left mainstream newsrooms with a high percentage of people identifying themselves as independent, a fair number of Democrats — and relatively few Republicans.
“That affects the discussion in newsrooms even when people are trying mightily to be fair,” Rosenstiel said.
Pope puts it more bluntly, referring to the “unarguable partisanship” he saw from some mainstream journalists as Nov. 8 neared, evident especially on social media. Favoring Clinton, they not only mocked Trump but also were unable to fathom that he might win.
Pope now sees “a huge corrective” underway, as journalists dig in, providing meaty accountability coverage of Trump and spending more time listening to Trump’s core of voters.
But whom are they reaching? Many Americans, especially on the right, have lost trust in mainstream media, which may be deeply flawed but at least is committed to factuality and truth.
Meanwhile, disinformation gains more of a dangerous foothold.
You can’t fight propaganda with standard journalism, Pope told me. Watchdogging the fake-news machinery and fact-checking relentlessly is part of his prescription.
Rosenstiel has suggested other measures: being more transparent about how we gather and verify the news; covering what’s important (not “barking at every car”); and using clearer labels to distinguish news from opinion.
I would add that news organizations have to acknowledge their own biases internally, and constantly report against them.
The CJR study concludes on a hopeful note: that a renaissance of legitimate journalism may be the result of everything that’s happened.
I’d love to think that, but it’s going to take hard work, the kind that doesn’t come easy to journalists: more openness to criticism, continued self-examination and willingness to change.
It won’t happen by closing our eyes and believing in fairies.
For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan.By Todd Halvorson, Florida Today
Watch FLORIDA TODAY'S live coverage of the final landing for space shuttle Discovery. For the latest space news, visit the Flame Trench blog.
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Discovery's astronauts are prepping their spaceship for its 39th and final landing today, and the weather looks as if it is going to cooperate.
With Discovery mission commander Steve Lindsey at the controls, NASA's fleet leader is expected to make a 225-mph touchdown at Kennedy Space Center's three-mile runway at 11:57 a.m.
Entry flight director Tony Ceccacci is scheduled to make a go or no-go call in the 20 minutes leading up to a planned 10:52 a.m. deorbit burn. The shuttle's payload bay doors are to be closed for flight at 8:12 a.m.
The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center is predicting gusty winds that nonetheless will be within limits. A 21-knot headwind is expected on Runway 15, the northern end of the concrete landing strip at KSC. That's four knots below the limit.
Cloud coverage is not expected to be a problem and visibility is expected to be seven miles.
A second landing opportunity is available at 1:34 p.m. NASA's prime backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California is not being staffed for a landing attempt today. The shuttle has enough power and supplies to remain in orbit until Friday.Tyrannosaurus rex may have been a cannibal, according to research released on Friday. A team of paleontologists has discovered T. rex bones with giant teeth marks, suggesting the ancient carnivore either hunted their own species or scavenged their remains. What might these dinosaurs have tasted like?
More like hawk meat than chicken. Many people have glibly suggested that a hunk of dinosaur flesh might have tasted like an oven stuffer. Birds taste a bit like crocodiles, they reason, and both are related to dinosaurs. (Birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs, and crocodilians are their cousins.) But this simple logic is probably wrong. Countless factors determine the flavor of meat, including the composition of an animal’s muscles, its eating habits, and its hormones. Based on the evolutionary tree, we might speculate that T. rex tasted more like poultry than, say, beef or pork. Its flavor would likely have been closer to that of a carnivorous bird—perhaps a hawk—than a chicken. What does a hawk taste like? It’s probably not far off from the dark meat of a turkey but would be more pungent because of its all-meat diet.
Crocodiles and chickens both have lots of white meat, which comes from their quick-acting, fast-twitch muscles full of pale glycogen. That fast-twitch anatomy fits these animals’ lifestyles: Chickens stand around most of the day, relying on their large breast muscles for the occasional burst of flapping so they can escape into the trees when a predator threatens; crocodiles save their energy for quick lunges at passing meals. But an animal like a T. rex, which seems to have roamed the alluvial plains of western North America in a constant hunt for food, would probably have had more high-endurance, slow-twitch muscle tissue—the kind we think of as dark meat.
Furthermore, farm-raised chickens are mainly granivorous, dining on pellets of corn with small amounts of soy protein. T. rex was a carnivore, dining on herbivorous dinosaurs like triceratops (and, from time to time, his fellow T. rexes). That difference would likely have affected the flavor, in the same way that grass-fed cattle might taste a little different from their corn-fattened cousins. There were some granivorous dinosaurs, a few very closely related to T. rex, which seem to have subsisted on ancient precursors to the cereals of today. These animals might have tasted a bit more like chicken. The less specialized herbivores mostly ate plants like horsetail and ferns.
Drumsticks are likely to have been the most plentiful source of T. rex meat, with other large deposits in the neck and back. With such tiny little arms, Tyrannosaurus rex had a relative paucity of breast meat, though, at six tons per animal, there was plenty of just about everything. If the king of the dinosaurs had any white meat at all, it would have been in the tail, which may have been whipped around as a weapon. It’s also possible that the tail was used exclusively for balance.
Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Nick Longrich of Yale University and Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago.
Like Slate and the Explainer on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.CLOSE Actress Heather Menzies-Urich, best known for portraying Louisa von Trapp in the 1965 film “The Sound of Music,” died Sunday night. Urich said his mother died on Christmas Eve, surrounded by her children and family members. USA TODAY
Heather Menzies (second from left), played one of the von Trapp sisters in the Oscar-winning 1965 film 'The Sound of Music,' alongside Chairmian Carr as Liesl (left), Julie Andrews as Maria, and Nicholas Hammond as Friedrich, in a scene with puppets from the film. (Photo: AP)
Heather Menzies-Urich, who played one of the von Trapp sisters in The Sound of Music, died Sunday at age 68.
Menzies-Urich, the Toronto-born widow of actor Robert Urich, was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, her son Ryan told Variety. The estate of Rodgers and Hammerstein, which produced the Oscar-winning 1965 musical, also confirmed the death.
Menzies-Urich played Louisa von Trapp in the film, released when she was 15. She got her acting start in The Farmer's Daughter, a 1964 TV adaptation of another film, and went on to appear in several movies and TV series, including Logan's Run and Vega$, which starred her second husband Urich, whom she married in 1975. He died in 2002, also of cancer, and she formed a foundation in his name to sponsor cancer research.
Gregory Harrison and Heather Menzies in a scene from the cult-classic television series 'Logan's Run' (Photo: Turner Entertainment)
“She was an actress, a ballerina and loved living her life to the fullest,” Ryan Urich told Variety. “She was not in any pain but, nearly four weeks after her diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, she had enough and took her last breath on this earth at 7:22 p.m.”
Kym Karath, who played sister Gretl in The Sound of Music, tweeted her condolences:
"I am filled with infinite sadness tonight. My precious friend and SOM sister Heather Menzies passed away this evening. Devastated."
I am filled with infinite sadness tonight. My precious friend and SOM sister Heather Menzies passed away this evening. Devastated. — Kym Karath (@KymKarath) December 25, 2017
And Karath and other surviving actors from the film sent a statement Tuesday mourning Menzies:
"With great sadness we bid our beloved sister, Heather Menzies, goodbye. Just over a year ago, the film vonTrapp children gathered to say farewell to our oldest sister Charmian Carr. It is unbearably painful that in such a short time we have now lost another member of our family. Heather’s warmth, generosity and total lack of pretension has been a shining example to all of us for over 50 years. We were so blessed to have met her on The Sound of Music, and that blessing continued every day until Christmas Eve, 2017. We send our love, admiration and deepest sympathy to her family. Our Louisa, Heather, will never leave us and we will never leave each other." —Nicholas Hammond, Duane Chase, Angela Cartwright, Debbie Turner, Kym Karath
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2ByjDGRA few days ago, I quoted The Economist in a tweet:
"OPEC would like to do to shale firms’ balance-sheets what high-pressure hydraulic fracking does to rocks." http://t.co/bhjVs6imrb — Sanjay Bakshi (@Sanjay__Bakshi) December 4, 2014
A friend of mine saw it, and mailed me:
Hi Sanjay, I just saw your tweet on the above. I have been following this sector quite closely and can claim that I have a P.hd on it because I have managed to lose money on it 🙂
Nothing concentrates your mind when your head gets handed to you.
That said, I have been following these articles and been thinking of the point which Buffett has made about economics — always ask, “And then what?”
Most of these articles talk about weak balance sheet of Shale oil companies and the need for the various OPEC countries to balance their budgets. This kind of thinking almost seems to be equivalent of wanting to a earn a specific level of income based on the expenses rather than based on what one’s skill is and what the market will pay.
I have invested in a few smaller oil and gas companies and have been following them closely. Some of my observations:
The marginal cost of oil is not a uniform number and varies from well to well. That said, this number is constantly going down as the industry gets more efficient. As oil is a commodity, I would assume that the price has to tend to the marginal cost of production (highest to meet the incremental demand).
Most shale companies have large unexplored land and a 10+ year inventory. As they get more efficient, I would think that the overall cost could remain flat even as they use up the better fields (this is an assumption).
Even if some companies are over leverage, the worst that will happen is that they companies will either file for bankruptcy or liquidate. However the resource and the cost to produce does not change. At worst a new player which is better leveraged comes along. So in the medium term, if even OPEC manages to drives out some players, the new ones will come with a better capital structure.
Some of this has already happened in the natural gas space, where the prices dipped below cost of production and are now back up. As soon as the prices spiked in early 2014, the production came roaring back. I think the same could happen in oil the moment prices cost $80/barrel.
I will stop now 🙂..What are your thoughts?
My reply:
Anytime one invests in any business involved in extraction of stuff from under the ground or the sea, or from the sun, or wind, one needs to wear the skeptical hat. There are huge perverse incentives to over-state reserves. Mark Twain’s quote is the appropriate default position: “A mine is a hole in the ground, with a liar on the top.” 🙂 Even if you are very confident about the reserves, you still have to predict the future price of the commodity. Doing that accurately and consistently on multiple occasions, is beyond anyone’s capability. When oil was at $10 “experts” said it will go to $5 and when it was $140, they said it was going to $200. When you buy the stock of such a company, then you are implicitly predicting the price of whatever it gets out of the ground, even though you are not making those forecasts explicitly. There will be all kinds of experts who will sound extraordinarily persuasive with theories like “peak oil” blah blah. Lots of people will believe them and maybe the experts would be right for a while. But then almost all experts will be right for a while. And then they will be wrong. The value of an Oil company is vastly different when you use a $5 future oil price scenario than a $200 future oil price scenario. They way to not handle this inherent variability in potential future value is by using scenario analysis. That would be functionally equivalent of a man who cannot swim trying to cross a river that has an average depth of 5 feet while he is 6 feet tall. He forgets that the range of depth is between 4 feet an 12 feet. And drowns. Ignoring the range of possibilities is foolish. And in the oil business or any business which involves extracting suff from under the ground, that range is huge. [TALEB] People will continue getting things out of the ground well after it stops making economic sense. Maybe they have perverse incentives in place. Maybe they like playing Russian Roulette with their competitors. There are all sorts of reasons people will continue to do things for a long time which appear to you to be stupid and dumb. You must not expect the prevalence of sanity across the world in any commodity industry as part of your investment thesis. In any commodity-type business, it’s not possible to be a lot smarter than your dumbest competitor. [BUFFETT] Investing in such situations makes sense, if you have enormous staying power. That is, you have no debt and you have lots of patient capital that will never be withdrawn from you at the wrong moment. You’ll also need the capacity to bear pain for a long time which includes the pain of seeing other people who invest in businesses that buy commodities but sell branded products get rich in environments when commodity prices are high or low. Most investors do not fit into this class of investors. I certainly don’t.In 2015, the FBI hacked Tor to identify users of child sex websites. Now a judge has thrown out evidence acquired during the investigation.
The original hack saw the FBI seize servers running a pedophile website called Playpen. But rather than shutting it down, the agents continued to run the servers, using software to identify the real IP and MAC addresses of users, despite the fact they were using Tor to access the site. ISPs were forced to hand over customer details and arrests followed.
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But the so-called “network investigative technique” used to obtain those IP and MAC addresses was found to have been used without appropriate consent. That’s the outcome of a case against Alex Levin, one of those arrested during the investigation, writes Motherboard. According to Judge William G. Young of the District of Massachusetts:
“Based on the foregoing analysis, the Court concludes that the NIT warrant was issued without jurisdiction and thus was void... It follows that the resulting search was conducted as though there were no warrant at all...Since warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable, and the good-faith exception is inapplicable, the evidence must be excluded.”
It’s likely that others who were arrested as a result of the FBI investigation will seek to invoke a similar defense to suppress the evidence.
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Last month, the FBI refused to divulge the method it used to perform its network investigative technique.
[Motherboard]This email has also been verified by Google DKIM 2048-bit RSA key
Re: Hillary Clinton Was Asked About Email 2 Years Ago - NYTimes.com
From:aelrod@hillaryclinton.com To: kfinney@hillaryclinton.com CC: nmerrill@hillaryclinton.com, hrcrapid@googlegroups.com, jpalmieri@hillaryclinton.com Date: 2015-04-15 00:31 Subject: Re: Hillary Clinton Was Asked About Email 2 Years Ago - NYTimes.com
How do we handle guys? Karen has CNN new day at 7a and msnbc at 9a. Canceling seems like we're hiding this late but ideally will have more than just punting to positive Sent from my iPhone On Apr 14, 2015, at 9:51 PM, Karen Finney <kfinney@hillaryclinton.com> wrote: I've got TV in the morning - do we cancel? If not I'll need a response; and we've got talkers who also need guidance. Sent from my iPhone On Apr 14, 2015, at 9:47 PM, Nick Merrill <nmerrill@hillaryclinton.com> wrote: Hillary Clinton Was Asked About Email 2 Years Ago - NYTimes.com This cropped up today. We're on background in it. See below. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/us/politics/hillary-clintonwas-asked-about-email-2-years-ago.html?referrer= Hillary Clinton Was Asked About Email 2 Years Ago WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/13/us/elections/hillary-clinton.html?inline=nyt-per> was directly asked by congressional investigators in a December 2012 letter whether she had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state, according to letters obtained by The New York Times. But Mrs. Clinton did not reply to the letter. And when the State Department answered in March 2013, nearly two months after she left office, it ignored the question and provided no response for it. The query was posed to Mrs. Clinton in a Dec. 13, 2012, letter from Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Mr. Issa was leading an investigation into how the Obama administration handled its officials’ use of personal email. “Have you or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business?” Mr. Issa wrote to Mrs. Clinton. “If so, please identify the account used.” -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hrcrapid+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to hrcrapid@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hrcrapid/-556737114089088293%40unknownmsgid <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hrcrapid/-556737114089088293%40unknownmsgid?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hrcrapid+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to hrcrapid@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hrcrapid/4810174316244966154%40unknownmsgid <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hrcrapid/4810174316244966154%40unknownmsgid?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hrcrapid+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to hrcrapid@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hrcrapid/-1434495557281494786%40unknownmsgid. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.Now Playing:
Troy
Police are investigating an armed robbery of Bob DeMeo's Discount Wine and Liquor on Campbell Avenue at 9 p.m. Saturday.
The thief is at large and the liquor store is offering a $1,000 reward for his whereabouts.
The crime occurred as Bob DeMeo and his husband Anthony DeRusso were locking the door to their store at 9 p.m., DeRusso said.
DeRusso, the store's general manager, said a man yelled from across the parking lot, asking to be let in. The man came in and shopped for a few minutes.
"He said he wanted a bottle of Hennessy, and then he pulled out a gun," DeRusso said. "Never in a million years did I think a gun was going to come out of his pocket."
He held the weapon to DeMeo's head, demanded money and took around $3,000 in cash, DeRusso said.
The robber walked off past the sinkhole that has closed Campbell Avenue to traffic before disappearing into the woods. He was last seen heading south on Donegal Avenue, Troy police said.
The man is described as around 6 feet tall and 190 pounds. He was wearing dark clothing and a winter cap.
DeRusso said he got a good look at the man's face. Although he looked familiar and could have been a prior customer, DeRusso said he didn't recognize him.
Watching security camera footage of the crime |
that the Russian government had compromising information about Trump.
Trump writes on Twitter: “FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”
Jan. 11: Trump writes on Twitter: “Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is ‘A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE.’ Very unfair! … Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING! … I win an election easily, a great "movement" is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state! … Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to ‘leak’ into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?”
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a press conference Jan. 11 at Trump Tower in New York. | Getty
At a news conference at Trump Tower, Trump calls the reports “fake news” but also says for the first time that he believes the election-related hacks were conducted by Russia.
Trump also says during the news conference: “If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia.”
Jan. 13: Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer tells reporters that Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak involved only the logistics of setting up an eventual call between Trump and Putin.
Trump says in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that he is open to lifting sanctions against Russia if the country proves helpful on other fronts: “If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?”
Jan. 15: Pence tells CBS News that, according to his conversation with Flynn, Flynn and Kislyak “did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.”
Jan. 17: Putin dismisses the dossier as “false.”
Jan. 22: The Wall Street Journal reports : “U.S. counterintelligence agents have investigated communications that President Donald Trump’s national security adviser had with Russian officials, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Jan. 23: Spicer reiterates that Flynn’s call with Kislyak did not touch on sanctions.
Jan. 24: In an interview with the FBI, Flynn says that during two December phone calls he did not urge the Russian ambassador to refrain from responding to new U.S. sanctions and that he did not ask the ambassador to delay a U.N. Security Council vote. These statements later prove to be false.
Jan. 26: Acting attorney general Sally Yates calls White House counsel Don McGahn and informs him they need to meet in person to discuss “a very sensitive matter.” The two meet later that day at the White House and Yates warns McGahn that Flynn is making false statements regarding his calls with Kislyak.
Jan. 27: Papadopoulos agrees to be interviewed by FBI agents. During the course of the interview, he makes a number of false statements, according to the plea deal.
On the same day, Yates and McGahn meet again, at McGahn’s request. Trump and Comey also dine at the White House. It is later reported that Trump asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to him; Comey declined. The White House has disputed this account.
Jan. 30: Trump fires Yates for refusing to enforce his travel ban, which is later blocked by federal courts.
Feb. 2: Nikki Haley, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, condemns Russia’s occupation of Crimea at the U.N. Security Council and pledges that the U.S. "Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine.” Haley also stated the U.S. wants better relations with Russia.
Feb. 4: Trump defends Putin in an interview with Fox News, saying, “I do respect him,” and, when pressed on allegations that Putin has been behind certain atrocitites, Trump responds: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
Feb. 8: The Senate confirms Sessions as attorney general in a 52-47 vote.
Feb. 9: The Washington Post reports that Flynn did, in fact, discuss U.S. sanctions in his phone calls with Kislyak, contrary to Flynn’s and the administration’s previous statements.
Feb. 13: Flynn resigns.
Feb. 14: The New York Times reports that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”
Feb. 15: CNN reports : “High-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials tell CNN. President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both briefed on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump business, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.”
Feb. 16: Trump again calls the Russia controversy “fake news” and said that the Times story from Feb. 14 was “a joke.”
Trump also states: “I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything. Now, when WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information.”
He also says: “I’m here today is to tell you the whole Russian thing, that’s a ruse. That’s a ruse. And by the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia, just so you understand that. … I didn’t do anything for Russia. … If we could get along with Russia, that’s a positive thing. … I would love to be able to get along with Russia. … If we have a good relationship with Russia, believe me, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Asked if anyone who advised his campaign had contacts with Russia during the election, Trump responds: “No. Nobody that I know of.”
On the same day, Papadopoulos participates in another interview with the FBI.
Feb. 17: Papadopoulos deactivates his Facebook account.
Feb. 20: The Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, passes away in New York.
Feb. 21: Trump releases a statement praising Churkin and expressing “the condolences of the American people to the Russian people and government.”
Feb. 23: Papadopoulos ceases using his cell phone number and begins using a new number.
Feb. 28: The Washington Post reports that the FBI was prepared to pay the former British intelligence operative, Christopher Steele, to continue his work, indicating the Bureau found him credible.
March 1: The Washington Post reports that Sessions did speak with the Russian ambassador during the campaign, appearing to contradict his past statements.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces March 2 that he will recuse himself from any investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. | AP Photo
March 2: As congressional Democrats call for Sessions to resign and even some Republicans say he should recuse himself from an investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump announces he has “total confidence” in the attorney general.
Sessions announces he will recuse himself from any investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
March 3: CNN reports on additional meetings that took place between Trump associates and Kislyak.
Trump posts an old picture of Sen. Chuck Schumer eating doughnuts with Vladimir Putin on Twitter and writes : “We should start an immediate investigation into @SenSchumer and his ties to Russia and Putin. A total hypocrite!”
Trump later tweets an article about Nancy Pelosi having met with Kislyak, who she said she hadn’t met, and writes: “I hereby demand a second investigation, after Schumer, of Pelosi for her close ties to Russia, and lying about it.”
Kislyak cancels plans to attend the March 4 Gridiron Dinner.
March 4: Trump accuses Obama of having ordered a tapping of the phones at Trump Tower during the campaign, writing in a series of tweets: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! … Just out: The same Russian Ambassador that met Jeff Sessions visited the Obama White House 22 times, and 4 times last year alone. … Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! … I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election! … How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
Obama denied the allegations through a spokesman. Comey asks the Justice Department to reject the claim, but no rejection is issued. The claims appeared to be based on a talk radio segment and a Breitbart article about the talk radio segment. The White House declines to offer any evidence to back up the claims, and the next day calls on Congress to investigate and says it will not comment further.
Trump ally Roger Stone writes on Twitter that he “never denied perfectly legal backchannel to Assange who indeed had the goods on #CrookedHillary.”
He later deletes the tweet.
March 6: In a press gaggle, Spicer declines to say what the source was for Trump’s wire-tapping allegation and presents no evidence to back it up.
March 8: When asked if Trump is the target of a counter-intelligence investigation, Spicer responds: “I think that’s what we need to find out.” He later says: “There is no reason to believe that he is the target of any investigation.”
March 9: When asked if Trump agrees with Sen. Ben Sasse’s declaration that Assange belongs in jail, Spicer demurs and suggests reporters speak with the Department of Justice.
CNN reports that the FBI’s counter-intelligence team continues to investigate “computer server connection between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.”
March 10: Senior administration officials discussing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s upcoming visit decline to comment on allegations that the Russians are interfering in European elections.
March 20: Comey confirms before the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the FBI is investigating possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“The FBI, as part of our counterintelligence effort, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 president election,” Comey declares.
Trump writes on Twitter: “James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it! … The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost! … The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now! … What about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians? Also, is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?”
March 22: The Associated Press reports that Manafort previously secretly worked on behalf of a Russian billionaire to enhance the image of Putin and the Russian government in the West.
At the White House, Spicer downplays Manafort’s role in the campaign and declares: “And to be clear, the president has no personal financial dealings with Russia. His ties are limited to hosting a contest in Russia once, and selling a Palm Beach home to a businessman in 2005. That's it.”
When asked if Manafort ever encouraged the campaign to take a more pro-Russia position, Spicer responds: “Not that I’m aware of.”
CNN reports that night: “The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN. This is partly what FBI Director James Comey was referring to when he made a bombshell announcement Monday before Congress that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, according to one source.”
March 23: Spicer mocks the CNN report, saying the use of the term “associates” is too broad.
Trump writes on Twitter: “Just watched the totally biased and fake news reports of the so-called Russia story on NBC and ABC. Such dishonesty!”
March 27: Spicer reads a State Department statement condemning Russia’s detention of peaceful protesters the previous day.
“The United States will monitor the situation, and we call on the government of Russia to immediately release all peaceful protestors,” Spicer says.
Trump writes on Twitter: “Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!” He also questions why people do not focus on whether Hillary Clinton has ties to Russia.
March 31: Trump writes on Twitter: “Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!”
April 1: Trump writes on Twitter: “When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story? … It is the same Fake News Media that said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!”
April 6: Rep Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) steps aside from the House investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election after an odd series of events in which he alerted the White House to potential unmasking of transition officials in intelligence reports before giving the news to his fellow committee members.
That night, Trump orders air strikes against Syrian forces following the chemical weapons attack. Russia denounced the strikes.
April 13: “We’re not getting along with Russia at all … we may be at an all-time low,” Trump says during a press conference at the White House with the NATO secretary general. Tillerson and Putin met the same day in Moscow.
Trump later writes on Twitter: “Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!”
April 25: The Senate votes 94-6 to confirm Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general.
May 2: Trump writes on Twitter: “FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony......Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?”
May 5: Hackers release a trove of emails purportedly from French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign. Intelligence experts link the hack to Russia.
May 7: Trump writes on Twitter: “When will the Fake Media ask about the Dems dealings with Russia & why the DNC wouldn't allow the FBI to check their server or investigate?”
May 8: Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testify before a Senate subcommittee on Russian interference in the election.
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill. | AFP/Getty
Yates confirms that she informed the White House that Flynn was “compromised” weeks before news broke that Flynn had misled the vice president and was fired.
Trump tweets: “Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.”
Trump later tweets: “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?”
May 9: Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. In the letter announcing his termination, Trump writes: “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.”
The White House’s official explanation is that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended the termination in a memo dated May 9, and Sessions affirmed the recommendation in a letter to Trump.
The firing leads to outcry among Democrats and Republicans alike, with many renewing calls for an independent investigation into potential collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.
May 10: Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office. Lavrov met earlier in the day with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and joked about Comey’s firing.
“Was he fired? You’re kidding, you’re kidding,” Lavrov said sarcastically in response to a shouted question.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left), President Donald Trump, and then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak meet in the Oval Office on May 10. | Alexander Shcherbak\TASS via Getty Images)
Trump denies that Stone encouraged him to fire Comey. He tells reporters he fired Comey “because he was not doing a good job.”
The Russian government's Twitter accounts post pictures of Trump with Kislyak and Lavrov in the Oval Office.
It is later reported that Trump divulged classified national security information to Lavrov and Kislyak during the course of the meeting.
May 11: Trump writes on Twitter: “Russia must be laughing up their sleeves watching as the U.S. tears itself apart over a Democrat EXCUSE for losing the election.”
Trump tells NBC’s Lester Holt of his decision to fire Comey: “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won."
May 12: Trump writes on Twitter: “Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election. … When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?”
May 16: Trump writes on Twitter: “As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining.......to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”
May 17: Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
Trump releases a statement saying the investigation “will confirm what we already know – there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity.”
May 18: Trump writes on Twitter: “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”
He adds later: “With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!”
At an afternoon press conference he criticizes the appointment of a special counsel and declares: “there was no collusion.” He also denies telling Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn.
May 31: Trump writes on Twitter: "So now it is reported that the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don't want him to testify. He blows away their..........case against him & now wants to clear his name by showing "the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan... Witch Hunt!"
June 8: Former FBI James Comey testifies in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee that he was behind the leaking of memos he wrote during his time as director to the media in order to prompt the appointment of a special counsel. He adds that he was worried the president might lie about their interactions.
June 15: Trump writes on Twitter: "They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice… You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history — led by some very bad and conflicted people!… Why is that Hillary Clintons [sic] family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are? … Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, 'bleached' emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?"
Pence's office confirms that he has retained Richard Cullen to serve as his outside counsel during the Russia probe. Around that time, Cullen meets with Mueller at Pence's request to express Pence's intent to cooperate.
June 22: Trump writes on Twitter: "Former Homeland Security Advisor Jeh Johnson is latest top intelligence official to state there was no grand scheme between Trump & Russia.” Johnson had testified to Congress the day before that Putin directed Russia's interference in the 2016 election but that it did not alter the counting of ballots.
June 23: Trump writes on Twitter: "Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?” Johnson had said Obama's response was limited by fear of “taking sides” in the race, particularly after Trump’s warnings that the election would be “rigged.”
June 27: Trump writes on Twitter: "Wow, CNN had to retract big story on 'Russia,' with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!”
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July 6: Ahead of a planned visit with Putin, Trump says in Warsaw that “nobody knows for sure” whether Russia meddled in the election: “Well, I think it was Russia and I think it could have been other people and other countries. It could have been [that] a lot of people interfered.”
July 7: Trump meets twice with Putin at the Group of 20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany. Only the first meeting was officially acknowledged until the New York Times revealed the second conversation on July 18.
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit on July 7 in Hamburg. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who joined Trump for the first meeting, says Trump pressed Putin on election meddling and that the Russian leader repeated his past denials. Trump "pressed him and then felt like, at this point, let’s talk about how do we go forward?” Tillerson said.
July 8: The New York Times breaks the story about Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer. Trump Jr. provided the Times with a statement that the meeting was about an adoption program.
It is later revealed by the Washington Post that Trump himself dictated the statement on the flight home from the G20 meeting.
July 9: Trump opens the day with a series of tweets: “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion…. We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia! … Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.... Fake News said 17 intel agencies when actually 4 (had to apologize). Why did Obama do NOTHING when he had info before election?… Sanctions were not discussed at my meeting with President Putin. Nothing will be done until the Ukrainian & Syrian problems are solved!”
The Times reports that Trump Jr. "was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign."
Trump Jr. releases a statement about his meeting with June 2016 Veselnitskaya, saying she had arrived offering "information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton." But, he continues: "Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act. It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting."
July 10: The Times reports that Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the information he would be provided at the meeting was part of the Russian government's effort to support Trump's candidacy.
Trump Jr.'s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, tells the Times in a statement that "Don Jr. had no knowledge as to what specific information, if any, would be discussed."
July 11: Moments before The Times published portions of Trump Jr.'s emails arranging the meeting, Trump Jr. himself tweets out the emails. In the emails, Goldstone promised "information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." The information, Goldstone noted, "is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
"If it is what you say I love it especially later in the summer," Trump Jr. replied.
That evening, Trump Jr. goes on Sean Hannity's program on Fox News. He tells Hannity the meeting was “such a nothing,” but that "In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently.”
Pence's office releases a statement saying Pence is "not focused on stories about the campaign, particularly stories about the time before he joined the ticket."
July 12: Trump's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, tells CNN that neither he nor Trump were "involved in the statement drafting at all" for the July 8 statement which said the meeting had been about adoption.
Pence's press secretary, Marc Lotter, was asked three times on Fox News if Pence had met with any officials associated with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign. He declined to answer.
July 13: Lotter releases a statement saying, “The Vice President had no meetings with any individual associated with the Russian government during the campaign or transition."
July 15: Trump writes on Twitter: "Stock Market hit another all-time high yesterday - despite the Russian hoax story! Also, jobs numbers are starting to look very good!"
July 16: Sekulow repeats his insistence that Trump was not involved in preparing the original statement.
"I do want to be clear -- that the President was not involved in the drafting of the statement," he told NBC's Chuck Todd.
July 18: The New York Times reveals Trump's and Putin's undisclosed conversation over dinner, for which only a Russian government translator was present. Trump responds on Twitter: "Fake News story of secret dinner with Putin is'sick.' All G 20 leaders, and spouses, were invited by the Chancellor of Germany. Press knew!" He later added: "The Fake News is becoming more and more dishonest! Even a dinner arranged for top 20 leaders in Germany is made to look sinister!"
July 19: The White House further downplays the July 7 dinner.
"I think that once again the Russia fever has caught up with the media," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tells reporters. "It was a brief conversation, and certainly not an hour," Sanders later adds, but quips that she was not following Trump around "with a stopwatch."
Trump tells the New York Times he regrets appointing Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and calls Sessions’s recusal in the Russia probe "very unfair to the president." Trump also contends that Comey only shared the famous dossier with him to gain leverage.
July 20: The spokesman for Trump's outside legal team, Mark Corallo, leaves his post after less than two months in the job.
July 21: Marc Kasowitz, Trump's top personal lawyer, is replaced by John Dowd.
The Washington Post reports that "Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe."
July 22: Trump writes on Twitter: "While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS.... My son Donald openly gave his e-mails to the media & authorities whereas Crooked Hillary Clinton deleted (& acid washed) her 33,000 e-mails!"
July 23: Trump writes on Twitter: "As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!... It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President."
July 24: Trump writes on Twitter: "After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that 'Democrats should blame ourselves,not Russia.'” ("People didn’t know what we stood for [in 2016], just that we were against Trump,” Schumer had told the Washington Post.)
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner speaks to reporters outside the White House on July 24, after meeting on Capitol Hill behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee. | Pablo Martinez Monsiva/AP Photo
Kushner testifies behind closed doors before the Senate Intelligence Committee."I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so,” he tells reporters.
Trump continues to harangue Sessions on Twitter, and also also takes aim at the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff: "So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?” Trump tweets, adding: “Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into ‘Russia,’ spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!"
July 25: Trump writes on Twitter: “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign – ‘quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the investigation A.G.... Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!... Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!"
The House passes sanctions on Russia by a vote of 419-3. The package was designed as retribution for Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and limits Trump’s ability to unilaterally relax existing sanctions on Moscow.
Around July 25: FBI agents execute an early morning raid on Manafort's home in Virginia, collecting documents, computer files and taking photographs.
July 26: Trump writes on Twitter: "Why didn't A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got... big dollars ($700,000) for his wife's political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!"
July 27: Papadopoulos is arrested at Dulles International Airport.
On the same day, the Senate passes the sanctions by a vote of 98-2 despite opposition from the White House, which argued that the measure improperly interfered with presidential diplomacy.
July 28: The White House announces Trump will sign the sanctions bill.
July 30: Putin orders the U.S. to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia by 755 people.
July 31: The Washington Post reveals that Trump dictated Trump Jr.'s misleading statement about adoption.
Aug. 1: Sarah Sanders tells reporters that Trump "weighed in as any father would" on the statement, and defended its accuracy.
Aug. 2: Trump signs the sanctions into law. Russia’s foreign minister says his country will respond “harshly,” and Russian state media says that Trump has been encircled by Russia hawks in Washington.
Aug. 31: The State Department orders the closure of three Russian diplomatic compounds in the United States in response to Russia's move to remove U.S. diplomatic staff.
The Russian foreign ministry's consulate general in San Francisco before it was closed. | Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images
Sept. 5: Putin, at a press conference in China, says Trump is "not my bride, and I am not his groom."
Sept. 15: The Wall Street Journal breaks the news that Facebook has provided Mueller with "detailed records about the Russian ad purchases on its platform that go beyond what the company shared with Congress last week."
Sept. 21: Facebook agrees to provide congressional investigators with details about Russian ads purchased on the site that aimed to influence the 2016 election.
Sept. 22: Trump writes on Twitter: "The Russia hoax continues, now it's ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?"
Sept. 26: Stone testifies before the House Intelligence Committee in closed setting. He tells reporters after that he believes the DNC hack was an "inside job."
Oct. 24: The Washington Post reports that the Clinton campaign and the DNC “helped fund research that resulted in” the production of the dossier. “Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research,” the Post reports. The firm’s research had previously been funded by a Republican during the primary campaign.
Oct. 27: Trump writes on Twitter: “It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!”
President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort makes his way through television cameras as he walks from Federal District Court in Washington on Oct. 30. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo
Oct. 30: Manafort and a fellow former campaign aide, Rick Gates, turn themselves into the FBI after being indicted on 12 counts, including money laundering and making false statements. The charges are not directly connected to activity doing the 2016 campaign. Both men plead not guilty.
The Papadopoulos plea deal is made public.
Trump writes on Twitter: “Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus????? …....Also, there is NO COLLUSION!”
Oct. 31: Trump takes to Twitter shortly after 8 a.m., writing: “The Fake News is working overtime. As Paul Manaforts [sic] lawyer said, there was ‘no collusion’ and events mentioned took place long before he… …....came to the campaign. Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS! … I hope people will start to focus on our Massive Tax Cuts for Business (jobs) and the Middle Class (in addition to Democrat corruption)!”
Nov. 13: Donald Trump Jr. confirms on Twitter that he had private conversations with WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign after the Atlantic publishes leaked excerpts. Vice President Mike Pence, who during the campaign dismissed any notion of the campaign being in cahoots with WikiLeaks, denies any knowledge of the conversations.
Nov. 23: The New York Times reports that Flynn’s lawyers have informed the president’s legal team they can no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation, signaling that Flynn may be cooperating.
Dec. 1: Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his December 2016 conversations with the Russian ambassador.
2018
Jan. 24: Trump tells reporters that he’s “looking forward” to sitting for an interview with Mueller.
“There’s been no collusion whatsoever. There’s no obstruction whatsoever, and I’m looking forward to it,” Trump says. He also lashed out at critics who have characterized his effort to “fight back” as obstruction.
Jan. 29: The White House announces it will not impose sanctions on Russia, which were intended to punish election meddling. The White House says the possibility of sanctions is “serving as a deterrent.”
Feb. 2: Trump writes on Twitter: “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans - something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!”
With Trump’s backing, House Republicans releases a Republican memo arguing that FBI officials used Steele's dossier inappropriately in seeking a warrant to conduct surveillance of Page. The FBI and Democrats say the memo excludes key information.
Feb. 3: Trump writes on Twitter: "This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on.”
Feb. 5: House lawmakers support releasing a Democratic memo, which is said to counter the allegations in the Republican document released the previous week.
Feb. 6: Page says he has never spoken with Trump.
Trump meets with Rosenstein to discuss the House Intelligence Committee Democrats’ memo.
Week of Feb. 12: Bannon spends about 20 hours in interviews with Mueller’s team, NBC News reports.
Feb. 16: Mueller’s team indicts 13 Russian nationals for interfering in the election.
Trump writes on Twitter: “Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!”
Feb. 22: Mueller brings a new 32-count indictment against Manafort and Gates for tax and bank fraud and money laundering, among other charges.
Feb. 23: Rick Gates pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate with Mueller’s probe.
Feb. 24: The House Intelligence Committee releases the Democratic memo aiming to rebut the Republican memo accusing the Justice Department of misconduct in the Russia probe.
The memo notes that the FBI was already investigating people connected to the Trump campaign before it received the dossier.
Feb. 27: In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Hope Hicks admits that she has told “white lies” for Trump, reports the New York Times. She resigns from the White House a day later.
Feb. 28: A judge in Washington sets a Sept. 17 trial date for Manafort.
Brent D. Griffiths, Cory Bennett, Kenneth P. Vogel, Isaac Arnsdorf, Michael Crowley, Edward-Isaac Dovere, Annie Karni and Shane Goldmacher contributed to this report.With last night’s Game 5 victory over the New York Rangers, the LA Kings were crowned champions of the 2013-14 NHL playoffs. After their most recent triumph, the Kings have gone from having a Cinderella cup run in 2010-11 to being talked about as the next dynasty, along with the Blackhawks. They did it by going through a gauntlet in the Western Conference, which included the San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, and Chicago Blackhawks. Despite the fact that the Kings proved to be one of the most resilient teams in recent history, they did receive some help along the way, from their opponents.
If your team doesn’t win the cup, fingers are going to be pointed and blame assigned. Sometimes it’s justified, other times it isn’t. For the following players, the blame is definitely deserved.
Rick Nash & Brad Richards
In his time in Columbus, Nash played in just one playoff series and played well, scoring 3 points in 4 games. When he came to the Rangers, fans exclaimed they were excited to finally see Nash on a contender that would regularly make the NHL playoffs. Now, those fans |
string " about:legacy-compat ", then there is a parse error. Append a DocumentType node to the Document node, with the name attribute set to the name given in the DOCTYPE token, or the empty string if the name was missing; the publicId attribute set to the public identifier given in the DOCTYPE token, or the empty string if the public identifier was missing; the systemId attribute set to the system identifier given in the DOCTYPE token, or the empty string if the system identifier was missing; and the other attributes specific to DocumentType objects set to null and empty lists as appropriate. Associate the DocumentType node with the Document object so that it is returned as the value of the doctype attribute of the Document object. Then, if the document is not an iframe srcdoc document, and the DOCTYPE token matches one of the conditions in the following list, then set the Document to quirks mode: The force-quirks flag is set to on.
is set to. The name is set to anything other than " html " (compared case-sensitively).
" (compared case-sensitively). The public identifier is set to: " -//W3O//DTD W3 HTML Strict 3.0//EN// "
" The public identifier is set to: " -/W3C/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional/EN "
" The public identifier is set to: " HTML "
" The system identifier is set to: " http://www.ibm.com/data/dtd/v11/ibmxhtml1-transitional.dtd "
" The public identifier starts with: " +//Silmaril//dtd html Pro v0r11 19970101// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//AS//DTD HTML 3.0 asWedit + extensions// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//AdvaSoft Ltd//DTD HTML 3.0 asWedit + extensions// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 1// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 2// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 1// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 2// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 2.1E// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 3.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 3.2 Final// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 3.2// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML 3// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Level 0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Level 1// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Level 2// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Level 3// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 1// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 2// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 3// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML Strict// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//IETF//DTD HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Metrius//DTD Metrius Presentational// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Microsoft//DTD Internet Explorer 2.0 HTML Strict// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Microsoft//DTD Internet Explorer 2.0 HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Microsoft//DTD Internet Explorer 2.0 Tables// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Microsoft//DTD Internet Explorer 3.0 HTML Strict// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Microsoft//DTD Internet Explorer 3.0 HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Microsoft//DTD Internet Explorer 3.0 Tables// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Netscape Comm. Corp.//DTD HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Netscape Comm. Corp.//DTD Strict HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//O'Reilly and Associates//DTD HTML 2.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//O'Reilly and Associates//DTD HTML Extended 1.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//O'Reilly and Associates//DTD HTML Extended Relaxed 1.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//SQ//DTD HTML 2.0 HoTMetaL + extensions// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//SoftQuad Software//DTD HoTMetaL PRO 6.0::19990601::extensions to HTML 4.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//SoftQuad//DTD HoTMetaL PRO 4.0::19971010::extensions to HTML 4.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Spyglass//DTD HTML 2.0 Extended// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Sun Microsystems Corp.//DTD HotJava HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//Sun Microsystems Corp.//DTD HotJava Strict HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 3 1995-03-24// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Draft// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2S Draft// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML Experimental 19960712// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML Experimental 970421// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD W3 HTML// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3O//DTD W3 HTML 3.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//WebTechs//DTD Mozilla HTML 2.0// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//WebTechs//DTD Mozilla HTML// "
" The system identifier is missing and the public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset// "
" The system identifier is missing and the public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional// " Otherwise, if the document is not an iframe srcdoc document, and the DOCTYPE token matches one of the conditions in the following list, then set the Document to limited-quirks mode: The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset// "
" The public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional// "
" The system identifier is not missing and the public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset// "
" The system identifier is not missing and the public identifier starts with: " -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional// " The system identifier and public identifier strings must be compared to the values given in the lists above in an ASCII case-insensitive manner. A system identifier whose value is the empty string is not considered missing for the purposes of the conditions above. Then, switch the insertion mode to "before html". Anything else If the document is not an iframe srcdoc document, then this is a parse error; set the Document to quirks mode. In any case, switch the insertion mode to "before html", then reprocess the token.
12.2.6.4.2 The " before html " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "before html" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
The document element can end up being removed from the Document object, e.g. by scripts; nothing in particular happens in such cases, content continues being appended to the nodes as described in the next section.
12.2.6.4.3 The " before head " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "before head" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.4 The " in head " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in head" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.5 The " in head noscript " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in head noscript" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.6 The " after head " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "after head" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.7 The " in body " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in body" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
When the steps above say the user agent is to close a p element, it means that the user agent must run the following steps:
The adoption agency algorithm, which takes as its only argument a token token for which the algorithm is being run, consists of the following steps:
This algorithm's name, the "adoption agency algorithm", comes from the way it causes elements to change parents, and is in contrast with other possible algorithms for dealing with misnested content.
12.2.6.4.8 The " text " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "text" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.9 The " in table " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in table" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
When the steps above require the UA to clear the stack back to a table context, it means that the UA must, while the current node is not a table, template, or html element, pop elements from the stack of open elements.
This is the same list of elements as used in the has an element in table scope steps.
The current node being an html element after this process is a fragment case.
12.2.6.4.10 The " in table text " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in table text" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.11 The " in caption " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in caption" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.12 The " in column group " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in column group" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.13 The " in table body " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in table body" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
When the steps above require the UA to clear the stack back to a table body context, it means that the UA must, while the current node is not a tbody,, thead, template, or html element, pop elements from the stack of open elements.
The current node being an html element after this process is a fragment case.
12.2.6.4.14 The " in row " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in row" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
When the steps above require the UA to clear the stack back to a table row context, it means that the UA must, while the current node is not a tr, template, or html element, pop elements from the stack of open elements.
The current node being an html element after this process is a fragment case.
12.2.6.4.15 The " in cell " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in cell" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
Where the steps above say to close the cell, they mean to run the following algorithm:
The stack of open elements cannot have both a td and a th element in table scope at the same time, nor can it have neither when the close the cell algorithm is invoked.
12.2.6.4.16 The " in select " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in select" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.17 The " in select in table " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in select in table" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.18 The " in template " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in template" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.19 The " after body " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "after body" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.20 The " in frameset " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "in frameset" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.21 The " after frameset " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "after frameset" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.22 The " after after body " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "after after body" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.4.23 The " after after frameset " insertion mode
When the user agent is to apply the rules for the "after after frameset" insertion mode, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.6.5 The rules for parsing tokens in foreign content
When the user agent is to apply the rules for parsing tokens in foreign content, the user agent must handle the token as follows:
12.2.7 The end
Once the user agent stops parsing the document, the user agent must run the following steps:
Support: domcontentloadedChrome for Android 71+Chrome 4+iOS Safari 3.2+Firefox 2+UC Browser for Android 11.8+IE 9+Safari 3.1+Edge 12+Opera Mini all+Opera 9+Samsung Internet 4+Android Browser 2.1+ Source: caniuse.com
When the user agent is to abort a parser, it must run the following steps:
Throw away any pending content in the input stream, and discard any future content that would have been added to it. Set the current document readiness to " interactive ". Pop all the nodes off the stack of open elements. Set the current document readiness to " complete ".
Except where otherwise specified, the task source for the tasks mentioned in this section is the DOM manipulation task source.
12.2.8 Coercing an HTML DOM into an infoset
When an application uses an HTML parser in conjunction with an XML pipeline, it is possible that the constructed DOM is not compatible with the XML tool chain in certain subtle ways. For example, an XML toolchain might not be able to represent attributes with the name xmlns, since they conflict with the Namespaces in XML syntax. There is also some data that the HTML parser generates that isn't included in the DOM itself. This section specifies some rules for handling these issues.
If the XML API being used doesn't support DOCTYPEs, the tool may drop DOCTYPEs altogether.
If the XML API doesn't support attributes in no namespace that are named " xmlns ", attributes whose names start with " xmlns: ", or attributes in the XMLNS namespace, then the tool may drop such attributes.
The tool may annotate the output with any namespace declarations required for proper operation.
If the XML API being used restricts the allowable characters in the local names of elements and attributes, then the tool may map all element and attribute local names that the API wouldn't support to a set of names that are allowed, by replacing any character that isn't supported with the uppercase letter U and the six digits of the character's code point when expressed in hexadecimal, using digits 0-9 and capital letters A-F as the symbols, in increasing numeric order.
For example, the element name foo<bar, which can be output by the HTML parser, though it is neither a legal HTML element name nor a well-formed XML element name, would be converted into fooU00003Cbar, which is a well-formed XML element name (though it's still not legal in HTML by any means).
As another example, consider the attribute xlink:href. Used on a MathML element, it becomes, after being adjusted, an attribute with a prefix " xlink " and a local name " href ". However, used on an HTML element, it becomes an attribute with no prefix and the local name " xlink:href ", which is not a valid NCName, and thus might not be accepted by an XML API. It could thus get converted, becoming " xlinkU00003Ahref ".
The resulting names from this conversion conveniently can't clash with any attribute generated by the HTML parser, since those are all either lowercase or those listed in the adjust foreign attributes algorithm's table.
If the XML API restricts comments from having two consecutive U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS characters (--), the tool may insert a single U+0020 SPACE character between any such offending characters.
If the XML API restricts comments from ending in a U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character (-), the tool may insert a single U+0020 SPACE character at the end of such comments.
If the XML API restricts allowed characters in character data, attribute values, or comments, the tool may replace any U+000C FORM FEED (FF) character with a U+0020 SPACE character, and any other literal non-XML character with a U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER.
If the tool has no way to convey out-of-band information, then the tool may drop the following information:
The mutations allowed by this section apply after the HTML parser's rules have been applied. For example, a <a::> start tag will be closed by a </a::> end tag, and never by a </aU00003AU00003A> end tag, even if the user agent is using the rules above to then generate an actual element in the DOM with the name aU00003AU00003A for that start tag.
12.2.9 An introduction to error handling and strange cases in the parser
This section is non-normative.
This section examines some erroneous markup and discusses how the HTML parser handles these cases.
This section is non-normative.
The most-often discussed example of erroneous markup is as follows:
< p > 1 < b > 2 < i > 3 </ b > 4 </ i > 5 </ p >
The parsing of this markup is straightforward up to the "3". At this point, the DOM looks like this:
: 1 : 2 : 3
Here, the has five elements on it:,,,, and. The just has two: and. The is " ".
Upon receiving the end tag token with the tag name "b", the "adoption agency algorithm" is invoked. This is a simple case, in that the formatting element is the element, and there is no furthest block. Thus, the ends up with just three elements:,, and, while the has just one:. The DOM tree is unmodified at this point.
The next token is a character ("4"), triggers the, in this case just the element. A new element is thus created for the "4" node. After the end tag token for the "i" is also received, and the "5" node is inserted, the DOM looks as follows:
: 1 : 2 : 3 : 4 : 5
This section is non-normative.
A case similar to the previous one is the following:
< b > 1 < p > 2 </ b > 3 </ p >
Up to the "2" the parsing here is straightforward:
: 1 : 2
The interesting part is when the end tag token with the tag name "b" is parsed.
Before that token is seen, the has four elements on it:,,, and. The just has the one:. The is " ".
Upon receiving the end tag token with the tag name "b", the "adoption agency algorithm" is invoked, as in the previous example. However, in this case, there is a furthest block, namely the element. Thus, this time the adoption agency algorithm isn't skipped over.
The common ancestor is the element. A conceptual "bookmark" marks the position of the in the, but since that list has only one element in it, the bookmark won't have much effect.
As the algorithm progresses, node ends up set to the formatting element ( ), and last node ends up set to the furthest block ( ).
The last node gets appended (moved) to the common ancestor, so that the DOM looks like:
: 1 : 2
A new element is created, and the children of the element are moved to it:
: 1
: 2
Finally, the new element is appended to the element, so that the DOM looks like:
: 1 : 2
The element is removed from the and the, so that when the "3" is parsed, it is appended to the element:
: 1 : 2 : 3
12.2.9.3 Unexpected markup in tables
This section is non-normative.
Error handling in tables is, for historical reasons, especially strange. For example, consider the following markup:
< table > < b > < tr >< td > aaa </ td ></ tr > bbb </ table > ccc
The highlighted b element start tag is not allowed directly inside a table like that, and the parser handles this case by placing the element before the table. (This is called foster parenting.) This can be seen by examining the DOM tree as it stands just after the table element's start tag has been seen:
...and then immediately after the b element start tag has been seen:
At this point, the stack of open elements has on it the elements html, body, table, and b (in that order, despite the resulting DOM tree); the list of active formatting elements just has the b element in it; and the insertion mode is "in table".
The tr start tag causes the b element to be popped off the stack and a tbody start tag to be implied; the tbody and tr elements are then handled in a rather straight-forward manner, taking the parser through the "in table body" and "in row" insertion modes, after which the DOM looks as follows:
Here, the stack of open elements has on it the elements html, body, table, tbody, and tr ; the list of active formatting elements still has the b element in it; and the insertion mode is "in row".
The td element start tag token, after putting a td element on the tree, puts a marker on the list of active formatting elements (it also switches to the "in cell" insertion mode).
The marker means that when the "aaa" character tokens are seen, no b element is created to hold the resulting Text node:
The end tags are handled in a straight-forward manner; after handling them, the stack of open elements has on it the elements html, body, table, and tbody ; the list of active formatting elements still has the b element in it (the marker having been removed by the "td" end tag token); and the insertion mode is "in table body".
Thus it is that the "bbb" character tokens are found. These trigger the "in table text" insertion mode to be used (with the original insertion mode set to "in table body"). The character tokens are collected, and when the next token (the table element end tag) is seen, they are processed as a group. Since they are not all spaces, they are handled as per the "anything else" rules in the "in table" insertion mode, which defer to the "in body" insertion mode but with foster parenting.
When the active formatting elements are reconstructed, a b element is created and foster parented, and then the "bbb" Text node is appended to it:
The stack of open elements has on it the elements html, body, table, tbody, and the new b (again, note that this doesn't match the resulting tree!); the list of active formatting elements has the new b element in it; and the insertion mode is still "in table body".
Had the character tokens been only ASCII whitespace instead of "bbb", then that ASCII whitespace would just be appended to the tbody element.
Finally, the table is closed by a "table" end tag. This pops all the nodes from the stack of open elements up to and including the table element, but it doesn't affect the list of active formatting elements, so the "ccc" character tokens after the table result in yet another b element being created, this time after the table:
12.2.9.4 Scripts that modify the page as it is being parsed
This section is non-normative.
Consider the following markup, which for this example we will assume is the document with URL https://example.com/inner, being rendered as the content of an iframe in another document with the URL https://example.com/outer :
< div id = a > < script > var div = document. getElementById ( 'a' ); parent. document. body. appendChild ( div ); </ script > < script > alert ( document. URL ); </ script > </ div > < script > alert ( document. URL ); </ script >
Up to the first "script" end tag, before the script is parsed, the result is relatively straightforward:
html head body div id =" a " =" #text : script #text : var div = document.getElementById('a'); ⏎ parent.document.body.appendChild(div);
After the script is parsed, though, the div element and its child script element are gone:
They are, at this point, in the Document of the aforementioned outer browsing context. However, the stack of open elements still contains the div element.
Thus, when the second script element is parsed, it is inserted into the outer Document object.
Those parsed into different Document s than the one the parser was created for do not execute, so the first alert does not show.
Once the div element's end tag is parsed, the div element is popped off the stack, and so the next script element is in the inner Document :
This script does execute, resulting in an alert that says "https://example.com/inner".
12.2.9.5 The execution of scripts that are moving across multiple documents
This section is non-normative.
Elaborating on the example in the previous section, consider the case where the second script element is an external script (i.e. one with a src attribute). Since the element was not in the parser's Document when it was created, that external script is not even downloaded.
In a case where a script element with a src attribute is parsed normally into its parser's Document, but while the external script is being downloaded, the element is moved to another document, the script continues to download, but does not execute.
In general, moving script elements between Document s is considered a bad practice.
12.2.9.6 Unclosed formatting elements
This section is non-normative.
The following markup shows how nested formatting elements (such as b ) get collected and continue to be applied even as the elements they are contained in are closed, but that excessive duplicates are thrown away.
<!DOCTYPE html> < p >< b class = x >< b class = x >< b >< b class = x >< b class = x >< b > X < p > X < p >< b >< b class = x >< b > X < p ></ b ></ b ></ b ></ b ></ b ></ b > X
The resulting DOM tree is as follows:
DOCTYPE: html
html head body p b class =" x " =" b class =" x " =" b b class =" x " =" b class =" x " =" b #text : X⏎ p b class =" x " =" b b class =" x " =" b class =" x " =" b #text : X⏎ p b class =" x " =" b b class =" x " =" b class =" x " =" b b b class =" x " =" b #text : X⏎ p #text : X⏎
Note how the second p element in the markup has no explicit b elements, but in the resulting DOM, up to three of each kind of formatting element (in this case three b elements with the class attribute, and two unadorned b elements) get reconstructed before the element's "X".
Also note how this means that in the final paragraph only six b end tags are needed to completely clear the list of active formatting elements, even though nine b start tags have been seen up to this point.
12.3 Serializing HTML fragments
For the purposes of the following algorithm, an element serializes as void if its element type is one of the void elements, or is basefont, bgsound, frame, or keygen.
The following steps form the HTML fragment serialization algorithm. The algorithm takes as input a DOM Element, Document, or DocumentFragment referred to as the node, and returns a string.
This algorithm serializes the children of the node being serialized, not the node itself.
It is possible that the output of this algorithm, if parsed with an HTML parser, will not return the original tree structure. Tree structures that do not roundtrip a serialize and reparse step can also be produced by the HTML parser itself, although such cases are typically non-conforming.
For instance, if a textarea element to which a Comment node has been appended is serialized and the output is then reparsed, the comment will end up being displayed in the text control. Similarly, if, as a result of DOM manipulation, an element contains a comment that contains the literal string " --> ", then when the result of serializing the element is parsed, the comment will be truncated at that point and the rest of the comment will be interpreted as markup. More examples would be making a script element contain a Text node with the text string " </script> ", or having a p element that contains a ul element (as the ul element's start tag would imply the end tag for the p ). This can enable cross-site scripting attacks. An example of this would be a page that lets the user enter some font family names that are then inserted into a CSS style block via the DOM and which then uses the innerHTML IDL attribute to get the HTML serialization of that style element: if the user enters " </style><script>attack</script> " as a font family name, innerHTML will return markup that, if parsed in a different context, would contain a script node, even though no script node existed in the original DOM.
For example, consider the following markup: < form id = "outer" >< div ></ form >< form id = "inner" >< input > This will be parsed into: html head body form id =" outer " =" div form id =" inner " =" input
The input element will be associated with the inner form element. Now, if this tree structure is serialized and reparsed, the <form id="inner"> start tag will be ignored, and so the input element will be associated with the outer form element instead. < html >< head ></ head >< body >< form id = "outer" >< div > < form id = "inner" > < input ></ form ></ div ></ form ></ body ></ html > html head body form id =" outer " =" div input
As another example, consider the following markup: < a >< table >< a > This will be parsed into: html head body a a table
That is, the a elements are nested, because the second a element is foster parented. After a serialize-reparse roundtrip, the a elements and the table element would all be siblings, because the second <a> start tag implicitly closes the first a element. < html >< head ></ head >< body >< a > < a > </ a >< table ></ table ></ a ></ body ></ html > html head body a a table
For historical reasons, this algorithm does not round-trip an initial U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character in pre, textarea, or listing elements, even though (in the first two cases) the markup being round-tripped can be conforming. The HTML parser will drop such a character during parsing, but this algorithm does not serialize an extra U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character.
For example, consider the following markup: < pre > Hello. </ pre > When this document is first parsed, the pre element's child text content starts with a single newline character. After a serialize-reparse roundtrip, the pre element's child text content is simply " Hello. ".
Because of the special role of the is attribute in signaling the creation of customized built-in elements, in that it provides a mechanism for parsed HTML to set the element's is value, we special-case its handling during serialization.This ensures that an element's is value is preserved through serialize-parse roundtrips.
When creating a customized built-in element via the parser, a developer uses the is attribute directly; in such cases serialize-parse roundtrips work fine. < script > window. SuperP = class extends HTMLParagraphElement {}; customElements. define ( "super-p", SuperP, { extends : "p" }); </ script > < div id = "container" >< p is = "super-p" > Superb! </ p ></ div > < script > console. log ( container. innerHTML ); // <p is="super-p"> container. innerHTML = container. innerHTML ; console. log ( container. innerHTML ); // <p is="super-p"> console. assert ( container. firstChild instanceof SuperP ); </ script > But when creating a customized built-in element via its constructor or via createElement(), the is attribute is not added. Instead, the is value (which is what the custom elements machinery uses) is set without intermediating through an attribute. < script > container. innerHTML = "" ; const p = document. createElement ( "p", { is : "super-p" }); container. appendChild ( p ); // The is attribute is not present in the DOM: console. assert (! p. hasAttribute ( "is" )); // But the element is still a super-p: console. assert ( p instanceof SuperP ); </ script > To ensure that serialize-parse roundtrips still work, the serialization process explicitly writes out the element's is value as an is attribute: < script > console. log ( container. innerHTML ); // <p is="super-p"> container. innerHTML = container. innerHTML ; console. log ( container. innerHTML ); // <p is="super-p"> console. assert ( container. firstChild instanceof SuperP ); </ script >
Escaping a string (for the purposes of the algorithm above) consists of running the following steps:
Replace any occurrence of the " & " character by the string " & ". Replace any occurrences of the U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE character by the string " ". If the algorithm was invoked in the attribute mode, replace any occurrences of the " " " character by the string " " ". If the algorithm was not invoked in the attribute mode, replace any occurrences of the " < " character by the string " < ", and any occurrences of the " > " character by the string " > ".
12.4 Parsing HTML fragments
The following steps form the HTML fragment parsing algorithm. The algorithm takes as input an Element node, referred to as the context element, which gives the context for the parser, as well as input, a string to parse, and returns a list of zero or more nodes.This article is from the archive of our partner.
After stepping away from Reddit once he was unmasked by Gawker's Adrian Chen and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Internet creep Michael Brutsch (aka Violentacrez), the man behind the creepshots and jailbait sections of the site, is back to defending himself on Reddit, as Gawker's Adrian Chen noted on Twitter. After Chen posted his big porn exposé, Brutsch took to the site he once helped moderate, with a line-by-line takedown.
After that, however, Brutsch stepped back from the site, for obvious reasons, returning at least once under a now-deleted account to post his resumé looking for work in the porn industry, according to Fox News. But now, it seems, he has decided that enough time has passed to start posting again.
So what is Brutsch up to, this time? Still defending himself. Another Redditor posted an inquiry about Reddit's site-wide policy when it comes to "doxxing" — the Reddit term for revealing personal details about a user (which the site does not allow). His mention of "violentacrez" as a "scumbag" is what brought out Brutsch |
Ted Malloch said trying to punish Britain for exiting the union to avoid others following suit could lead to a backlash for the bloc. Speaking to RT after Theresa May triggered Article 50 on Wednesday, Mr Malloch said: “It’s a great day for Great Britain. “I think that finally there will be freedom again in Great Britain as a result of leaving the EU. “It’s a democratic vote, a referendum to leave, and I actually think it will be a fairly clear break. It won’t be a soft break or a hard break but a clean break.”
RT • GETTY Ted Malloch warned the EU against trying to punish the UK for Brexit
Mr Malloch, who has previously sparked the European Union’s fury for his support of Brexit, also suggesting trying to pushing the UK for leaving will only harm the bloc. He said: “You hear some people going to those negotiations saying that they’re going to be very harsh, very punitive, and ‘we’re going to teach Britain a lesson’. “Well, that really won’t be very constructive if that’s the case. It will be a very short negotiation; I suspect it can be over in as few as six months. “But if they take this ‘we’re going to teach Britain a lesson so nobody else does this’ attitude, I think it will end badly, particularly for the EU.”
I think it will end badly, particularly for the EU Ted Malloch
The warning to Brussels comes after the EU Commission president earlier this week said he would push for Ohio and Texas to split from the rest of America if Donald Trump does not retreat from his eurosceptic stance. In his speech at the centre-right European People Party’s (EPP) annual conference in Malta, Jean-Claude Juncker said: “Brexit isn’t the end. “A lot of people would like it that way, even people on another continent where the newly elected US President was happy that the Brexit was taking place and has asked other countries to do the same. “If he goes on like that I am going to promote the independence of Ohio and Austin, Texas in the US.”
Brexit day: images from around the country as Britain invokes Article 50 Mon, April 3, 2017 The country reacts as Theresa May officially invokes Article 50, and begins the process of Britain leaving the European Union Play slideshow EPA 1 of 22 Pro-EU demonstrators protest outside Parliament
Mr Juncker added: “Brexit isn’t the end of everything. We must consider it to be a new beginning, something that is stronger, something that is better.” The comments sparked a storm both in Europe and the US at a time when relations between Washington and Brussels are already strained over the Continent’s Nato contributions. Following the speech, a spokesman for the bloc insisted the remarks were not meant to be taken literally. But in a fiery rant on Fox News, Nigel Farage tore into the eurocrat as he branded Mr Juncker a “complete and total idiot”.Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his wife are ending their two-decade marriage.
Spitzer and his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, issued a statement late Tuesday announcing the split.
"We regret that our marital relationship has come to an end," the statement reads.
The couple then said they will not address the subject further.
The Spitzers were married in 1987 and have three grown children. They've been living apart for months.
Wall Spitzer supported Spitzer's rise from attorney general to governor and stood by his side in 2008 when he resigned after admitting he paid for sex with prostitutes. She did not campaign publicly for him when he attempted a political comeback this year by running for New York City comptroller.
Spitzer lost his bid for that seat in the Democratic primary.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC New YorkIt was just five months ago that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said he wants leaders from the faith community to “rise up and engage America in the public square with Biblical values.” The likely Republican presidential candidate added, “The time has come for pastors to lead the way and reset the course of American governance.”
This is not an uncommon sentiment in GOP politics. As the party continues to move sharply to the right, Republican hostility towards church-state separation has become the norm. In culture-war debates over gay rights and reproductive rights, for example, the right routinely argues that policymakers should heed the appeals from religious leaders.
More generally, conservatives express alarm about the left trying to push voices from the faith community “out of the public square.” It’s these religious leaders, the GOP argues, that should help guide public debate.
With this in mind, it seemed almost miraculous to see this Politico piece yesterday.
After Pope Francis moved to recognize a Palestinian state, some gung-ho defenders of Israel suggested the pontiff should stick to preaching and stay out of politics. “It’s interesting how the Vatican has gotten so political when ultimately the Vatican ought to be working to lead people to Jesus Christ and salvation, and that’s what the Church is supposed to do,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), a hawkish defender of Israel.
Note, a variety of lawmakers expressed public disagreement – and in some cases, deep disappointment – with Pope Francis’s move towards officially recognizing Palestinians. And to be sure, there’s nothing wrong with a spirited debate, with some American policymakers on one side and the Catholic leader on the other.
But that’s not what Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said, exactly. Rather, he suggested Pope Francis should stay out of the debate altogether – the Vatican can focus on spiritual matters, the South Carolinian argued, and stay out of politics.
Imagine that. When church leaders condemn abortion, congressional Republicans shout, “Amen.” When the pope enters a foreign policy debate, suddenly we effectively hear, “Mind your own business, padre.”
Indeed, when President Reagan worked with Pope John Paul II on a variety of issues, Republicans saw it as an important diplomatic partnership. But now that it’s President Obama and Pope Francis who are often aligned – on climate change, on Iran nuclear talks, on diplomacy with Cuba, on economic inequality, on pay equity for women – and some GOP officials suddenly aren’t pleased at all with the Vatican’s interest in contemporary politics.
Over at Daily Kos, Laura Clawson added, “Republicans have shown time and time again that they have no problem whatsoever with religion in politics. Now we know how particular they are about whose religion and whose politics. Catholic leaders in politics are fine as long as they’re threatening to deny communion to Democrats over abortion, but let a pope talk about economic inequality and poverty and suddenly Republicans discover that they’d really prefer it if religious leaders would keep quiet and let politicians speak for them.”Say you had to implement a class that takes as an argument (in the constructor) Iterator<Iterator<E>> iterator and returns an iterator that can iterate all the elements under Iterator<Iterator<E>> iterator in a round-robin manner, meaning, according to the order of the numbers in the following screenshot:
I searched online and found implementations such as this, this and even Guava but they are not helpful in our case since the order they are iterating is vertical: 1,7,13,17,2,8,14,18,3,9,4,…
So I decided to come up with my solution to the problem, and here’s what I got:
import java.util.Iterator; import java.util.LinkedList; import java.util.List; import java.util.NoSuchElementException; /** * Created by alfasin on 11/15/15. */ public class MultiIterator<E> implements Iterator { List<Iterator<E>> iterators = new LinkedList<>(); Iterator<E> current = null; public MultiIterator(Iterator<Iterator<E>> iterator) { // copy the iterators into a list while (iterator.hasNext()) { iterators.add(iterator.next()); } } @Override public boolean hasNext() { boolean result = false; if (iterators.isEmpty() && (current == null ||!current.hasNext())) { return false; } if (current == null) { current = iterators.remove(0); } while (!current.hasNext() &&!iterators.isEmpty()) { current = iterators.remove(0); } if (current.hasNext()) { result = true; } return result; } @Override public E next() { if (current == null) { try { current = iterators.remove(0); } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException e) { throw new NoSuchElementException(); } } E result = current.next(); // if this method was called without checking 'hasNext' this line might raise NoSuchElementException which is fine iterators.add(current); current = iterators.remove(0); return result; } // test public static void main(String[] args) { List<Integer> a = new LinkedList<>(); a.add(1); a.add(7); a.add(13); a.add(17); List<Integer> b = new LinkedList<>(); b.add(2); b.add(8); b.add(14); b.add(18); List<Integer> c = new LinkedList<>(); c.add(3); c.add(9); List<Integer> d = new LinkedList<>(); d.add(4); d.add(10); d.add(15); List<Integer> e = new LinkedList<>(); e.add(5); e.add(11); List<Integer> f = new LinkedList<>(); f.add(6); f.add(12); f.add(16); f.add(19); List<Iterator<Integer>> iterators = new LinkedList<>(); iterators.add(a.iterator()); iterators.add(b.iterator()); iterators.add(c.iterator()); iterators.add(d.iterator()); iterators.add(e.iterator()); iterators.add(f.iterator()); MultiIterator<Integer> it = new MultiIterator<>(iterators.iterator()); while (it.hasNext()) { System.out.print(it.next() + ","); // prints: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19, } } }
A different approach would be to read all the elements, during initialization, into one list and then return an iterator of that list!
Let’s see how it works:
import java.util.Iterator; import java.util.LinkedList; import java.util.List; /** * Created by alfasin on 11/15/15. */ public class MultiIterator<E> { Iterator<Iterator<E>> iterator = null; List<E> elements = new LinkedList<>(); private MultiIterator(Iterator<Iterator<E>> iterator) { this.iterator = iterator; } private void copyElementsInOrder() { List<Iterator<E>> iterators = new LinkedList<>(); // copy the iterators into a list while (iterator.hasNext()) { iterators.add(iterator.next()); } // go over the list, round-robin, and grab one // element from each sub-iterator and add it to *elements* // empty sub-iterators will get dropped off the list while (!iterators.isEmpty()) { Iterator<E> subIterator = iterators.remove(0); if (subIterator.hasNext()) { elements.add(subIterator.next()); iterators.add(subIterator); } } } public static <E> Iterator<E> iterator(Iterator<Iterator<E>> iterator) { MultiIterator<E> instance = new MultiIterator<>(iterator); instance.copyElementsInOrder(); return instance.elements.iterator(); } // test public static void main(String[] args) { List<Integer> a = new LinkedList<>(); a.add(1); a.add(7); a.add(13); a.add(17); List<Integer> b = new LinkedList<>(); b.add(2); b.add(8); b.add(14); b.add(18); List<Integer> c = new LinkedList<>(); c.add(3); c.add(9); List<Integer> d = new LinkedList<>(); d.add(4); d.add(10); d.add(15); List<Integer> e = new LinkedList<>(); e.add(5); e.add(11); List<Integer> f = new LinkedList<>(); f.add(6); f.add(12); f.add(16); f.add(19); List<Iterator<Integer>> iterators = new LinkedList<>(); iterators.add(a.iterator()); iterators.add(b.iterator()); iterators.add(c.iterator()); iterators.add(d.iterator()); iterators.add(e.iterator()); iterators.add(f.iterator()); Iterator<Integer> it = MultiIterator.<Integer>iterator(iterators.iterator()); while (it.hasNext()) { System.out.print(it.next() + ","); // prints: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19, } } }
There are pros and cons to each one of these approaches:
The first approach is more complex because it requires checking and handling of many edge-cases (including catching an IndexOutOfBoundsException in case that our list of iterators is empty and throwing the proper NoSuchElementException instead).
The second approach is more concise on one hand, but on the other hand it requires copying, in-advance, all the elements (greedy) vs. the first approach which is lazy and should be preferred in cases of large datasets.
Note that the second approach implements a factory and as such it doesn’t implement the Iterator interface!
EDIT:
Now with Java 9, it’s much more elegant to create such lists (using the new collections APIs). I re-did this exercise and here’s what I got:
class MultiIterator<E> implements Iterator { private LinkedList<Iterator<E>> iterators = new LinkedList<>(); private int current = 0; public MultiIterator(Iterator<Iterator<E>> iterator) { while(iterator.hasNext()) { iterators.add(iterator.next()); } } /** * Returns {@code true} if the iteration has more elements. * (In other words, returns {@code true} if {@link #next} would * return an element rather than throwing an exception.) * * @return {@code true} if the iteration has more elements */ @Override public boolean hasNext() { if (iterators.size() == 0) { return false; } if (iterators.get(current).hasNext()) { return true; } return false; } /** * Returns the next element in the iteration. * * @return the next element in the iteration * @throws NoSuchElementException if the iteration has no more elements */ @Override public E next() { E next; try { next = iterators.get(current).next(); // might throw IndexOutOfBoundsException if wasn't called with hasNext() Iterator<E> iter = iterators.remove(current); if (iter.hasNext()) { iterators.add(iter); } } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException e) { throw new NoSuchElementException(); } return next; } public static void main(String[] args) { List<Integer> l1 = List.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6); List<Integer> l2 = List.of(5, 6, 7, 8); List<Integer> l3 = List.of(9, 10, 11, 12); Iterator<Iterator<Integer>> iterators = List.of(l1.iterator(), l2.iterator(), l3.iterator()).iterator(); MultiIterator<Integer> iters = new MultiIterator<>(iterators); while (iters.hasNext()) { System.out.println(iters.next()); } } }
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In die Debatte um eine Legalisierung von Cannabis ist Bewegung gekommen – das hoffen zumindest diejenigen, die sich, wie unlängst die Grünen, dafür einsetzen, unter strengen Auflagen Erwerb und Konsum von Haschisch und Marihuana zu erlauben. Die kleinste Oppositionspartei hat einen Gesetzentwurf eingebracht, der bei den anderen Parteien erwartungsgemäß auf wenig Gegenliebe gestoßen ist. Denn die breite deutsche Öffentlichkeit hat ihren Spaß an Cannabis höchstens bei Kalauern wie „Haste Haschisch in de Tasche, haste immer was zu nasche“.
Was macht Haschisch so gefährlich, dass man es verbieten muss? Verfolgt man die Geschichte des Cannabis-Verbots, fällt auf, dass es ursprünglich weniger um die Angst vor gesundheitlicher Gefährdung, als vielmehr um Wirtschaftsinteressen ging – die allerdings von einer außergewöhnlich massiven moralisch-ideologischen Propaganda befeuert wurden. Dass der indische Hanf 1929 ins deutsche Strafgesetzbuch übernommen wurde, ist Ergebnis eines Kuhhandels zwischen Ägypten und Deutschland auf der zweiten Opiumkonferenz: Neben Indien wollte auch Kairo Cannabis verbieten lassen – zu einer Zeit, als Hanfprodukte in deutschen Apotheken noch frei erhältlich waren und deutsche Bauern als billigen Tabakersatz Hanf (Knaster) rauchten.
Ja zu Heroin, nein zu Cannabis
Der ägyptische König klagte über die lähmende Wirkung von Cannabis und wünschte sich „arbeitsamere und strebsamere“ Untertanen. Auf der Konferenz nun kam es auf die deutsche Stimme an – und Ägypten zog 1925 nach dem deutschen Ja zu einem Verbot seinerseits die Drohung zurück, Importverbote für die Pharmaprodukte „Heroin“ (Bayer) und „Kokain (Merck) zu erlassen. Heroin siegte über Cannabis. Die etwas unverbindlichen Regelungen und die Wirren durch den Zweiten Weltkrieg ließen bei der Umsetzung allerdings zu wünschen übrig.
Das könnte Sie auch interessieren Cannabiskontrollgesetz : Grüne wollen Cannabisbesitz bis 30 Gramm legalisieren
Zur weitaus wirksameren Kraft für ein weltweites Verbot von Haschisch und Marihuana wurden die USA, federführend das eigens gegründete „Federal Bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs“ (FBN). Auch den Amerikanern ging es eigentlich nicht so sehr um das Verbot der Droge. „Dass es sich bei Cannabis um eine wirtschaftlich bedeutsame Nutzpflanze handelte, welche der aufstrebenden Kunstfaserindustrie Anfang des Jahrhunderts im Wege stand, wird häufig übersehen beziehungsweise bewusst ignoriert“, erklärt der Deutsche Hanfverband (DHV) die amerikanische Motivlage. Die USA, weltweit größter Baumwollproduzent, wollten die Hanfpflanze als Konkurrenz beseitigen und setzten das globale und umfassende Cannabisverbot in jahrzehntelanger diplomatischer Arbeit durch, bestätigt Raphael Gaßmann, Geschäftsführer der Deutschen Hauptstelle für Suchtfragen.
Das ist insofern interessant, als noch 1916 das US-Landwirtschaftsministerium die Bedeutung und die stofflichen wie materiellen Vorzüge von Hanf bei der Papierherstellung angepriesen hatte. Das wiederum mobilisierte ein finanzstarkes Trio aus Randolph Hearst (Wald- und Papierfabrikbesitzer, Zeitungsmagnat), dem Chemieriesen Du Pont (der mit Chemikalien zur Papierherstellung aus Holz sein Geld verdiente) sowie dem Bankier Andrew Mellon (zweitreichster Mann der USA, Finanzminister, Hauptfinanzier von Du Pont). Mellon ernannte den zukünftigen Mann seiner Nichte, Harry J. Anslinger, zum Leiter des FBN.
Neben der Kunstfaserindustrie baute auch die Pharmaindustrie enormen Druck auf die Produzenten von cannabishaltiger Medizin auf. Chemische Medikamente mit klar definierten Wirkstoffen wurden entwickelt, hinzu kam ein Marihuana-Steuergesetz, das kleine Betriebe vom Markt vertrieb und Ärzte vergrätzte, die wegen der komplizierten Buchführung aufhörten, Cannabis zu verschreiben.
Der „Marihuana tax act“ von 1937 wurde von einem regelrechten Kreuzzug des FBN ideologisch flankiert, Filme und Bücher warnten vor Tod und Verderben durch das „Mörderkraut“ und die „Killerdroge“ – ohne jeglichen wissenschaftlichen Nachweis. Marihuana wurde nur noch als Rauschgift verteufelt, mit dem „Neger, Mexikaner, Puerto-Ricaner und Jazzmusiker“ das Land vergiften wollten, um anschließend weiße Frauen zu vergewaltigen.
Auch wenn man die US-Drogenpolitik nicht an einem einzigen Akteur festmachen kann, so war Anslinger doch Symbolfigur des harten US-Kurses, maßgeblich auch für die Vereinten Nationen, auf deren Fluren er von 1948 an das UN-Drogenbüro leitete. In dieser Funktion führte er die Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) 1954 zu der „Erkenntnis“, Hanf und seine Derivate hätten keinerlei therapeutischen Wert. Krönung für Anslinger wurde 1961 die „Single Convention of narcotic drugs“, in der Cannabis mit Morphin und ähnlichen Substanzen gleichgesetzt wurde. Der Kreuzzug war am Ziel, das Kraut weltweit zur „flora non grata“ geworden. Nicht nur der Handel, auch der Konsument waren kriminalisiert.
Haschisch als Symbol einer Jugendkultur
Cannabis firmiert spätestens seitdem auch in Deutschland als illegale Rauschdroge. Ende der 1960er Jahre avancierte Haschisch zum Symbol einer Jugendkultur, die gegen das Establishment rebellierte. Mittlerweile ist aber das Bild des Haschisch rauchenden Hippies überholt, die Kiffer sind in die Jahre gekommen, das Verbot ist geblieben.
Die Diskussion über eine Legalisierung von Cannabis in Deutschland suggeriert oft, als würde über Leben und Tod entschieden. Hinzu kommen juristische Absurditäten. Die geschätzt rund vier Millionen Kiffer machen sich – im Prinzip – strafbar. Nur im Prinzip, denn: der Konsum (Eigenbedarf) ist erlaubt. Aber Anbau, Verkauf, Kauf und Besitz sind wiederum illegal. Wer an einem fremden Joint zieht, ist also nicht automatisch kriminell. Wer einen Joint besitzt, macht sich jedoch eindeutig strafbar. Das mögen Juristen verstehen...
In Deutschland sind sehr vorsichtige Ansätze zu einer neuen Drogenpolitik zu entdecken, wie eben der Gesetzentwurf der Grünen, eine Petition von 120 Strafrechtlern zur Änderung des Betäubungsmittelgesetzes oder auch die Ankündigung der Drogenbeauftragten Marlene Mortler. Die CSU-Politikerin hat angedeutet, dass demnächst die Krankenkassen Schmerzpatienten Cannabis als Medizin zahlen sollen. Auch dies wird seit Jahrzehnten eisern blockiert. An der Spitze mit dabei die Pharmaindustrie.Friday
Meet the Pack
We've got from today until Monday to work with. Our first step is to hook up with a local kayak-fishing club called the Pack, a group of guys from the Dallas and Houston regions. We're going to fish with them this morning, camp with them tonight, then strike out on our own for the rest of the long weekend, using side-by-sides with roof racks to cover more ground.
We meet them at dawn, where the road south out of Bay City deadends at the Gulf. There are four guys in our crew. Tim Romano, our photographer, comes from Colorado. James Gigliotti and Mike Polak are fishing buddies from New York. One surfs, the other is a Gulf War vet. Both live in Brooklyn.
There are eight of the Pack guys. Michael "Mackerel" Harris is my contact, a 37-year-old fishing team member for Jackson kayaks with a day job at a brewery in Houston. Brad Valtierra is the club's president. Jim Richards and Barry Sandler are the wise old men. Tim Boone is a general contractor. Then there's Shawn Faris, Greg Corbett, and Chris Busch. They eyeball our Vikings as we unload the trailer and follow their trucks onto the sand.
The first three miles of the island are private, so everyone runs the beach below the high tide line. It's a rutted course of pits, piles, and dark green drifts of seaweed. Rough going with the tide coming in, and Boone buries a tire on his truck. He pulls himself out with a winch and a homemade sand anchor, old hat, like he's done it a thousand times.
It’s a slow, bumpy ride for the guys in the trucks, but UTVs shine in this kind of terrain. We are pleased with the Vikings, comfortable three-seaters from Yamaha that sled easily across the mess, even with the yaks on top.
Where the land turns public, we turn north, up a sugar-sand wash and then through a cut in the dunes. The track ends at a drying mud bank on the edge of a deepwater slough.Gym Clothes & Workout Clothes for Men
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Bernie Sanders
James Buck
Making a point
James Buck
Supporters in the crowd
When Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington three decades ago, the city’s waterfront was an unsightly rail yard. He worked to remake it into a showcase public park, he said Tuesday as he kicked off his presidential run in that park. Help him get elected president, he said, and he’ll transform the country.“The lesson to be learned is that when people stand together, and are prepared to fight back, there is nothing that can’t be accomplished,” Sanders told several thousand supporters who waved newly printed “Bernie for president” placards.“I am proud to announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America,” Sanders said, to loud applause.With a wide array of national and local media on hand, Sanders spoke from a stage with Lake Champlain gleaming behind him. He had a stunningly perfect, if a tad warm, day for showing off the city he once ran.The message he delivered to that national audience would not surprise anybody who’s heard Sanders speak for the last four decades. “Enough is enough,” he bellowed. “This great nation and its government belong to all of the people, and not to a handful of billionaires.”He added, "This campaign is going to send a message to the billionaire class. And that is: You can’t have it all. You can’t get huge tax breaks while children in this country go hungry. That is why we need a tax system which is fair and progressive, which makes wealthy individuals and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes."The candidate, who has long lambasted the “corporate media,” called for an election that focuses on the issues, not political theater.“This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders. It is not about Hillary Clinton. It is not about Jeb Bush or anyone else. This campaign is about the needs of the American people,” he said. “Politics in a democratic society should not be treated like a baseball game, a game show or a soap opera.”An independent who has served 16 years in the U.S. House and nine in the U.S. Senate, Sanders is widely considered an underdog for the Democratic presidential nomination, with Hillary Clinton leading in the polls. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to announce his campaign Saturday.The Agenda for America that Sanders laid out was familiar territory for Congress’ longest-serving independent. He called for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, guaranteed paid sick and vacation time, overturning theSupreme Court ruling that opened the door to corporate campaign spending, fighting climate change, making public colleges free to attend, and forcing corporations to pay “their fair share” of taxes.They are the same issues he supports as a U.S. senator, which makes his presidential run a low-risk affair. If he loses, he’ll have brought more attention to issues he would continue to push in the Senate.Sanders got a little help from many of his old hometown friends as he launched his national bid. “This guy’s been saying and doing the same stuff for the last 30 years,” said Ben Cohen, who took the stage to introduce Sanders with fellow Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Jerry Greenfield. “If he wasn’t so inspiring he’d be boring.”Cohen and Greenfield, whose quirky company burst onto the Burlington scene in the same era when Sanders was launching his political career, also brought free ice cream for the crowd.Cohen took on the notion that voting for an underdog like Sanders is wasting a vote. “I say voting for anyone else is flushing our country down the drain,” he said. “Let this be the start of the Bernie rebellion.”Activist Bill McKibben of Ripton championed Sanders’ record on fighting climate change as the candidate waited backstage in the passenger seat of an idling Jeep sport-utility vehicle. Sanders, in his speech that followed, vowed that taking on climate change would be a priority in his presidential administration.“Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized, our transportation system needs to be energy efficient and we need a tax on carbon to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuel,” he said.As Sanders wrapped up, he called on the crowd to help him. “I ask you to join me in this campaign to build a future that works for all of us, and not just the few on top,” he said.He left the stage to Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” wafting from the speakers.A few minutes later, an email from Sanders' wife Jane arrived in the inboxes of Sanders supporters. “I'll never forget what I just saw in Burlington,” she said. “Bernie rocked it.” She asked for a campaign contribution.Sanders plans to travel Wednesday to New Hampshire, home of the nation’s first presidential primary, then to Iowa, site of the first caucus, on Thursday.George Benjamin Daniels[1] (born 1953) is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Background and education [ edit ]
Daniels was born in Allendale, South Carolina. He graduated from Suffield Academy in 1971, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1975. He received a Juris Doctor from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1978.[2]
Professional career [ edit ]
Daniels was as a criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society of New York from 1978-1980. Afterwards, he clerked for Chief Justice Rose Bird of the Supreme Court of California from 1980-1981. From 1981 to 1983, he was in private practice with the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Daniels served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1983 to 1989. He was an Adjunct professor of law at Brooklyn Law School from 1988 to 1991.[2]
Judicial career [ edit ]
In 1989, Daniels was appointed a Judge of the Criminal Court of the City of New York by Mayor Ed Koch. He stepped down from the bench in 1990 to serve as Counsel to Mayor David Dinkins, but was re-appointed a Judge of the Criminal Court by Dinkins in 1993. He was elected a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York in 1995.
Daniels was nominated by President Bill Clinton on August 5, 1999 to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, vacated by Robert P. Patterson, Jr.. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 24, 2000 by a vote of 98-0, and he received his commission on March 9, 2000.[2]
Notable cases [ edit ]
On March 9, 2016, Daniels issued a default judgment against Iran, ordering it to pay $7.5 billion in damages to families of victims who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as $3 billion to insurers such as Chubb Limited that paid out claims resulting from the event. The plaintiffs in the case argued that Iran "provided material support" and training to al Qaeda members, including 9/11 hijackers, through Hezbollah prior to the attacks and was therefore liable. Earlier in 2015, Daniels had ruled that Saudi Arabia had sovereign immunity and dismissed all charges against the kingdom for its alleged role in the attacks.[3]
On December 21, 2017, Daniels granted the Government's motion to dismiss CREW v. Trump. The lawsuit had challenged President of the United States Donald J. Trump's business activities under the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the United States Constitution.
References [ edit ]China’s Film Bureau has given a last-minute reprieve to Zootopia, authorizing it to run for two additional weeks beyond its original 30-day slot in PRC theaters, which was to have ended on April 3rd.
The extension will enable the hugely popular Disney animated feature to screen throughout the QingMing ("Pure Brightness") Festival holiday, which typically sees a boost in movie-going. The three-day public holiday extends from April 2-4 this year and will effectively create a four-day weekend for film audiences.
Successful in China beyond even the most wildly optimistic predictions, Zootopia has smashed records for animated films there with $204 million in gross box office receipts so far. That’s a third better than the $154 million earned by local Chinese toon Monkey King: Hero Is Back in the summer of 2015, and the $150 million hauled in by Dreamworks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 3 earlier this year. The additional two weeks should enable Zootopia to pick up another $10-15 million in Chinese revenue.
The Film Bureau, China’s government entity that controls movie distribution, typically allows films 30 days in theaters, after which their release authorization ends and they must be pulled from screens, no matter how well they’re doing at that point. The Bureau often grants local films extensions of two weeks or longer if they’re still drawing in crowds, but rarely extends that same courtesy to foreign films. American animated films are sometimes given more leeway, and the Bureau has been especially generous with Zootopia, allowing it the extension after it had also given it the privilege of a day-and-date release.
On Friday Zootopia will hold onto about 6% of China's screens, a solid share for any movie a month into its run. That's more than half the number of screens held by the slumping Batman v Superman, which will be starting its second weekend in mainland theaters. Three new locally made releases, action-thriller The Bodyguard, romantic comedy Chungking Hotpot, and romantic drama Who Sleeps My Bro will each take about 25% of the country's showtimes on Friday.GOOD WILL SKATING
Red Bull and The Harold Hunter Foundation sent Luis Tolentino back to his native Dominican Republic to spread the gospel of skateboarding to the poor and underprivileged youths of the Carribbean.
In recent years I've embraced the importance of spreading the gospel of skateboarding to underprivileged kids around the globe. The timing can be traced back to becoming a father for the first time and all the emotions that come with parenthood, but I believe there's a part of the skateboard industry that feels it's their duty to give back in any way they can.
I am blessed to have powerful friends in skateboarding who feel the same way and who have gotten behind my many goodwill efforts. In 2009, with my 5-month-pregnant wife in tow, a group of 16 pro and am skaters, filmers, photographers, team managers and friends flew to Cuba bring skateboards to the young children. That trip was a result of seeing a web video of a Havana sk |
students and teachers—a key finding from emerging research on how to reduce disciplinary disparities—as well as finding the cause of a student’s behavior and engaging parents. In addition to these efforts, these schools track data to monitor their progress.
Another study found that by effectively implementing restorative practices, Denver Public Schools has seen a subsequent reduction in the use of exclusionary discipline and an increase in academic achievement.
We know there is not a one-size-fits-all approach that works for all schools. But many schools—charter and other public schools alike—are committed to turning the tide against harsh school climates using data and transparency.
As our discussion about student discipline continues, we would do well to watch the numbers coming out of these schools that have been studied and learn more about fostering healthier classroom climates for all children.THQ's dissolution was a sad thing. I had hoped the company of Red Faction and Metro 2033 would avoid financial ruin, but alas, it was not meant to be. Publishers like Deep Silver picked up the Saints Row and Metro franchises, but where did everything else go? Well, it went to little-known company called Nordic Games.
The small, Austria-based studio bought the Darksiders, Red Faction, and MX vs ATV franchises for a cool $4.9 million back in April, and has remained quiet ever since. The head of business and product development at Nordic, Reinhard Pollice, told Joystiq he hopes to change that by Gamescom, which begins on August 22.
“We want to carefully select which franchises are up for getting a sequel or new installment. We closely monitor the communities on that," Pollice said.
So exactly how small is Nordic? The studio consists of 15 people who have traditionally helped publish games from other developers. For example, they helped publish Painkiller: Hell & Damnation and the boxed copy of Alan Wake.
Pollice prided himself on being part of a passionate team, but admitted that the studio needs more bodies.
"Darksiders is really big,” Pollice told Joystiq. “We know we need a partner for that—an established development team that can pull out such a big action adventure. We obviously talked to former team members and, if they are free, we want to somehow involve them. If they are allowed to because, you know, some of them found other jobs or are with Crytek now."
It'd be nice to see developers work across company lines, but we're guessing the developers at Crytek are a little busy with other projects— like Homefront 2.You may remember a previous piece by me entitled Fifteen-Minute Messiah, about the incredible, and sadly-forgotten story of James Hydrick, the page-flipping Kung Fu psychic, turned man-no-prison-could-hold, who fooled the entire world, at least for a while, back in the early 80s. If you don’t, then familiarise yourself at that link, or check out my book, Smoke & Mirrors and Steven Seagal, which features that, and similar stories.
A remarkable cross between Bruce Lee and Professor X, the tale of Hydrick’s rise, subsequent disappearance, and muddled mythos has fascinated me for years. Now, thanks to the generosity of a third party, who’s interviewing Hydrick for an upcoming project of their own, I’ve had the opportunity to put a series of questions to the man himself. So right here, speaking publicly for the first time in over thirty years, direct from the source, James Hydrick shares some exclusive insight into this amazing story, and clears up some of the misconceptions swirling about his legend.
…
— Did you have a plan for how far you’d take things had Dan Korem not made his film, or were you playing it by ear?
I had no plan going into the Korem Show. The deal presented to me was another demonstration of my illusions and magic tricks. There was no dress rehearsal. However, early into the show, I caught on quickly that this was about promoting Danny Korem at the expense of James Hydrick. And, when it was over and edited, the show presented me in the worst light. I came off the bad guy and Korem the hero; that hurt my career for years. I just want to say that where James Randi is a clever gentleman, Danny Korem cannot pull scruples out of a hat.
Nothing in the show was premeditated by me. I came into it with a third grade education and strong martial arts skills. I’d had an abusive childhood like you wouldn’t believe; I’m not looking for sympathy. So, I accepted the appearance on the Korem show in ignorance of what was going to come down. There was no script except what Korem had in mind to defame me, and grab the fame for himself. He told Steve Bo Keeley’s brother Tom Keeley, before starting the show, that the goal of the project was to debunk a famous magician.
I never intended to deceive anyone on the show. I used magic that others call ‘psychic abilities’. Korem had two shows going: one while the camera was rolling, and the other while it was off. The things I did on the show were illusion and magic that I’d picked up and practiced hard over the years. I was a pretty fair stage magician, and combined it with my martial arts to make a show. I performed magic to get new students in my martial arts classes, and to pull myself up out of the hole of my childhood. It’s as simple as that.
— In news footage of you from the time, one could squint and think they were watching Bruce Lee. It seems like there wasn’t the time for you, at 21, to become such an adept martial artist. Did you start training young, or just pick it up quickly?
Regarding Bruce Lee: When I was six years old, I visited my father in a jail cell where he was on the chain gang. On the jailhouse television was Bruce Lee in ‘Fists of Fury’ beating up Bob Baker with fists so fast… I just stared, and memorized. I thought, if I can get that fast nobody can beat me again, or beat on my brother and sister. We had all suffered terrible abuse. At first, I practiced martial arts for hundreds of hours in the woods along the Savannah River. So, I’m self taught originally. Then, over the years, I trained with many grandmasters. Ed Parker was like a father to me, and I learned hardly imagined martial arts moves (note: Parker was karate teacher to, among others, Chuck Norris and Elvis). I also trained with Wayne Fray, Brandon Lee, the White Brothers and others. I eventually met Bob Baker, who became Bruce Lee’s historian, and Lee’s family and his wife. It all began with me and Bruce Lee on TV. If anyone tells you you’re a nobody, don’t listen. You can become a somebody. Just put your mind to it. Never say never.
— As your legend started to grow, did you ever hear a tall tale about something you were supposed to have done with your powers that surprised even you?
The most surprising thing to me that grew out of proportion was in Egypt when the big wind came up from out of nowhere. I believe it was a coincidence, but others who witnessed it called it supernatural. I can’t judge, except to say that it happened. The Muslims thought it was supernatural and many of them feared me for it. All this was covered in the news around the world. The Egyptian government wanted to hustle me out of the country before I got assassinated.
…
Part II to follow soon, where we’ll learn the truth of the tale where James Hydrick terrified the police by using his mind-powers to damn-near rock a prison van right off the road.
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Tags: bruce lee, exclusives, fortean, interviews, james hydrick, james randi, martial arts, psychicsLondon’s Greens have voted not to recommend that members and supporters give their second preference vote to either Zac Goldsmith or Sadiq Khan.
When voting for Mayor, Londoners are able to cast one vote for their preferred candidate and one vote for their second preference.
If no candidate secures more than 50% of the first preference votes, the two highest scoring candidates go through to a second round and all second preference votes are allocated to the candidate they were cast for.
The candidate with the highest number of first and second preference votes is then elected Mayor.
No candidate has ever won the mayoralty on first preferences alone and in three of the four previous elections the Green Party recommended that supporters give their second preferences to Ken Livingstone.
However senior figures in the party had expressed reservations about Goldsmith and Khan’s policy platforms and last month set out four “red lines” for both to sign up to before deciding which, if either, to endorse.
Today the party’s London Federation said neither candidate had sufficiently addressed their concerns and that it had “great reservations about the policy positions on inequality, road building, airport expansion, and estate demolition of both so-called frontrunners”.
As a result the Federation said it “does not feel able to make a positive recommendation to Green voters in this election for a candidate who should receive their second preference vote for Mayor.”
In addition to policy doubts it’s understood that some senior members of the party believed it was time for the Greens to stand as a distinct alternative to both of the larger parties and for any Assembly Members to be able to work with whoever is elected mayor without the baggage of the party having potentially endorsed their defeated rival.
Speaking after the Federation’s vote, Green mayoral candidate Sian Berry said: “The Greens have grown in strength and experience over 16 years and our policies stand alone as the best ideas for London in this election. We are the only party that will say no to big road building, airport expansion and forced estate demolition.
“I know my supporters will have their own thoughts about who will get their second preference vote.
“But Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan have both failed to provide the guarantees that they will not make a bad situation worse in London either by increasing pollution with new roads and expanded airports or making the housing crisis even worse with the loss of thousands of council homes in estate demolitions.
“I want Londoners to have clean air and a decent, affordable home. The only guarantee of that is a Green Mayor and a strong group of Green representatives on the London Assembly.”
Londoners will elect a new Mayor and the 25 members of the London Assembly on May 5th. Candidates for Mayor include Conservative Zac Goldsmith, Labour’s Sadiq Khan, Liberal Democrat Caroline Pidgeon, the Green party’s Sian Berry and UKIP’s Peter Whittle.Metaphors are our shortest stories. They are economical explanations that shape our understanding (itself a “mobile army of metaphors”). But badly mixed metaphors from physics and biology animate economics, creating “confusion’s masterpiece.” Another Shakespearean phrase, “invisible hand,” is partially to blame.
Science’s theories—its verifiable stories—also use metaphors. Some are loose analogies, others formal models. Orthodox economics abuses both kinds, misapplying oversimplified evolutionary ideas, like survival of the fittest, within an ill-fitting framework from physics. Its conceptual skeleton is: rational self-interest in competitive markets, led by an invisible hand, creates the best social equilibrium.
But, as I’ve described, biological and economic self interest are different. And what economists call rational can produce poor, sometimes even self-undermining, results.
Adam Smith made “invisible hand” famous. He first used the phrase in his History of Astronomy: “nor was the invisible hand of Jupiter...employed,” to mean that nothing supernatural was needed to explain physical phenomena. Smith lectured on Shakespeare, and likely knew the phrase from Macbeth (misdeeds are hidden by night’s “bloody and invisible hand”).
But “invisible hand” emergent equilibria in economics, evolution, and physics are crucially different. Self-organization—parts spontaneously creating ordered wholes—seems “natural.” But it’s usually also dumb. Humans can do better.
Evolution’s “invisible hand” story, typically sold as biology’s great “unregulated” competitions (thereby ignoring widespread cooperation) produces unintelligently designed results and regularly delivers foreseeable disaster. Narrowly self-interested competition in biology doesn’t guarantee efficient outcomes. And it can be as dumb as trees in economics. Social coordination can be less wasteful and more productive, if intelligently done.
General Equilibrium theory in economics was developed under the guidance of a physicist, Josiah Gibbs, who Einstein called “the greatest mind in American history”. Gibbs invented statistical mechanics to describe the behavior of large ensembles, like gases. Its metaphoric appeal for economics is obvious. However the “invisible hand” equilibria of physics emerge from parts interacting with uniform predictable consistency. But people aren’t like gas particles or biological billiard balls. We evolved behavioral flexibility and complex interdependent variable reactions.
Newton’s science is, metaphorically and fundamentally different than Darwin’s. Newton’s systems have clockwork causality; they converge on mechanically calculable patterns. Physicists have invented powerful mathematical tools for predicting their development and specific results. But Darwin described an open, generative, and divergent process with less predictable effects. Its general shape is describable by the mathematical methods of physics, but its specific outcomes aren’t so predictable (e.g. evolution, unlike anything in physics, needs game theory).
Evolution gave us capacities for intelligence, foresight, and social coordination. With these we can avoid the dangers of dumb “invisible hand” self-organization. It fits not our nature to ignore them. Such sub-natural metaphors of human nature exclude what’s best about us.
Illustration by Julia Suits, The New Yorker Cartoonist & author of The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions.
Previously in this series:
It Is in Our Nature to Be Self-Deficient
Inheriting Second Natures
Our Ruly Nature
It Is in Our Nature to Need Stories
Tools Are in Our Nature
We Fit Nature To Us: Evolutions two way street
Justice Is In Our Nature
Behavioral Telescope Shows How Cooperation Works
Selfish Genes Also Must Cooperate
Game Theory And The Golden Punishment Rule
Revolutionizing Economics by Evolutionizing it.On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell stated that while President Trump did say “Racism is evil” during his statement on Monday, she didn’t hear him say that the presence and ideology of hate groups is wrong.
O’Donnell said, “I was also struck, Andrea, by the fact the president did say, ‘Racism is evil,’ and he did tie those specific named groups to when they commit violence, they are ‘criminals and thugs,’ but I did not hear him specifically identify these groups and say that their mere presence, their ideology, their values are evil. He seemed to link it to criminal activity like we saw over the weekend. And I’m not sure that that is enough to make that kind of declaration. Yes, he said the words. Yes, he was more kind of full-bodied in his condemnation today. But I think there is still an absence of saying the mere existence of these groups is not in line with American values and something that he does not support. He seemed to link it to the criminal behavior.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchettA growing number of people, celebrities included, have publicly expressed their support of black-owned businesses. But, at times, it can be difficult to find where certain products or services from black-owned business are available to consumers. One woman just came up with an innovative solution to solve that problem.
Angie Coleman, an account manager at CodeHS in San Fransisco, California, created a Google Chrome extension that helps online customers find black-owned alternatives to the site they’re currently shopping on called BuyBlack.
After downloading the extension, shoppers will see a black fist in the upper righthand corner of their browser. Upon clicking on it, a list of related black-owned businesses populate in a dropdown list for the user.
Inspired by Solange Knowles and other celebs, Coleman told The Huffington Post that bringing more attention to these black-run companies is a priority for her.
“When people are asked to buy black, a lot of what we hear is that no one knows where to find these black-owned businesses,” the 26-year-old said to HuffPost via email. “It’s similar to conversations around Silicon Valley about hiring black people and how ― out of 46 million black people in the U.S. alone – they just can’t seem to find black entrepreneurs that are qualified. I didn’t want anyone to have that problem, so I made a list.”
BuyBlack Coleman hopes BuyBlack will bring more attention to black-owned companies.
Coleman, who has admitted to having a hard time finding products created by black people like makeup, said she created the extension during a hackathon hosted by the nonprofit organization Reboot Safety. She, with the help of a small team, curated a list of active businesses that offered products and services ranging from makeup, clothing, home goods, art, vacation rentals, food and more. Currently, more than 300 businesses can be found on BuyBlack.
“We’re actively growing and we’ve open[ed] up user submissions to find new businesses or ones we missed,” she told HuffPost. “The next version of the extension will allow users to rate and save their favorites.”
Coleman noted that the black community’s buying power is expected to reach $1.2 trillion this year, despite more than 27 percent of the black population living in poverty ― the highest rate of poverty in the country.
She told HuffPost that she hopes BuyBlack leads more people to supporting, discovering and having easy access to companies run by black people to create a positive change and encourage economic growth.
“If the government isn’t going to pay reparations for hundreds of years of unpaid labor that built this nation, then black people need to start supporting each other, and hopefully this will empower other groups to support our ideas and businesses, as well,” she said.Show Transcript
CHRIS GETHARD:
Hello to all my translators being held hostage! It’s Beautiful/Anonymous. One hour, one phone call, no names, no holds barred. Hey everybody it’s Chris Gethard here. Another episode of Beautiful/Anonymous. You can hear it in my voice -- a little gravely. Guess what? I’m just coming off the road. I’m back in New York after two weeks of being on the road - meeting all you guys face to face. Starting on Vancouver we made our way all over North America and it’s been so cool to shake your guys hands. Thank for listening, and also -- good huggers. That’s one thing I’ve learned about Beautiful/Anonymous fans out there are people who enjoy a good and at times inappropriately long hug. Thank you for all the hugs.
Listen, if you do wanna see us we’re back one night only. This episode’s dropping Tuesday, June 13th. Final show, Asbury Park, New Jersey. There are still tickets left, I need Jersey to step up. I’ve been telling everybody, man. Jersey my home town -- looks like we’re not going to see it out. That’s okay. I have to be humble about that. We don’t have to sell out. Point being, though. You’re in Jersey, you’re nearby, we’ve got two shows at House of Independance. ChrisGeth.com you can get tickets right now. I wanna have a blowout. I wanna party on the boardwalk after we finish this tour. It’s gonna be like Bash at the Beach, man. Like the old WCW Wrestling event, we’re gonna have a Bash at the Beach. If you’re downloading this the day it comes out it’s tonight. Get yourself to Jersey! Tell your boss, “Hey, I’m getting out of here early. Cuttin out early. Gotta go party and get emo and listen to a phone call.” I’ll see you tonight at Asbury Park, it’ll be good.
Last week’s episode was one of our live episodes from the tour. We uploaded that from the road. It was from Portland, the Helium Comedy Club. Lot of feedback from people saying it was an extremely funny episode which I greatly appreciate. Also a lot of feedback from people saying that they felt bad for the caller and that they weren’t too thrilled on me. I wanna go ahead and say: it’s valid. I get it. I don’t disagree. A lot of people saying that with the live crowd there they could feel that I need need to entertain that crowd and maybe the caller had a less intimate experience. A lot of people saying that I threw the initial caller under the bus, saying she dropped the ball and that her sister saved it, and that I was pandering to the crowd a little bit. I think there’s some truth to that. I’m not gonna argue with you.
I think if you ever see - one thing we’ve all learned from this tour - if you see me tweet it out -- tweet out the picture - and there’s a big crowd behind me you know you’re getting a slightly different experience. And I’ve learned that, and I do wanna apologize to the 24-year-old caller from the Portland call. If you felt put upon. In my heard, in my gut, what I felt onstage that night was that she and I were in it together. We both felt that tension, we were laughing about it. My hope is that it felt like there was camaraderie there but I understand listening to it seemed harsher than the normal call, and for anyone who wasn’t into that: I get it. I do think it was funny, I do think the live calls are funny. I do think we’re gonna put some more of them out there in the world. I’ll tell you in the coming weeks how you guys can get access to all of them. Some people don’t want em, some people do. We’re gonna figure that out, we’ll let you know. They’ve been a really wonderful time and that Baltimore one in particular, when you guys hear that one.. Ooh. You’re going to lose your minds.
Now, let’s talk about this week's’ call cause I’m so excited and I have been so excited. We’ve been sitting on this one for a month or two but we gotta get this one right. Cause it’s one of the most special calls that’s ever happend if you ask me. I always remind myself: I am so lucky I get to do this I get talk to people who live so differently than I do. And it’s a blessing, it’s a blessing to see that there’s people from all different walks of life. And I always figured certain types of people who Im never gonna be able to talk to cause maybe they don’t know about podcast, maybe they come from different circumstances where that’s just not a factor in their lives, and I’ll say: I was a little ignorant. The caller today comes from a world where I just thought, there’s no way they’d consume a podcast. There’s no way!
Um, I was wrong. I was totally wrong. And my mind was blown. And I’m glad it was blown. I got to hear about a life that I didn’t ever think I’d get the insider’s look at. I’m so grateful that it happened. It’s a really cool crazy thing that I got to participate in. I’m so psyched about it and I think you’re gonna be psyched about it too.
I got fired up. We got so fired up here at Earwolf that we’re actually doing a thing. Wanan put this out here: end of the episode we’re selling a piece of merchandise. It ties into the episode you’re about to hear. Some of you guys turn up the episodes before the outros. This week, I’m just asking you, as a favor to me stick around. Hear about this thing. I’m not making any money off of this piece of merchandise, it’s towards a greater purpose, it relates to this call.
I’m so psyched. I don’t wanna say too much, I’ve been talking too much already. It’s one of my favorite calls. Think it’s gonna be one of your favorite calls too. Let’s get into it.
Operator: Thank you for calling Beautiful/Anonymous. A beeping noise will indicate when you're on the show with the host. (beeps) CALLER: Hello? CHRIS GETHARD: Hi. CALLER: Oh, hi. How's it going? CHRIS GETHARD: It's okay. How about you? CALLER: Uh, I can't complain. (laughs) CHRIS GETHARD: That's good. It sounds like we're on the same page about that one. CALLER: Yeah, for sure. But actually, Chris, there's something I have to explain to you right off the bat before we get too far in this conversation. Um, so, this voice that you're hearing right now is actually not who you're going to be speaking to today. Um, the person that wants to speak to you happens to be deaf, and he wanted to have a conversation with you. So, I'm just like a friend to this person who agreed to make this conversation go as smoothly as possible. CHRIS GETHARD: Wow. That's... CALLER: Yeah. CHRIS GETHARD: That's, oh, okay. That's head-spinning, spinning. So, so, okay. This is cool. So, let me, so the logistics, I'm... So, so, I'll speak and you, you speak sign language, you'll pass on what I say and your friend will let you know wh- how to respond. Is that how this works? CALLER: Exactly. So, while you're speaking, I'll relay it to him in sign. He's going to sign back to me and I will hand off the new information to you. (chuckles) CHRIS GETHARD: Wow. Okay. This is exciting and this is right away, I sh- I feel like we should all just say like this is this is an experiment that I haven't done before and that I bet you haven't. So, the pacing of this one might be a little different than what are you, our listeners are, are are used to. But I think anybody listening would be excited to give it a chance. So, that's cool. So... CALLER: Uh, yeah. So, just want to let you know I set it from. So, from this point on, if anything he's saying, not from me. CHRIS GETHARD: Great. Great. Thank you for, thank you for doing this. This is this is really, this is exciting. CALLER: Oh, anytime. CHRIS GETHARD: So, do you, are you a regular so, so, so, as far, as far as the podcast itself, it I d- I don't want to be insulting in any way, it is an audio medium. I'm a little surprised to have someone who's, who's hearing impaired reach out just because of that. Maybe you could let me know how you came to know the show. CALLER: Yeah. I figure that was what was going to catch your attention. CHRIS GETHARD: (laughs) CALLER: So, when I called in, I explained that. (laughs) Um, I am actually a fan of this podcast and I know some other work you've done. Uh, so for me, what I do to hear podcast is I send it out to get translated into English. So, I read all your podcasts. Um, there are services that will do that for me. CHRIS GETHARD: Wow. That, I want to apologize for the amount of ums and likes and so's you've had to read, also the amount of times that I get excited, ask a question, then reiterate it like three or four times before I let the person answer. I feel like I infuriate myself with that. You, you may be more than any other consumer of this show, the I, I just want to apologize because you, you've taken on the chin harder than anybody when it comes to that. CALLER: Uh, (laughs) honestly, I haven't even noticed that, but now you point it out, I'm going to read through again and probably judge you a little bit. CHRIS GETHARD: (laughs) CALLER: But, honestly, reading through your podcast is one of the best to read through because of the phone conversations. It's just nice back and forth, nice back and forth. I tried other ones like I enjoy comedy. And like Comedy Bang Bang is so hard to read, even though I really enjoy it at times, but I know I'm missing like more than half the jokes, out of just the context is so different when it's spoken. But no. Actually this podcast is like my fun read during the week and just getting to hear all these different stories, it's, it's really awesome. So, I'm sure it's great to listen to, but I have a great time reading it, too, as well. (chuckles)
CHRIS GETHARD: That's very cool. Thank you. So, maybe let me know, you know, as, as you know from, from reading the transcripts, I like to just get into it. So as always, anything that you don't want to answer, just tell me, "Buzz off." That's fine. Were you born deaf? Is this something that happened in the course of your life? Maybe you can just let me know like the background. CALLER: Yeah, of course. Um, just so you know, deaf people are really blunt. So, don't ever worry about asking the wrong questions. I'd rather you just put it out there. We're blunt people. We're very forward. So I think you'll probably notice that within this conversation. Um, yes. So, actually, I was born hard of hearing. Um, I used to wear hearing aids. And at that time growing up, I would say I would, would have more had like a hearing perspective on life. Um, but then around age six I got sick, and the rest of my hearing went. So, I've been deaf ever since like six years old. CHRIS GETHARD: Wow, that's, that must be pretty brutal for a, a six-year-old kind to have to to have to figure out that new world. That, that, that, what a, I feel like that's like, like just, just old enough that you can understand what's going on and not nearly old enough to be able to process that. CALLER: Uh, I mean, to be honest, I mean, I already had some hearing loss, so I already could tell I was different. I just didn't understand why or how. Like I just didn't have an identity of being deaf or hard of hearing. And then, when it happened, I knew like I could tell them that time I was different that there was a change. I just didn't understand what it was because I wasn't surrounded by that culture yet. So, I don't know. It wasn't so much a shock of it happening. It was just more of the community around me didn't know what to do with me. CHRIS GETHARD: Right. So... CALLER: So that was probably the harder part. CHRIS GETHARD: So, even though you were hard of hearing, you, your parents ha- you weren't, you weren't in a school or, or, or in, in classes, you know, dealing with that, the- this was something that when it, when it, when it went, when it, when it became a full-fledged thing it was now you have to kind of get in the deep end on that. CALLER: Yeah. Exactly. So, beforehand, I was just in a public school. And then, when I lost my hearing, I continued in the public school for about two years, and I just know that I couldn't keep up. Um, and also, I wasn't fluent in sign at the time, so it wasn't like even having an interpreter would have made a different. Um, so, I basically had to drop out of school and then they put me into a deaf program where I started like back to the beginnings and caught myself back up to what, like, a six-year-old should know at that time. And then, I stayed in a deaf school all the way up. And so, like in college level. CHRIS GETHARD: Wow. And then, when you when you go to college, because I was totally overwhelmed and scared and depressed by college. And I have all five of my senses. Like it's just such a radical life change to, to go, to go from uh at that point, what 10, 11 years of scho- of schooling that is you know, designed to, to help with this issue into college. That must be, that must have been the most overwhelming stretch in the world. CALLER: Uh, yeah. I mean, I found college overwhelming, but honestly, it wasn't the deaf part. It was just like social anxiety and, like, being new, like, just being like, I'm, I'm a big dork. CHRIS GETHARD: (laughter) CALLER: So, I, I felt like it wasn't hard to fit in in that way, the deaf part. Uh, if anything, I was like, "Uh, people are always interested to learn sign," and like you know, if anything, I used this to my advantage to with the ladies, to be honest. (laughs) But, no. I, the signing part I wasn't as scared. I mean, it's just like being away and being on my own. Um, at that point, I was used to being, like I mean, yes, I went to that school, but I still had a world of all these hearing people around me that didn't know sign that I had to deal with all the time. So, it wasn't like a new situation for me. But I know for some people in the deaf community, that absolutely would be. CHRIS GETHARD: Now, I got to, we got to pump the breaks a little bit. CALLER: Mm-hmm (affirmative). CHRIS GETHARD: I got to bring it back to something you said. In what way were you using your deafness as a tool with the ladies? Because that sounds like you really went big on some baller shit. CALLER: Uh, all right. I guess I'll tell you my tools that I use. CHRIS GETHARD: (laughter) CALLER: Uh, so, I mean, right away, you could tell I was deaf and everyone gets excited and be like, "Oh, how do you sign this? How do you sign that?" So, I became cool in that matter. Um, I also had, like, party tricks that was huge to, like, break the ice. One of my favorite ones, I would do, (laughs) I call it the party trick, was I would have a friend or so, or a girl maybe I was interested in to, like, try to make her laugh. I'm always about making them laugh. I would get her to, like, I'd be like, "Hey, watch this." And then I would sign a circle of people that I didn't really know yet that were in conversation and I would just walk up and kind of like nod along, kind of join the conversation, make it seem like I knew what was... And I would purposely, try not to read their lips in that because I just want them to go on blind. And then, I would just blurt out the most random thing I could think of in that time. CHRIS GETHARD: (laughs) CALLER: And just like, (laughs) now, I don't know what it was, but people found out hilarious, and then I'd walk away. And then, I would go back to them and be like, "How funny was that?" CHRIS GETHARD: Wow. CALLER: For some reason, it works. Now, hearing out loud, I'm like, "Jesus Christ, it's really not that funny." But (laughs)... CHRIS GETHARD: No. That's pretty funny. Pretty funny. And, and do, do you get those moments when, like, when you're like, you know, when it is working, when you're vibing with a girl, you're alone, and then she has, does she have to just ask, like, "How do I sign? I'm ready to take this to the next level." And then, you have to, like, teach her? Do you ever have a moment where you're, it's like Ghost with Patrick Swayze and the sculpting, where you're like, "You're doing it wrong," and you stand behind her and take her hands and mold them into the shape of the correct signage? CALLER: (laughs) Uh, I mean, yeah. It's usually no. CHRIS GETHARD: (laughter) CALLER: No. No. I should be honest, no. I mean, um like I said, I'm pretty used to, like, hearing culture, so I read, I read lips pretty well. And I do use vocal. So a lot of people would just ask more of curiosity. But honestly, a lot of people, like, will forget while I'm talking to them, like, look away. And that's when I have to be, like, "Hey, just, you know, look at me when you talk. That's all." And but, I mean, no. It's more of like people will just be interested, um ask questions about, like, what it's like to be a deaf. Or a lot a question I used to get asked all the time, like, "Do you dream in sign?" And, (laughs) uh, so, I don't know. Sometimes they were great and funny. Other times, I'm like, "Uh, this is just arrogant and..." I don't know. I would stand up for myself more compared to back then. I just feel like, "Whatever, it's a cute girl," whenever she wants to say it's time. (laughs) CHRIS GETHARD: Yeah. I mean, I know you just brought it up as the example of an ignorant questions, but I've never thought about it before. Do you dream in sign? (laughs) I, I apologize to immediately ask, but I've never thought about that in my life. CALLER: (laughs) Uh, yeah. Obviously, I do. Um, yeah. Whenever I'm dreaming when someone is communicating with me, I would just picture it in sign, because that's who I |
just 7.25mm, the OnePlus 5 is an extremely thin phone with the edges of the device sporting a curious curve into the back that is unconventional, but does help with overall comfort and grip. It’s worth noting that the device is narrower than the OnePlus 3T, as well as thinner, but it’s actually slightly taller, and that’s strengthened by the fact that its top and bottom bezels are also not as sharp and more rounded. Other than that, the front of device looks about the same, and while press material might make it seem like there are no side bezels, that’s just a clever illusion achieved through strategic use of 2.5D glass.
This phone’s design is ultimately not a risk-taker, it’s conservative in the sense that it keeps much of the company’s design language while also imitating the back of a massively-imitated flagship. In fact, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that the OnePlus 5’s back plate is identical to that of the Oppo R11, suggesting it was Oppo’s component sourcing and borrowed manufacturing techniques that ultimately had the most influence on the phone’s design. OnePlus claims they did experiment with various arrangements of the back of the device, including attempts at centering the dual camera setup, and a recent feature by The Verge showed prototypes with different, more-original approaches to design. Ultimately they arrived to a look that’s not very inventive, though also not bad looking at all. Considering that some of OnePlus’ strongest markets also have customers that look up to the iPhone as a status symbol, it might not be a bad idea for them to go down this route. In the end, the device looks quite good and the array of official cases also give it a little more character, should you be willing to spend some additional money.
Performance
This is actually one of my favorites aspects of the OnePlus 5 — as frequent readers probably know by now, I am a performance fiend and it’s one of the aspects of a phone I value the most. The OnePlus 3T was wicked-fast with a slew of optimizations in both hardware, software and even aesthetic designs to arrive at a speedy device. The OnePlus 5 comes with the inherent advantage that its specifications are just better in every way: a Snapdragon 835 at the right reference frequencies, 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM for the higher-end model (with this memory being 17% more power efficient over the previous package), and even UFS 2.1 storage that further aids app-opening speeds. We still have to do a full performance analysis, which you can expect sometime this week. It’s worth reminding readers that the OnePlus 5 was caught manipulating benchmarks, so we are abstaining from publishing misleading results in this First Impressions, and doing any analysis from synthetic benchmarks until OnePlus addresses this issue.
The result is a very fast and smooth device that keeps some of the better strategies previous devices employed. For example, despite not using a Qualcomm-provided implementation for boosting frequencies while launching apps, the phone keeps maxing out clockspeeds in such occasions to ensure there are no bottlenecks (I was led to believe we wouldn’t see this on the 8-core 835). The filesystem is still F2FS, which we showed to result in improved app opening speeds last year, especially benefiting heavier apps and 3D games where the improvements were shown to be up to twice as fast. Finally, the device is still designed with speed at the level of the user interface, with the same transitions making use of transparencies, and some other additions throughout the OS such as homescreen scrolling lowering the alpha of the app icons near the end of the page sidescroll. All of this come together to create a phone that not only feel fast, but that’s also objectively smooth in day-to-day operation.
That was reportedly something OnePlus focused on, making use of high-speed cameras and other tools to minimize touch latency and maximize responsiveness. I was assured that these improvements are ultimately related to software changes, though, and not a different digitizer implementation, but the result is very noticeable in general usage. Finally, the device does skip very few frames while scrolling through lists, putting ahead of the OnePlus 3T and remarkably close to the Pixel XL. Just like we saw last year, the 8GB of RAM aren’t fully utilized on this device as the background process limit remains at 32, the same value they arrived to in an update to fix the OnePlus 3’s memory management woes. So this device won’t be much better at holding regular apps, though it’ll be able to keep heavier services and games in RAM at once. OnePlus claims that the additional RAM is not necessarily something they expect users to make use of at this moment in time, and they see it as a way for developers to extend the potential of this device.
In the past, we’ve commended OnePlus for providing a remarkable user experience with OxygenOS (once you look past the bugs and vulnerabilities), and that hasn’t changed with the OnePlus 5. That’s actually simply because OxygenOS itself hasn’t really changed that much — it’s the same ROM you’ll find on the latest stable builds for the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T, with some features from beta builds, and a handful but very minor exclusive features. All in all, it’s the same experience with just a tiny couple of cosmetic changes (mostly relegated to the launcher) and a few additional features that not only can you live without, but you’ll likely find on your device anyway, one way or another (more on that below).
So what are these new features, exactly? First things first, we find a revamped launcher that you’ll undoubtedly be able to use, officially or not, on your OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T should you have one. For the most part, nothing changes here You can still swipe down to access notifications/quick settings, the OnePlus Shelf is still there and works like it always has, and you can choose different icon packs as well. With the OnePlus 5 coming with Android 7.1.1 by default, we see shortcut menus when long-pressing icons and the ability to drag menu entries and create shortcut icons as well. The ability to swipe up to quick search is gone, though, and for a very good reason: the app drawer has been replaced from the traditional icon to one that’s hidden behind a swipe-up motion, like on the Pixel Launcher. There’s a subtle transparency to the app drawer as well. Other than the launcher and some tiny adjustments to icon proportions around the UI, OxygenOS looks and feels the same.
There is some new and “exclusive” (for now) functionality in here, though. One such feature is
, which you can enable for certain apps (meant for reading-intensive ones) in order to adjust the color temperature of the screen in accordance to the lighting around you, in order to make the screen as pleasing to read as possible, giving it the appearence of a kindle or an e-paper display. On a conversation with a OnePlus representative, I was informed that this isn’t merely a software change, though the spokesperson wasn’t able to go into details. It works well, for what it’s worth, and while it’s not something that’s necessarily new (Apple advertised a similar feature for their iPad Pro, though not to make it look like an e-paper and simply to adjust the tone of the screen), it’s still a rather exclusive feature that goes beyond other, loosely-similar features light night mode (which is also automatic on the OnePlus 5). Night mode on the OnePlus 5 also works not just according to time ranges, but the lighting of the environment.
Then there’s Gaming Do Not Disturb Mode from the OxygenOS betas, which you can enable on specific apps (and not just games) to disable hardware keys to prevent accidental input, as well as heads-up notifications that might distract you from your activity. You can control it through the notification menu and also set it to trigger automatically in the apps you chose. With the OnePlus 3T, the company had introduced app locking, and now they expand that functionality with Secure Box, with is a specific folder found in the File Manager that’s encrypted and is only accessible by a 6-digit PIN or fingerprint, and it’s hidden from the phone storage. Finally, there are some small changes here and there, like three new gestures (‘S’, ‘M’, ‘W’’) and the ability to tie them to any app/activity, customizable vibration with three intensity settings and different vibration patterns, and expanded screenshots (well, this isn’t actually new, but still cool and worth mentioning).
Camera
I am still assessing the camera capabilities of the OnePlus 5 and I’ll be saving my complete judgment for the full review coming in the next few weeks. As I learned in an interview with Carl Pei, camera quality was a focus point of OnePlus’ ongoing efforts and we see this fully materialize with the OnePlus 5, which sports a dual-camera setup of 16MP+20MP with the main sensor being the Sony IMX 398, a piece of hardware developed by Sony exclusively for Oppo that has now made it to the OnePlus 5. To go alongside the dual camera setup that aims to provide better optical zoom and improved bokeh shots, the company has added some exclusive camera features and revamped the camera UI as well. Below you can see a comparison between devices.
Portrait mode allows you to take “professional looking” pictures with a solid bokeh effect, not unlike what many companies have been offering recently but specially not too different from Apple’s solution in their dual-camera iPhone 7 Plus. It works quite well and there are other adjustments made besides the background blurring, as lighting and color temperature are adjusted as well to make a nicer-looking portrait picture. It’s not done simply through software like on other devices, and as such there is no odd blurring of the edges. Then there’s Pro Mode, now more intuitive and feature-packed than the “manual” mode of previous OxygenOS offerings. It can do everything you expect such mode to do, including adjusting ISO, white balance, shutter speed, focus points, exposure, it can capture in RAW, it features a nifty histogram and you can save your settings too in different presets.
All photos taken with auto mode, auto-HDR enabled, same focus point in every picture.
OnePlus 3T OnePlus 5 Pixel XL
Going past the features, image quality is quite a hit or miss still, but it produces very beautiful results when it does hit. Now OnePlus assured me camera will be improved upon in future updates and, given the strides the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T cameras made with various OTAs and beta-builds, I have no reason to doubt that’ll be the case. But while I’ve taken some great shots with the OnePlus 5, some are unreasonably noisy in indoors environments, and this makes little sense to me given the camera’s f/1.7 aperture and the overall strength of the sensor — it’s most definitely an issue with image processing, that should get resolved. Luckily, macro shots are easy to set up, focus speeds are quite excellent, opening the camera is remarkably quick and color reproduction is very appealing, with great detail preservation outdoors, even though it tends to saturate pictures more than something like a Pixel XL. In low-light, outdoors scenarios it can take some pretty great shots, though indoors the story quickly changes, and I was disappointed by its performance as my only camera at a recent wedding party. There are also some odd bugs I’ve documented and passed along and there can be inconsistent delays between pressing the shutter button and actually taking a picture, leading to missed opportunities (pronounced in puppy or baby pictures). I’ve loved taking HDR pictures on the OnePlus 5, as it manages to bring out more detail without oversaturating or changing the general composition of the picture, and with a quite precise auto-HDR mode, it’s not something you actively need to worry about anyway.
Assorted shots, to demonstrate some observations
Excluding those issues listed above, the OnePlus 5 offers an improved camera experience that can, indeed, offer impressive results. While the UI of the application is also designed in a way that doesn’t impair the picture-taking process at all, some other UX annoyances such as inconsistent or delayed pictures, indoors noise, aggressive sharpening in various instances and a few other oddities can detract from the experience. I also sort of wish that the camera setup’s asymmetry wouldn’t lead to such inconsistent camera quality when hoping from one sensor to the other, as the Sony IMX398 main camera is definitely superior and the image processing solution benefits it quite well in color reproduction and detail, which noticeably changes the moment you use the telephoto lens camera. I still have many pictures to take and I will be revisiting this assessment for my full review, but while I think the camera experience itself is ultimately quite good, I do feel it could be much better given the amount of attention being put towards this specific item, with the DxOMark partnership as well as the increased advertising and hype going towards this one aspect of the phone.
Battery Life
I am still reserving my final judgment on this device’s battery life for my full review, but so far, I’ve been getting a lot of usage out of the OnePlus 5. I am able to comfortably hit over 4 hours of screen-on time in the most extreme circumstances including full LTE usage, some GPS and camera, and streaming when possible (I’m talking about a very long drive, essentially) with enough remaining battery life to make it through the rest of the day. On more casual days, I’ve been able to hit 5 hours of screen-on time across two days, with some battery still left. I haven’t been able to outright kill this phone through regular usage (benchmarks are a different story), essentially, and when it does need to be topped up, Dash Charge does a fine job.
In case you were wondering whether Dash Charge is any different this time around, the answer is no, not really. There might be some differences in resulting charging speed due to battery capacity and perhaps some small changes in software, but the charging brick is still the same 4V 5A one we had with the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T, and it ultimately still charges at relatively the same rate, with OnePlus continuing to use its “a day’s power in half an hour” slogan. I did see a slightly-faster charging time than I’ve obtained from the OnePlus 3T, though I haven’t been able to see if the difference isn’t simply due to different battery capacities (though the delta is bigger than the ~3% I expected); I should have more thorough figures by the time our full review arrives. The benefits of Dash Charge go beyond mere charging speeds as we’ve noted in an in-depth analysis last year, which we intend to revisit shortly.
Once again, given the testing that went into some of the other articles we are releasing alongside this hands-on and other testing that resulted in atypical usage, I can’t make decisive statements about battery life just yet. But with a battery capacity of 3,300mAh, a minute decrease from the OnePlus 3T’s 3,400mAh, and an improved processor, power-efficient memory and a few other optimizations, it stands to reason that from hardware alone, you can expect this device to perform better than OnePlus’ predecessors.
Odds and Ends
There are a few other things OnePlus has improved with this generation, which are not only welcome changes but also things that could have been seen as compromises before, and that detracted from image of the OnePlus 3 and 3T as proper flagships. For example, the vibration motor of the OnePlus 5 has been vastly improved, and it’s now not only quieter but much sharper, stronger and more consistent than before. Wi-fi speeds have also been improved with 2×2 MIMO support, and OnePlus claims these can be twice as fast as those on the OnePlus 3 — ironically enough, this is hardly something to brag about given the OnePlus 3 was arguably half as fast as it should have been in this regard.
There are some other advantages such as the inclusion of Bluetooth 5 for further future proofing, and of course the fact that unlocking the device’s bootloader and rooting will not void your warranty. OnePlus also keeps steadily improving its customer support, though that doesn’t mean you still don’t find horror stories on our forums, their forums, or the OnePlus subreddit. The only aspect of this device that has really stood still is the screen resolution, which OnePlus sees no real reason to upgrade at this point in time, and the screen is overall the same as the OnePlus 3T’s — OnePlus hasn’t focused on the display nearly as much as other aspects, and the company has all but dropped the inconsequential “Optic AMOLED” branding. While it’s true that 1440p makes for a more premium device, do recall that even Samsung offered 1080p as the default resolution for their Galaxy S8 and S8+, implying that their market research suggests the additional image resolution might not be worth the additional costs to the UX.
However, while I am personally not a crusader for 1440p as a standard, there is a case to be made for higher resolution displays as they are optimal for VR and they ultimately do look sharper, with some people loving the additional clarity. Many hoped the OnePlus 5 would finally see the company jumping to a higher resolution display given it’s been “stuck” at 1080p for 4 years and 6 device releases, but it seems we might need to wait for another revision or generation for that.
An Amazing Device, but a Tough Upgrade
The OnePlus 5 is something I’d describe as “delightfully unexciting” — and that’s far from an indictment. It offers a no-nonsense approach to hardware with top of the line specifications (again, barring the display), improving upon those things that made the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T such good offerings, and then fixing some of their smaller issues and compromises. It doesn’t offer anything that’ll catch your attention, necessarily, as it doesn’t bring forth a flashy design with micro-bezels, nor squeezing features, nor modularity or anything of the sort. It’s the kind of phone everyone can enjoy, but that has also been crafted through the continuous feedback of OnePlus customers. In short, if you love your OnePlus 3 or OnePlus 3T and can look past the arguably-uninspiring design, you would most definitely love this phone as well. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you should buy it.
The problem is that the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T were already tremendous devices, with prices that made them very good value propositions
That’s probably OnePlus’ biggest conundrum: they made a phone by improving what people liked about their previous offerings, and listening to feedback on what should be addressed next. For the most part, they succeeded at making a phone that’s better in every way — but the problem is that the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T were already tremendous devices, with prices that made them very good value propositions. Those devices were also very future-proof when they came out, and the last one came half a typical release cycle ago too. What I am getting at is that I am not sure how many OnePlus 3 or OnePlus 3T owners are looking to upgrade after a year with their future-proof, valuable purchase. And of those that are looking to upgrade, how many of them see the OnePlus 5 as a device that’s worth dropping another $480 or $540 to upgrade to?
Ultimately, the user experience that the OnePlus 5 offers isn’t significantly different than what we’ve seen in last year’s devices, and when you take OxygenOS beta builds into account, that difference shrinks further. Upgrading gets you an overall-faster device that’s even more future-proof and has better camera capabilities. OnePlus allegedly intends to support the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T for a long time, though they’ve been a lot more careful with their promises lately — yet even if they don’t update them to Android P, the strong developer community of these devices will. And if they don’t bring the advancements in the OnePlus 5’s OxygenOS over to the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T (where possible), the same developer community will bring them as well. If you are perfectly content with your OnePlus 3 or OnePlus 3T, then I advise you wait to see how the developer community evolves on this new device.
But if you are new to OnePlus, and if you are looking for an excellent flagship at a decent price, this phone is definitely worth considering. It might not have water-proofing or a 1440p display, but it does satisfy the needs of most users, and the core needs of every user. There’s nothing that this device does wrong, though it’s not particularly good at every little thing. It’s one of the best at some of the things that matter to enthusiasts the most, though, such as performance, and I believe that with a healthy developer community, this can become one of the most flexible and exciting devices of 2017. I certainly have enjoyed my time with the OnePlus 5 and there’s more to discover in preparation for our full XDA review. It’s a phone everyone can enjoy, that OnePlus 3 or OnePlus 3T users should cautiously consider, and that all Android lovers should closely evaluate. I do think that its relative value proposition is lower today than the OnePlus 3’s was at its time, but it doesn’t stop it from being a solid purchase. But as always, we advise you to read multiple reviews and opinions before pulling the trigger.
Do you have any questions you want answered? What do you want to see in our full review? Let us know and join the discussion!When it comes to the gender wage gap, it’s widely believed that women make less than men because, in part, they don’t negotiate for higher salaries as often as men do. There is research to support this idea — but as Vox’s Sarah Kliff has explained, it also doesn’t really do much to account for why the gender wage gap exists.
And now new research suggests that this conventional wisdom may not even be true — that women actually do negotiate for raises and promotions just as often as men, but that they face a penalty for doing so.
This week, McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org, the women’s leadership nonprofit founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, released their second annual report on women in the workplace. It’s the most comprehensive review out there of women in corporate America; it draws on surveys of 34,000 employees on gender, career opportunity, and work-life balance issues, as well as human resources and pipeline data from 132 companies like Visa, Facebook, and General Motors that employ more than 4.6 million people.
The survey asked respondents whether they had lobbied for a raise or a promotion in the past two years — and there was no significant difference between women and men. In fact, women were just slightly more likely to report asking for a promotion (39 percent of women versus 36 percent of men) or a raise (29 to 27 percent).
The results of asking, however, weren’t the same.
Women were more likely than men (30 percent versus 23 percent) to report that after asking for a raise or a promotion, they received negative performance feedback that they were “bossy,” “aggressive,” or “intimidating.”
And despite asking for promotions at roughly equal rates, the report found, women are staggeringly less likely to get promoted across the board than men are. That starts with the first level of promotion; 130 men are promoted to manager for every 100 women, and the gap widens from there.
The drop-off can’t be explained by women leaving their companies in larger numbers than men; attrition rates are also roughly equal between men and women, according to the report. This progressively narrowing promotion pipeline is one reason there are so few women in high-level positions, the report notes, especially CEO.
This disparity is even starker for women of color: Even though black, Hispanic, and Asian women make up 20 percent of the US population, and even though studies show that women of color are more ambitious about reaching high-level positions, women of color only make up 3 percent of C-suite positions.
Another recent study also found that women negotiate just as much as men but are less likely to get what they ask for. The study, conducted by researchers from the Cass Business School in London, the University of Warwick in the UK, and the University of Wisconsin, looked at survey data from 4,600 workers in 840 workplaces in Australia.
The researchers said their data allowed them to control for variables that previous researchers couldn’t — especially the number of hours worked. People who worked fewer hours, whether male or female, were less likely to negotiate or to be in a position to do so.
The study found that women are about 25 percent less likely than men to actually get a pay raise when they ask for it — even though they’re asking at about the same rates.
All of this is consistent with other research that shows women face a backlash for seeming too aggressive.
“More women are leaning in — and we’ll all go farther when the workplace stops pushing back,” Sandberg wrote.
Watch: What people miss about the gender wage gapThe latest and greatest Nexus phone - the 16GB Nexus 4 - is available in limited quantities for $375 from eBay Daily Deals today. "But it's selling for $349.99 from the Play Store!" you might exclaim. "How is this a deal?" Let me break it down a bit.
U.S.
You will find that Google may charge tax in your state. For example, in California, the Play Store adds on $30.54 of tax for me. The charge may be less in your state, or you may not get charged for tax at all, in which case the deal isn't as much of a deal anymore. With this deal, you only get charged tax in NY. Furthermore, the Play Store also charges for shipping. $13.99 in California, for example. Shipping is free with today's eBay deal.
The final tally for me:
Google Play - $393.53
Today's eBay deal - $375, since shipping in the U.S. is free.
Your mileage may vary.
Left: Play Store; Right: eBay deal
International
Google may not be selling the Nexus 4 in your country at all via the Play Store, in which case today's deal with shipping and import charges can still be cheaper compared to local retailers. The seller for the eBay deal ships to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Estonia, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, Japan, Sweden, and South Africa. Each country has different shipping and import fees, so click on See details next in the Shipping area to see what they would be for you. For example, shipping to Denmark is $19.22 but estimated import charges are $87.73.
Again, your mileage may vary and it's ultimately up to you to decide if the deal is good for you. So, who's pulling the trigger?In a development roughly as surprising as a jackrabbit hopping across a two-lane, the former CBS tone poet is back lamenting journalism's sorry decline, and asking for a presidential lifeline:
Dan Rather told an Aspen audience Tuesday that journalism has declined to such a point that it is time for the government to intervene. Appearing at the Greenwald Pavilion as part of the Aspen Institute's McCloskey Speaker Series, Rather said "traditional journalism is under siege" and called for media reform to become an "immediate national priority." "A democracy and free people cannot thrive without a fiercely independent press," he said. Rather suggested that President Obama establish a commission on public media and independent reporting. "I'm throwing it out there for what it's worth," he said.
Yeah, not worth much, Dan, starting with the phrases "President Obama establish" and "independent reporting" being uttered in the same sentence. Though as bad as that idea is, it's arguably better than the Ratherian science on display here:
Likening media consolidation to that of the banking industry, Rather claimed that "roughly 80 percent" of the media is controlled by no more than six, and possibly as few as four, corporations.
Roughly!
For a more accurate assessment of media consolidation (even though it's more than five years old), check out the frequency of Ben Compaine's Reason piece "Domination Fantasies: Does Rupert Murdoch control the media? Does anyone?" And for more on Rather's woe-is-media crocodile tears, here's my 2004 obit for Diamond Dan's interesting career. Excerpt:
[H]e was one of journalism's all-time great self-flagellators, always eager to confess blame for the declining standards of the trade, always making sure to spread that blame out nice and thick on the rest of us...and always showing up on time to collect his seven-figure paycheck.
Link via Romenesko.Since then, on this Medium publication,
About one year ago, we shut down our open source community’s blog and moved everyone over to Medium.
Half of all the stories we’ve published have been viewed at least 5,000 times.
Over 12 months, our community publication — which focuses on development, design, and data science — has become the 12th largest Medium publication, and the largest technical one.
How did our community’s publication manage to grow so quickly?
Reason #1: Deep thinkers who are good at writing
Hundreds of developers, designers, and data scientists — who share our vision of open source education — have published stories here.
Adrian shared what it was like to be a developer over 40:
Haseeb shared job offer negotiation advice that helped him land a starting compensation package of $250,000:
Preethi wrote what is now the standard-issue primer on JavaScript modules:
Robby talked about how he started OhMyZSH, one of the most widely used open source development tools:
Jonathan explored the aesthetics of Korean Pop music videos and related them to design:
Bill channeled his decades of development experience into this guide for preserving your time and sanity:
Parisa shared her candid advice on whether information security might be a good field for you, and how to break into it:
Petr defined one of the most confusing technology terms in plain English:
Swagat probed the secrets of the very tool you’re using right now — the browser:
Kevin explained development concepts through every-day analogies like this one:
Michael wrote about how campers have shipped over a million dollars worth of code, pro bono:
We also published a lot of success stories, like Andrew’s:
We even announced results from a survey of new developers here, and released its public dataset:
Reason #2: Readers like you
There are a million things you could be doing right now. You’ve chosen to invest your time learning about technology by reading our publication.
You’re the reason we’re all doing this.
In the year ahead, we’ll continue to publish stories that are worth your time.
Thank you for reading!
If you liked this, click the 💚 below so other people will see this here on Medium.BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Tre Roberson threw a career-high six touchdown passes, three to Shane Wynn, and the Hoosiers recaptured the Old Oaken Bucket on Saturday for the first time in three years with a 56-36 win over Purdue.
The Hoosiers (5-7, 3-5) finished the season the same way they started -- with a record-setting performance against an in-state foe. They produced their highest point total in the 116-game series and won by 20 or more points for only the seventh time in series history. Plus, the Hoosiers broke the school record for points in a season (463) and extended the school's single-season marks for total TDs (62) and TD passes (36).
Purdue (1-11, 0-8) has now lost 10 straight, the second longest skid in school history. It lost 11 straight from 1906-08.
Indiana took an early 14-0 edge, led 35-9 at halftime and never gave the Boilers a chance to come back.
Roberson made his fourth start of the season memorable.
He went 25 of 37 for 273 yards, rushed 21 times for a career-high 154 yards and converted 12 of 13 third-downs in the first three quarters.
With those sorts of numbers, Roberson had plenty of help. Wynn had 52 yards receiving on seven catches, including the three scores. Cody Latimer caught seven passes for 110 yards and a score, and Stephen Houston closed his college career with 17 carries for 120 yards and two TDs, including a 53-yard run on the game's fourth offensive play.
That was simply too much for the Boilermakers, who started the day ranked 119th out of 123 at 13.0 points per game.
It was a dismal finish to a historically bad season for Purdue, which endured its worst loss in the series since a 52-7 rout in 1988. The Boilermakers also had their first one-win season and first winless Big Ten season since 1993, and now coach Darrell Hazell must wait until next season to beat his first Football Bowl Subdivision foe as Purdue's coach.
There was no glossing over how bad this game was.
Houston started it with the sprint down the left sideline to make it 7-0. Roberson added to the problems with a 2-yard TD pass to make it 14-0, and even when Purdue got back into the game with a 1-yard TD pass from Danny Etling to Justin Sinz, the extra point was blocked.
Things went downhill from there.
After Houston scored on a 14-yard run and Paul Griggs made a 36-yard field goal to make it 21-9, Roberson hooked up with Wynn for a 4-yard TD pass, and Latimer scored on a 27-yard TD pass after wrestling the ball away from a Purdue defender, staying in bounds and diving inside the pylon with 44 seconds to go. That made it 35-9 at the half.
Indiana sealed the win when Ted Bolser caught a 2-yard TD pass early in the fourth quarter, a catch that broke the school record for receptions by a tight end as he made it 49-9.
Etling also had a bid day, finishing 33 of 49 with 485 yards and four touchdowns. Danny Anthrop caught five passes for 151 yards, DeAngelo Yancey had 11 receptions for 125 yards and Sinz finished with nine catches for 187 yards. Each of the three receivers caught a TD pass.We are looking for people to help test this update. If you want to test the updated packages be sure to your put your results on the wiki page listed below.
On April 15, a major memory leak was introduced into the X.org server which causes the computer to get slower and slower over some hours, and finally becoming totally sluggish. This is tracked in https://launchpad.net/bugs/565981.
Thanks to the tireless investigations of Robert Hooker and Tormod Volden, this was tracked down to a recently added patch which fixed some crashes intoduced by the GLX 1.4 enablement patches. A first attempt to fixing the memory problem wasn't successful unfortunately, and isn't easy.
The safest solution right now is to roll back all three patches. This will fix both the memory leak and thus the performance problem, as well as avoid the X crashes which were introduced by the GLX 1.4 enabling. While we had this combination before, we haven't tested it with the current lucid userspace, and thus we need some extensive tests on various hardware to get more data about it.
We set up a wiki page to explain how to install the proposed packages and for adding feedback:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Testing/GEMLeak
On Friday we will check how much and which kind of feedback we got, and depending on that will decide about the risk of putting it into Lucid final, or doing an early SRU. (We need testing feedback in either case, of course).
Thank you in advance for helping with testing!
Check here for more updates
Bug reported here
Sponsored Link
Related postsNew Google Glass App Lets You Nod To Pay With Bitcoin, Will Add Dollars This Summer
While Google may be working on adding Google Wallet to Glass, and other big payment players are “eyeing up” (!) ways of integrating into Google’s computing headgear, a Dutch startup has beaten them to the punch.
Eaze is a new app, out in beta today, that uses voice and image recognition to activate the service, and nodding head gestures to confirm and complete payments. Eaze claims to be the first global payment solution to make its way to Glass, after first announcing its plans back in February of this year.
Starting with bitcoin and integrating with existing bitcoin wallets Coinbase and Blockchain.info, the plan is to add fiat currencies like dollars and euros, and corresponding wallets that hold them, this summer.
“We are in talks with wallets that handle FIAT currencies,” co-founder Raimo van der Klein told me in an interview. “It all depends a bit on the right API’s. But we expect this summer to add the first.”
Among those that Eaze may work with in future is PayPal. The eBay-owned company has been working hard at setting the pace for where payments will go next. That strategy includes wearables, as evidenced by the PayPal integration with the Samsung Gear watch earlier this year. “We are also in talks with them,” says co-founder Rutger van Zuidam.
Van Zuidam says that Eaze picked bitcoin first because it was “the most easy currency to implement, and the main story is about making payments frictionless.”
It’s not only large companies like PayPal and Intuit that have been touting the potential of Glass for payments. Other startups have been making moves in the same direction.
Glass Pay from RedBottle Design is one solution that has picked up some attention. It projects that its app will not be out until later this year, however.
Zapier, which links up different apps to work together with triggers and actions, is also in the process of building tech for PayPal to work with Google Glass. But again, this is not a payment app in itself (yet).
Eaze works like this: After a user downloads the Glassware on their device, he/she goes through a process to activate it and then link up an existing bitcoin wallet to Eaze. A merchant that accepts bitcoin generates a code for the transaction (using Bitpay or another bitcoin POS provider. “They are all the same,” says Van der Klein.), and then presents that code to the user. The user says, “OK Glass, make a payment,” and Glass then scans the code. The details appear on Glass’ display and a user nods twice to complete the transaction.
Eaze’s founders — Van der Klein is a Nokia alum who was the co-founder of early augmented reality startup Layar; Van Zuidam is a repeat e-commerce entrepreneur — acknowledge that although |
JCache through Spring, Hibernate, and Ehcache, this article explains how you can prevent spontaneous cache creation.
Concurrency Control is a very tricky subject. Check out this article about how explicit pessimistic locking interacts with INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements.
Emmanouil Gkatziouras wrote two articles about Hibernate and Hazelcast as a 2nd-level caching provider:
Russ Thomas wrote https://sqljudo.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/what-every-dba-and-swe-should-know-about-ef/[a comprehensive list of ORM Anti-Patterns. Although the article was written for Entity Framework, the tups apply to JPA or Hibernate.
For our Portuguese readers, Rhuan Henrique Rocha da Silva wrote an article about the meaning of mappedBy in JPA and Hibernate.
Thorben Janssen wrote an article about adding Full-Test Search capabilities to a Hibernate application.
Paul Klingelhuber wrote an article about how the Dirty Checking mechanism interacts with JPA AttributeConverters.Trump's clampdown on the press continues: Washington Post latest media outlet to have press credentials revoked The Washington Post joins Politico and the Daily Beast as one of several news organizations iced out by Trump
Donald Trump just announced that he plans to revoke the press credentials for the Washington Post, adding the newspaper to the growing list of press outlets that have been banned from directly covering the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
During a morning news victory lap following the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history, Trump suggested to multiple news programs on Monday that President Obama allowed the murderous rampage in Orlando, Florida, to take place.
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“He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands,” Trump told Fox News, implying that the president of the United States secretly sympathizes with terrorists.
When asked directly what he meant by his provocative suggestions about President Obama's involvement with the worst terror attack on U.S. soil since Septemeber 11, 2011, Trump refused the opportunity to distance himself from his nasty Birtherism.
“Well, you know, I’ll let people figure that out for themselves,” Trump said on the Howie Carr Show, according to Buzzfeed. “Cause to be honest with you there certainly doesn’t seem to be a lot anger or passion when he – when we want to demand retribution for what happened over the weekend.”
Trump's comments linking President Obama to the Orlando shooter were widely reported and roundly criticized, but it was the coverage from the Post that apparently bothered the notoriously thin-skinned candidate the most.
"Trump suggests President Obama was involved with the mass shooting in Orlando," the original Post headline read Monday morning.
Late Monday afternoon, Trump announced he was adding the Post to the list of media outlets banned from his campaign that includes, Politico, Huffington Post, the Daily Beast and Buzzfeed:
"The Washington Post is being used by the owners of Amazon as their political lobbyists so that they don't have to pay taxes and don't get sued for monopolistic tendencies that have led to to the destruction of department stores and the retail industry," Trump claimed in a statement, accusing the national paper of putting its "need for 'clicks' above journalistic integrity."
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In a statement, Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said Trump's decision was "nothing less than a repudiation of the role of the free and independent press."Introduction
The FBI Assailant Study – Mindsets and Behaviors was initiated to analyze attacks against law enforcement officers in 2016. Sixty-four officers were killed in 53 incidents, but for the purpose of this study only 50 of the 53 incidents were examined considering three of the assailants are being charged as minors and two assailants are unknown. The FBI accomplished this by studying information about the assailants’ mindsets and behaviors to determine what may have influenced the assailants and contributed to the attacks. Over the course of this study, law enforcement command staff and officers were interviewed from 13 departments where an officer was killed in the line of duty in 2016. The FBI analyzed an additional 37 incidents in 2016 through open-source information and law enforcement databases. In total, the FBI examined 50 incidents that occurred in 2016.
The Assailants
The 50 assailants examined in the study had several common characteristics. Eighty-six percent (43/50) of the assailants had prior criminal histories, and 56% (28/50) were known to the local police or sheriff’s department. The assailants in these incidents had access to firearms, whether obtained legally or illegally, with several of the stolen weapons changing hands multiple times before coming into the possession of the assailant. The assailant had diagnosed mental health issues in 18% (9/50) of the fatal encounters; however, mental health concerns were anecdotally identified as a contributing factor in 40% (20/50) of the cases.
Head injuries, post-traumatic stress, schizophrenia, and paranoia were all cited anecdotally by individuals who knew the assailants, and in half of those cases, the assailant was also under the influence of methamphetamines, marijuana/THC, prescription drugs, and/or alcohol. Overall, 60% (30/50) of the assailants had a history of drug use, with 32% (16/50) confirmed to have been under the influence at the time of the incident. Forty-six percent (23/50) of the assailants’ toxicology was unknown at the time of the study.
All of the assailants were male. Their ages spanned from 14 to 68 years old, including three juveniles who were not included in the 50 assailants examined due to their age. Forty-eight percent of the assailants were white, 36% were black, 14% were Hispanic, and 2% were Alaska Native. Approximately 24% (12/50) had known gang affiliations. Forty-four percent (22/50) of the assailants had a known history of domestic violence. Twenty-six percent (13/50) of the assailants had active warrants, and 32% (16/50) were on probation or parole.
Assailant Commonalities
The case studies shared commonalities in regard to the attacks. The majority of assailants attacked law enforcement for one of two reasons: 1) they expressed a desire to kill law enforcement, or 2) they felt as if they were going to lose their freedom by going back to jail or prison.
Expressed Desire to Kill Law Enforcement
Twenty-eight percent (14/50) of the assailants expressed a desire to kill law enforcement officers prior to carrying out their attacks. The main reasons expressed by assailants as to why they wanted to attack law enforcement officers were for social and/or political reasons or they had a hatred of law enforcement. The assailants in this category posted their beliefs on social media and/or informed their friends and family of their intentions prior to ambushing or initiating violence against law enforcement.
The assailants inspired by social and/or political reasons believed that attacking police officers was their way to “get justice” for those who had been, in their view, unjustly killed by law enforcement. These assailants expressed that they were distrustful of the police due to previous personal interactions with law enforcement and what they heard and read in the media about other incidents involving law enforcement shootings. Specifically in the Dallas, TX, and Baton Rouge, LA, attacks, the assailants said they were influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement, and their belief that law enforcement was targeting black males.
The assailants who had a hatred of law enforcement informed their friends and/or family that they intended to kill a police officer or that they wanted to “shoot it out with police.” Of the 14 assailants who ambushed law enforcement, 10 of them (71%) had a prior criminal history. Additionally, 10 out of the 14 assailants were under the influence of narcotics or had a history of drug use at the time of the incident.
Attacks Motivated for Desire to Remain Free
An assailant’s desire to remain free and not return to custody was the main commonality shown in a majority of the fatal attacks. These attacks took one of two forms: 1) drug use that led to a heightened sense of desperation to avoid arrest and incarceration, and 2) the assailant’s desire for freedom.
Law enforcement officials noted an increase in the number of subjects using drugs and being in a drug-induced psychosis when contacted by police. Many law enforcement personnel are seeing an “escalation towards violence” by those who abuse drugs. A high percentage of assailants were under the influence during these incidents or had a history of drug use. Officer interviews highlighted the assailants’ skewed “decision-making matrix” when contacted by law enforcement while under the influence of a narcotic, compounded with the thought of not wanting to return to custody. Instead of complying – as they typically had in the past – they, instead, attacked. Multiple agencies expressed surprise that the fatal encounters occurred because the assailants had no prior history of violent attacks against police. This is consistent with the fact that prior to fatal encounter, only a quarter of the assailants had expressed on social media or to friends and family that they would do anything not to go back to jail.
In approximately 40% of the incidents, the assailant fled before they turned and shot at the officers. Law enforcement personnel described the circumstances that led to these foot chases, and they ranged from the officer verbally identifying the assailant, consensual contact, attempting to arrest, and serving a warrant. In all of the cases, it was clear to the law enforcement officials that the assailants were attempting to avoid being taken into custody. Specifically, police officials believed that the assailants perceived that the officer who was attempting to make contact with them knew their history prior to the encounter.
Contributing Factors
“Chill Wind” on Law Enforcement
Since 2014 multiple high-profile police incidents across the country have occurred that law enforcement officials believe influenced the mindset and behaviors of the assailants. Specifically, the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, MO, in 2014, and the social disturbances that followed, initiated a movement that some perceived made it socially acceptable to challenge and discredit the actions of law enforcement. This attitude was fueled by the narrative of police misconduct and excessive force perpetuated through politicians and the media.
Nearly every police official interviewed agreed that for the first time, law enforcement not only felt that their national political leaders publically stood against them, but also that the politicians’ words and actions signified that disrespect to law enforcement was acceptable in the aftermath of the Brown shooting. Police officials across the country agreed that while the majority of Americans still support law enforcement, this change in social mores allows assailants to become more emboldened to question, resist, and fight law enforcement.
Due to the coverage of the high-profile police incidents, it appears that immediately following the incidents, assailants were constantly exposed to a singular narrative by news organizations and social media of police misconduct and wrong-doing. In many cases, this singular narrative came from the subject’s friends and family, and witnesses to the incident who often knew the subject, long before law enforcement provided their findings to the public. Without law enforcement and elected officials providing an alternative narrative, assailants developed a distrust of law enforcement, and felt emboldened and justified in using violence against police.
“Turnstile Justice System”
Law enforcement officials across the country stated that justice reform acts, especially laws de-criminalizing drugs and reducing penalties for narcotics offenses, have the effect of releasing criminals at a faster and higher rate than ever before. Assailants who experience this “turnstile justice system” know they are going to receive a lighter sentence than they would have in the past and will be released early, if incarcerated at all. This may lead to a belief by the assailant that consequences no longer exist for criminal acts, especially drug offenses. Due to both of these factors, upon release, assailants with a history of drug offenses were more prone to be non-compliant while under the influence. In addition, police officers stated that an assailant who has entered into a “drug-induced psychosis” that causes desperation and paranoia is more willing to shoot an officer to stay out of jail. Multiple law enforcement officials believed that the assailant in their specific incident would not have used deadly force against the officer if the assailant was sober. Across the country, law enforcement officials link the de-criminalization of drugs to the increase in violent attacks on law enforcement.
Effects on Policing
The above-referenced factors have had the effect of “de-policing” in law enforcement agencies across the country, which the assailants have exploited. Departments – and individual officers – have increasingly made the conscious decision to stop engaging in proactive policing. The intense scrutiny and criticism law enforcement has received in the wake of several high-profile incidents has caused several officers to (1) “become scared and demoralized” and (2) avoid interacting with the community. This was highlighted when a police officer was beaten and slammed to the ground by a subject, and the officer was afraid to shoot the subject because of the fear of community backlash. The officer informed the superintendant that the officer chose not to shoot because the officer didn’t want his/her “family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on the national news.”
Law enforcement officials believe that defiance and hostility displayed by assailants toward law enforcement appears to be the new norm. For example, in the past, pretext stops have been used successfully to prevent crimes associated with gangs, guns, and narcotics. One officer explained that 10 years ago if a suspect was stopped in a high-risk neighborhood, that person either ran or complied. Now, suspects are refusing to comply with lawful orders believing that law enforcement can’t or won’t do anything about it. Defiance appears to be the rule. In communities where law enforcement’s community relationship is poor, officers are more likely to be purely reactive. Assailants understand that officers are less willing to escalate force, and therefore have become bolder and more brazen in their attempts to resist.
Conclusion
The Assailant Study identified mindsets in common with each of the assailants. The discussions with law enforcement command staff and officers identified common trends and contributing factors that had the greatest impact on the assailants’ mindsets and behaviors. The common trends identified were (1) the expressed desire to kill law enforcement, and (2) the desire to remain free. The contributing factors identified were (1) the singular narrative that portrays the officer involved as guilty in traditional and social media and the subject as the victim, and (2) the recent criminal justice reform initiatives that reduce prosecutions and incarceration of criminals, specifically drug offenders, which has the effect of putting criminals back on the street with an attitude of “beating the system.”
Acknowledgement
The FBI would like to thank all of the law enforcement agencies which participated in this study. We would also like extend our condolences and support to all of the law enforcement departments and agencies whose officers were killed in the line of duty.Thirteen months ago, the quarterback conundrum for the Houston Texans was supposed to have finally been resolved. Sparing no expense, owner Bob McNair committed $37 million in guaranteed money to free agent Brock Osweiler, and with one signature, the Texans were supposed to have found their guy, the apple of general manager Rick Smith’s and head coach Bill O’Brien’s eye.
Sadly, we all know the end result of the Osweiler experiment. The Texans ejected one year into Osweiler’s four-year contract, making the unprecedented move of actually including a second-round pick with the ostracized signal caller in a deal with Cleveland just so the Browns would take him off their hands. Say what you will about Matt Schaub, Texans fans, but at least the Texans traded two second-round picks to Atlanta in exchange for him, not stapled to him just so he would go away.
So here we are again, in an annual tradition we’d all love to see disappear, discussing how the Texans fix their starting quarterback position, which according to the so-called experts is the main flaw that separates them from fringe Super Bowl contention. Indeed, having cycled through eight different starting quarterbacks in O’Brien’s three seasons as head coach, the Texans’ quarterback position is the Highway 290 of the NFL — a head-scratching, anger-inducing, borderline disaster area that is constantly under construction.
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The difference between this year’s renewed attempt to build something resembling a future and years past is that O’Brien himself is at a crossroads as head coach of the football team. On the one hand, he has finished 9-7 each season and won two division titles. On the other, the purported offensive guru has trotted out offenses that have gotten progressively worse each season, with last year’s offense scoring the fewest touchdowns of any playoff team in the modern era. Patience among fans is wearing thin, especially on the heels of the Osweiler catastrophe.
So with the 2017 NFL Draft set to kick off Thursday night, April 27, let’s examine the three most important questions about the NFL’s most important position as it pertains to the Texans:
After waiting out Tony Romo into retirement and reportedly flirting a bit with Jay Cutler, the Texans will enter training camp with Tom Savage listed first on the depth chart. Certainly, the fact that Savage was one of just four players made available to the media when workouts began last week would seem to indicate that he’s their guy, for now.
Savage was a fourth-round draft pick in O’Brien’s first year as head coach in 2014. Normally, when a quarterback is entering his fourth season in the league and has ascended to the understood starting role for his team, it means his continued on-field performance has gradually put him there. For Savage, this wasn’t the case at all. Instead, he’s basically the last man standing in what’s been a three-year war of attrition at the position, with seven other quarterbacks starting at least one game in that time frame, and Savage himself starting just two and appearing in just four.
For a guy who has yet to throw an NFL touchdown pass as he enters his fourth year, Savage does elicit confidence in his teammates, though. “The kid is a go-getter,” said wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who is actually two years younger than the “kid” Savage. “He doesn’t quit. He was out there being a leader even though he hasn’t played many snaps in this league. Even on the sideline last year at games, he was out there helping the quarterbacks, helping us, helping the tight ends. Just being active throughout even though he wasn’t starting.”
It’s a bit ironic that Savage wound up a starting NFL quarterback by hanging around for three seasons while others fell by the wayside, given that his college career involved multiple transfers to find his ideal collegiate home, eventually finishing up at the University of Pittsburgh. “I bounced around quite a bit in college, and I think a lot of that journey kind of made me who I am today and just going forward,” Savage reflected. “This is a heck of an opportunity and I’m really pumped for it. Like I said, I have to go out there every day and earn it. That’s kind of the mind-set that was instilled in me throughout this whole process.”
During Rick Smith’s tenure as general manager, it’s almost as if the Texans have suffered from an allergy that prevents them from investing significant draft capital in a quarterback. Since the 2007 draft, Smith’s first as the man in charge for the Texans, only eight teams have refrained from investing a pick in the first three rounds of a draft in a quarterback. Five of them — San Diego, the New York Giants, Pittsburgh, Dallas and Chicago — have had franchise quarterbacks virtually that entire time, and the other two — Kansas City and Arizona — have been largely successful teams during that period. They have reasonable excuses.
The Texans, on the other hand, really have no excuse for their neglect of football’s most important position. Savage (2014, 4th round), T.J. Yates (2011, 5th round) and Alex Brink (2008, 7th round) are the only quarterbacks drafted by Rick Smith. That’s beyond reprehensible. Suffice it to say, that change this year, even in the face of whatever outward confidence the coaching staff professes to have in Savage.
That said, as proud as O’Brien was to win the AFC South and win a playoff game in 2016, the downside to those accomplishments is they place the Texans in a draft slot, 25th overall, that makes selecting one of the top quarterbacks in this class nearly impossible without trading up. Clemson’s Deshaun Watson and Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes are the two biggest names to have visited the Texans at NRG Stadium over the last week or so (a key indicator that there is a “love connection”), but both are expected to be selected well before the 25th pick rolls around. Barring a trade-up, it’s more likely the Texans wait until the second or third round and take the best quarterback available from a gaggle that could include Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer, Pitt’s Nathan Peterman or Cal’s Davis Webb.
At this point, the only thing we know for certain about O’Brien’s future with the Texans is that he has two years remaining on his original five-year contract that he signed back in January of 2014. Beyond that, we are left with murky, unsubstantiated rumors of O’Brien’s possible discontent in working with Smith, whose contractual situation long-term is certainly more stable than O’Brien’s — Smith signed a four-year extension last offseason.
If there are any tea leaves to be read after this weekend, they would exist only in extreme situations. For example, according to Tom Pelissero of USA Today, O’Brien loves Mahomes as a prospect, so if the Texans were to make a big move to secure the former Texas Tech signal caller, that would seem to be a good sign for O’Brien. Conversely, if the Texans buck conventional wisdom and draft a late-round prospect at quarterback (or draft no quarterback at all), that might be a sign that management has decided to wait until 2018 for a possible offensive reboot, a seemingly bad indicator for O’Brien.
Coaching futures, draft conjecture, forecasting when Tom Savage will finally throw an NFL touchdown pass — it’s all speculative this time of year. For now, all Texans fans can do is hope, hope that 2017 is the end of the annual column about the Texans’ finding a quarterback, that they find their man in this year’s draft. Or at least before the city finishes up the rebuild of Highway 290.One of the 10 people pardoned by Gov. Chris Christie last week donated to the governor's campaign and was a parent at the same all-male private school attended by Christie's son.
Joseph Michael Longo, 55, pleaded guilty in June 2016 to four counts of tampering with public records.
Christie pardoned Longo on Dec. 22, weeks before his term expires on Jan. 16. Since taking office, Christie has granted clemency to 29 individuals. The governor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment or provide a copy of Longo's clemency application.
Filings with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission show Longo donated $500 to Christie's gubernatorial campaign in 2009. Longo is also listed as president of Longo Electrical-Mechanical, Inc., business records show. That entity donated another $1,050 to Christie's campaign and inaugural committees in 2009, 2010 and 2014, according to campaign finance records.
Of the 10 pardoned individuals, Longo is the only one who donated to Christie's campaign, a check of campaign filings show.
In 2016, Longo pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Middlesex County to tampering with public records. He was sentenced to two years probation and fined $300,000, court records show.
His attorney for the case, Jeffrey Chiesa, is a longtime Christie friend and ally who has served as New Jersey's attorney general and as a U.S. senator. He is overseeing the state takeover of Atlantic City.
Longo Electrical has received government contracts with the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission and the New Jersey Water Supply Authority, among others, contracts and meeting minutes posted online show.
Politico initially reported on Christie's relationship with Longo. The report found Longo posted pictures of himself and Christie on his Facebook page.
Longo's Facebook page has since been made private. But a Twitter photo posted by Longo in March 2013 show Christie's arm around Longo with the caption, "just hanging."
Among Longo's Twitter followers: Gov. Chris Christie.
Just hanging pic.twitter.com/K0zvfK6sK6 -- Joseph M Longo (@Jmlongo324) March 1, 2013
Longo did not return a message seeking comment.
Longo's son attended Delbarton School, an exclusive all-boys Catholic academy, at the same time Christie's son attended in 2012.
Christie also Tweeted in April 2013 that he was at the Villa Walsh father/daughter dance with Longo. To which Longo replied, "was a lot of fun last night with our beautiful girls."
Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.As Microsoft prepares a new streaming music service in the U.K., and a new report indicates a sharp decline in downloads among teenagers in favor of sites like Pandora, what's an artist to do? Reinvent the distribution business, course.
Industry execs may fret about declining traditional sales, but some enterprising artists and labels have devised new ways to sell music that give fans something to collect, even in an age when the music itself can be infinitely duplicated for free. Or when the cloud makes the very idea of collecting and owning music seem quaint.
It's a lesson the industry has been learning for about a decade now: If you can't sell music, sell something else. (Hey, it beats complaining about "kids today" and their utter disrespect for copyright.)
From soup cans to sonic Buddhas, there is life beyond the stream. Here are 10 of our favorites. (Feel free to add your own suggestions below.)
1. Max Tundra's Limited Edition Kosher Chicken Soup
Purchasers of Domino Records artist Max Tundra's 2008 album, Parallax Error Beheads You, have four formats to choose from: compact disc, vinyl, digital, or as a $19 soup can that comes with a download code. Domino calls this "the new kosher format," due to the nature of the chicken soup contained inside the customized label. In addition to a food item that can be consumed in the event of lapsed fandom (or nuclear winter), fans who choose the soup can format also get an exclusive digital compilation of Max Tundra's friends covering his songs. All of the songs are in the 320 Kbps DRM-free Mp3 format. Soup cans were assembled by the artist in some sort of sweatshop (– video).
__ 2. Mogwai's "Tracy" Music Box__Scottish guitar band Mogwai gave its fans (the author included) a real treat in the form of a professionally-constructed metal music box that plays their song "Tracy" when you wind a little crank on the side. It helps that this song's haunting melody lends itself particularly well to the music box treatment, so other bands considering something similar might also want to choose songs with a simple melody that repeats in the time it takes for a music box's axle to complete a full revolution. (Shockingly, this doesn't appear to be on eBay, and I'm working remotely so I couldn't take a photo; this one comes courtesy of plastikwrap.)
__ 3. Interactive (Remixable) Albums__The first artist we spotted to sell an interactive version of an album that allows fans to customize it differently each time they listen was Deadmau5, whose iPhone app for that purpose blew us away in February. Another, more popular artist whom we agreed not to name (update: it's Soulja Boy Tell 'Em) plans to offer three songs in remixable iPhone app form Tuesday, and we expect the trend to continue. But then again, we would say something like that, having been first (that I know of, anyway) to predict that iPhone apps would change the way music is sold. Note to record labels: It's more difficult to pirate a remixable iPhone app album than it is to pirate an unprotected CD. One variant of this idea is selling music as a videogame (Beatles: Rock Band; Tap Tap Revenge: Nine Inch Nails Edition).
__ 4. The Mos Def Music Tee__For a mere $39, you too can purchase Mos Def's latest album, The Ecstatic, in a wearable T-shirt format that, like Tundra's soup can, comes with a unique download code for grabbing the tracks online. When Invisible DJ and LNA Clothing unveiled this release strategy with Downtown Music (updated), it was unclear whether Neilsen SoundScan would be able to track sales of the album, because the organization is used to counting sales of discs, not apparel. However, a compromise was made: redeemed codes will count towards Billboard's digital albums chart. Labelmates Santigold and Miike Snow also plan on releasing music T-shirts soon, Invisible DJ has one too, and Amanda Blank is next.
__ 5. Cheap Trick's 8-Track Tape__Releasing an album on 8-track tape may not have constituted an innovative approach back in the '70s, but in 2009, it's a bona fide publicity stunt. Cheap Trick, in a nod to their status as rockers "of a certain age," are selling their latest album, The Latest, in the ancient 8-track format, believed to have been the format of choice during the Pleistocene era. In addition to the $30 8-track, the band is also hawking golf balls, license plate frames, watches, backpacks and bandanas, but those don't come with music. If you'd like to see what an 8-track player looks like, check out Stephen Colbert's model in this Colbert Report clip.
__ 6. Visual Art (Album and Other)__When people talk about musicians as "artists," they generally mean recording artists, but some bands have a strong visual sense that presents the opportunity to bundle other artwork along with music. Stones Throw records is a fine example of this approach, offering a $100 print by Quasimoto, a $68 art book featuring paintings by the guy who makes Madlib's album covers with three exclusive songs on vinyl, a $50 Quasimoto action figure, and $10 heart-shaped vinyl version of Mayer Hawthorn's Just Ain't Gonna Work Out. My brother's band, Javelin, is considering an elaboration on this approach in their upcoming release for Thrill Jockey Records: hand-making every album cover using re-purposed vintage album covers, giving each fan a unique copy of the music and saving money on manufacturing.
__ 7. The FM3 Buddha Machine__The Chinese experimental band FM3 has mystified countless music store shoppers with their FM3 Buddha Machine, which they claim houses a tiny Buddha who emits nine magical drones. Either the Buddha (or, more likely, a flash memory chip) sends these tones to a small speaker. The first edition became so popular that the band later released a 2.0 version, and now they've even turned it into an iPhone app. Variants of the dedicated-device strategy include the U2 iPod and the Journey/Zvue MP3 player.
__ 8. Cassettes__Now that all the cool kids are listening to vinyl, even cooler kids are moving on to another analog format that has the advantage of portability: the audio cassette, which stores music magnetically on a thin strip of tape. We've heard lots of anecdotal evidence that the cassette is making a comeback, and sure enough, SXSW "it" band The Dirty Projectors are selling cassettes that come with download codes. Lucky Dragons' website contains the offer "cassettes now available in MP3 form," and cassette culture is generally on the rise everywhere we looked. (Photo: Marc Arsenault)
__ 9. Blatant Patronage__One of the stranger musical acts to emerge from the Bay Area over the past decade or so is The Towne Dandies, a (mainly) one-man rock opera that puts on highly original shows about pirates, American Indian gambling centers, the fall of the British Raj, and other themes. Towne Dandies frontman Geoff Ellsworth carried his unique way of thinking into the business end of his music by offering to compose and record a custom answering machine message. All you need to send him is $50 and some details to include. Considering this man's way with words, melody and humor, it could be money well spent. After all, how many of your friends have managed to commission songs for their voicemail messages? (Ellsworth also offers to create customized slogans for $35. Example: "When robots fight, people win.")
__ 10. Flash Memory__Ever since Trent Reznor had USB sticks containing his music placed in bathrooms at his shows, flash memory has shown promise as a method for distributing music. After transferring the music onto their computers, fans can use the USB memory stick for whatever they want – or they can leave the files on there, to keep them in "mint" condition. The concept has since spread to Sony, which released a 25th-year-anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller album on a 2GB Micro Vault Click Drive, and SanDisk's slotMusic program, which promises to make digital music as easy as dealing with a collection of really, really small compact discs.
See Also:
Image: miss-frugalityA strange white spot has been observed on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres. Photo by NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI
PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Everyday, NASA's Dawn probe gets a bit closer to the dwarf planet Ceres. They're hoping this history-making flyby can answer questions and offer scientists a new and improved understanding of the glorified asteroid. But so far, Ceres is all mystery.
Scientists on the Dawn mission are especially puzzled by a strange shiny white spot seen on the surface of the mini planet.
Last week, as Dawn prepared to encroach upon Ceres -- it's expected to reach its closest point to the dwarf planet in early March -- the craft began sending back a series of photos of the white sphere. The resolution isn't yet an improvement on Hubble's resolution, but it was good enough to highlight the dark and light differentiations on Ceres' surface.
One of this differentiations, a white spot seen in the upper left quadrant of the planet's surface, is particularly striking. And NASA's scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena don't know what it is exactly.
"Yes, we can confirm that it is something on Ceres that reflects more sunlight, but what that is remains a mystery," Marc Rayman, chief engineer on the Dawn mission, told Space.com last week.
"We do not know what the white spot is, but it's certainly intriguing," Rayman added. "In fact, it makes you want to send a spacecraft there to find out, and of course that is exactly what we are doing! So as Dawn brings Ceres into sharper focus, we will be able to see with exquisite detail what [the white spot] is."
Last year, scientists at NASA and ESA observed water vapor pluming from Ceres. The findings confirmed the belief that the dwarf planet's mantel is a thick sphere of ice. Some scientists have suggested Ceres could have more fresh water than Earth. If so, it's possible that the strange white spot is some sort of icy geyser -- its slick, watery output reflecting the sun.
"We've got a spacecraft on the way to Ceres, so we don't have to wait long before getting more context on this intriguing result, right from the source itself," Carol Raymond, the deputy principal investigator for Dawn, said last year after the discovery of water vapor plumes.
Now, that context is even closer to arrival.
"We know so much about the solar system and yet so little about dwarf planet Ceres," Rayman said. "Now, Dawn is ready to change that."The current development version has gone through quite a lot of testing and now it is time to release it as stable. It really is stable now, unlike the previous stable, which really isn’t stable even today. There are problems, of course, but they are known, minor and have workarounds.
Here is an image to make you interested!
This has practically nothing new compared to the previous development build. Here is the changelog:
0.3.0: (released on 2011-11-01)
- Some small fixes
0.3.dev-20111021:
- Modify dungeon masters to only try to shoot players
- Fix object duplication bug at block load/unload
- Improve network layer
0.3.dev-20111016:
- Locked chest
- Server user limit setting (max_users)
- Wielded tool is shown in HUD
- View bobbing
- Saplings that drop from leaf blocks and when placed on ground will grow to trees
- Optimized map saving (does not re-save everything all the time)
- New mob system and new mob: dungeon master
- Death/respawn screen
Compared to the previous stable (0.2.20110922), it contains lots of new things.
Additionally, in this Windows package, the textures have been mostly replaced by Cisoun’s texture pack. Linux users can install it separately, if they wish.
For Windows (XP/Vista/7), download it here: minetest-0.3.0-win32.zip
For other platforms, here is the download page.In the 1980s an animator named Craig Reynolds was interested in animating groups of animals, such as flocks of birds. He wanted to avoid having to individually determine each bird’s movement, and he suspected that their behaviour could be captured by an algorithm wherein each bird followed simple rules relating to its surroundings. His work showed that he was right, and he produced a now famous simulation called boids that demonstrated flocking behaviour based on three simple principles: stay close to other boids, head in the same direction as them, but avoid hitting them.
Boids is famous for several reasons: it emulates animal group behaviour quite simply, it demonstrates emergent behaviour, and so on. I’m going to use it as an example application for two reasons: it looks good, and it’s a nice, fairly small example of a physical simulation. So this is the first in a series of posts on implementing boids using the CHP library, based on an existing example in another message-passing concurrency language: occam. That version, occoids, can be seen in videos from the CoSMoS project
We will start with the framework for visualisation, then build up the simulation. All the code in this guide is held in a chp-boids repository on patch-tag — |
that doesn’t merely resort, at some point, to an ad hominen attack on the Yankees’ radio team. Which, that’s unfortunate. But also: probably indicative of the sort of frustration a FanGraphs reader might have attempting to comsume a Yankees game by way of the radio feed.
***
29. Chicago White Sox
Main Broadcasters: Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 2.4, 2.3, 2.4
Representative Reader Comment
“They can both get kind of weird in their attempts to play off each other.”
Notes
A number of comments regarding the White Sox’ away television broadcast suggested that, whatever their merits as individuals, that Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone gave the impression — on air, at least — of never having become bosom friends. Multiple respondents suggest that the club’s radio broadcast team suffers from a similar lack of compatibility.
***
28. Los Angeles Angels
Main Broadcasters: Terry Smith and Mark Langston
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 2.4, 2.7, 2.8
Representative Reader Comment
“They never truly replaced Rory Markus, who was terrific.”
Notes
Most of the television teams over the course of this excerise receives somewhere between 100 and 500 ballots from readers; most radio teams, between about 50 and 200. The Angels receives nine total ballots. This score, as a result, likely features the largest margin of error. This paragraph, for a number of reasons, is an experiment in futility.
***
27. Cincinnati Reds
Main Broadcasters: Marty Brennaman and Jeff Brantley
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 3.1, 2.7, 2.8
Representative Reader Comment
“Marty is a curmudgeon and his negativity and criticism of players tends to overshadow the fact that he is one of the very best in the business at the act of calling a ballgame.”
Notes
Many of the sentiments expressed by readers regarding Thom Brennaman appear relevant, as well, to his father Marty. Both Brennamans receive praise for their vocal timbre and narrative skills. Both also seem to exhibit a sort of antagonism with life itself, however, that doesn’t lend itself to the long-distance race that is a baseball season.
***
26. Colorado Rockies
Main Broadcasters: Jack Corrigan and Jerry Schemmel
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 3.2, 3.0, 3.2
Representative Reader Comment
“[W]orth mentioning the Rockies became the first NL team to have a woman on the radio crew last year when Jenny Cavnar filled in for a few games at Jack’s suggestion while Jerry was absent.”
Notes
The Rockies’ radio score (3.2) is actually about even with the median score produced collectively by the league’s television broadcasts. Responses regarding Corrigan and Schemmel reflect, perhaps, the difference in the medium. Because, despite their ranking, the pair receives little actual negative criticism.
***
25. Minnesota Twins
Main Broadcasters: Cory Provus and Dan Gladden
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 3.2, 3.2, 3.3
Representative Reader Comment
“The Twins radio crew is laudable for its inoffensiveness. Provus has a great voice, and, together with Gladden, the two of them never really manage to tick me off… In modern announcing, that’s a major plus.”
Notes
Provus is an alumnus of the Brewers’ radio team alongside Bob Uecker — which group also includes Joe Block (now in Pittsburgh on radio and TV) and Jim Powell in Atlanta (also on radio) and Pat Hughes (on Cubs radio). All four are generally praised by FanGraphs readers, which may or may not be a coincidence. Like how everything in life may or may not be a coincidence, as well.
***
24. Miami Marlins
Main Broadcasters: Dave Van Horne and Glenn Geffner
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 3.4, 3.3, 3.4
Representative Reader Comment
“I would venture a guess that most stumbling on a game by Van Horne would be hard-pressed to confidently state which team employs him.”
Notes
Comments regarding Dave Van Horne suggest that, if anything, he is phlegmatic to a fault. In a nearly related development, here’s a very brief story by Lydia Davis from her collection Varieties of Disturbance:
***
23. Pittsburgh Pirates
Main Broadcasters: Like, five different guys
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 3.7, 3.1, 3.5
Representative Reader Comment
“Pirates fans will mostly enjoy these pairings but fans of other teams should be warned, and should steer towards Block when possible.”
Notes
Whatever comments apply to the Pirates’ television side mostly apply here, too, on account of it’s all the same people, basically. Curiously, while Pittsburgh’s television crew ranks 15th according to FanGraphs readers, that same collection of personnel appear 23rd among radio broadcasters. Again, this is very likely due to the different demands of the two media.
***
22. Kansas City Royals
Main Broadcasters: Denny Matthews and Steve Physioc/Steve Stewart
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 3.5, 3.4, 3.5
Representative Reader Comment
“Denny Matthews is basically Vin Scully to us Royals Fans. He’s been with the Royals since the teams first year in 1969, so it’s really hard to hear a Royals game and not have Denny on the call.”
Notes
As the reader comment here suggests, most respondents exhibit a certain reverence with regard to Denny Matthews. The comparison to Vin Scully is apt for that reason. And for this one, too: as with Scully, the few dissenting views regarding Matthews all cite age as the primary reason.
***
21. Houston Astros
Main Broadcasters: Robert Ford and Steve Sparks
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 3.4, 3.5, 3.6
Representative Reader Comment
“Robert Ford is very good… Sparks [tries] to generate the enthusiasm by talking louder.”
Notes
When this broadcaster-rankings exercise was conducted four years ago, Milo Hamilton — and not Robert Ford — served as the primary voice for Astros’ radio. Though well respected, Hamilton was also regarded as perhaps having lost some precision with age. The combination of Ford and Sparks appears two slots higher than that previous iteration.We’ve seen our fair share of big battery smartphones, quite a few such devices reached the market in the last couple of years, and the fact that battery life is one of the biggest issues in today’s smartphones definitely helps such devices sell well. Oukitel had released a number of big battery devices, ranging from the K4000 series with a 4,000mAh battery pack, all the way to the K10000 series, and a 10,000mAh battery that comes inside of K10000 smartphones. Gionee had also released a couple of big battery offerings under their ‘Marathon’ lineup, etc.
That being said, we’re here to talk about yet another big battery device, which can go head-to-head with the Oukitel K10000 as far as battery size goes, the YAAO 6000 Plus. This brand might seem rather unknown to some of you, and there’s a good reason for that, YAAO brand is not exactly well known, but this smartphone sure is interesting. As you can see, the device is made out of metal, and it comes with a set of three capacitive buttons below the display. The design of the YAAO 6000 Plus is quite unique, and different, it definitely won’t appeal to everyone, though. This smartphone sports a 5-inch 720p (1280 x 720) display, along with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage on the inside, which makes this an entry-level handset. Thanks to the 10,900mAh battery that comes inside of this phone, you’ll be able to use it for quite a long time before it needs a charge, and the MT6735 64-bit quad-core SoC definitely helps it last for even longer, as this is not a demanding SoC, quite the contrary.
The YAAO 6000 Plus is 18.1mm thick due to the 10,900mAh battery that comes with it, and the phone runs Android-based YunOS operating system. The 13-megapixel camera is placed on the back of this phone, and a 5-megapixel selfie cam is also available here. The phone offers 4G LTE connectivity, and comes in both Gold and Silver color variants. The listing on JD.com does not mention whether the phone offers quite charging or not, but we’ll assume that it does not, so chances are it will take you quite some time to charge up that 10,900mAh battery pack. This phone is priced at $218 in China, which might be a bit too expensive considering its specs, but you don’t really have that all that many options when it comes to 10,000mAh+ battery smartphones.Our Turn: Politicians at every level are taking a death-by-a-million-cuts approach to voting in Arizona.
Disgruntled members of the public turn their back on Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan as she addresses the state House Elections Committee hearing on March 28, 2016. (Photo: John Samora/The Republic)
On Monday, the Arizona House Elections Committee held a 3-hour-long hearing on the Arizona primary-election fiasco. Testimony was heard from Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, Secretary of State Michele Reagan and a number of citizens enraged about the election.
A majority of those who testified blamed Helen Purcell as the sole person responsible for the problems on Election Day, but these issues go deeper and farther than a single person.
VOTE: Whose head should roll for election fiasco?
House Elections Committee Chairwoman Michelle Ugenti-Rita was cheered when she questioned Purcell. But Ugenti-Rita is no voting-rights hero. She, along with her colleagues in the Legislature, has sponsored and voted yes on many voter-suppression bills.
We've been suppressed before
Legislation like House Bill 2305, which made it easier to remove voters from the permanent early-voter list, and criminalized the act of picking up someone's early ballot and taking it to the polls, among other voter-suppression tactics. Another bill is HB 2023, which makes it a Class 6 felony to pick up a voter’s ballot and turn it in with their permission. Gov. Doug Ducey signed the bill into law moments after it passed.
The anger at the hearing room was only a sample of frustration felt by voters across Arizona at how legislators and elected officials have handled the election-day debacle. During the March 22 election, Arizona voters left the polls in disgust after waiting up to 5 hours in line. Election officials in Maricopa County, the largest in the state, reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent from 2012 to 2016, from 200 to just 60 polling places — one polling place per every 21,000 voters.
Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo said the county provided $4.3 million to Purcell's office but was never told that would not be enough money to effectively carry out the election.
“They talk a lot about education, but they haven’t spent a nickel when it comes to educating voters... when it comes to informing the voters, the state has dropped the ball. The Legislature and Governor Ducey have to take responsibility too,” said Gallardo.
Pita Juarez is director of communications for ONE Arizona, a nonpartisan coalition of 15 organizations dedicated to Latino voter registration, immigration, economic justice and education. (Photo: Courtesy of Pita Juarez)
Election officials said they reduced the number of polling sites to save money, an ill-conceived decision that disenfranchised thousands of voters. Previously, Maricopa County would have needed to receive federal approval for reducing the number of polling sites, because Arizona was one of 16 states with a history of discrimination and required to submit any changes to voting processes under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, however, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, and with it, the stipulation that Arizona must undergo federal oversight on election decisions.
DIAZ: The organized plan to keep Latinos from voting
ROBB: Arizona's long voting lines were colorblind
Purcell, who is in charge of selecting polling precincts in the county, said this about the long wait times on election day: "Well, the voters are to blame for getting in line, maybe us for not having enough polling places, or as many as we usually have."
Lawmakers - not voters - are the problem
Blaming voters for long lines at the polls is inexcusable. These problems, rather, are the result of lawmakers' decisions over the years. For every voter who stayed in line to vote, how many more couldn’t and their voice went unheard?
State Sen. Martin Quezada said his legislative district (29) had only one polling location open and voters were waiting for hours.
Josselyn Barry is interim executive director of Progress Now, a nonpartisan communication and advocacy organization working on progressive issues and public policy. (Photo: Courtesy of Progress Now)
"Having only one poll in all of Maryvale was a massive failure to the people of my community," he said, "and as a result we've done all voters in Arizona a disservice by casting doubt on the government's ability to conduct a fair and accessible election.”
The Legislature, Board of Supervisors, county recorder, and governor all share responsibility for the debacle. They’re part of an overall movement to limit the number of people voting, allowing politicians to pick their own voters and take away power from the people. Politicians at every level are implementing a death-by-a-million-cuts approach by passing legislation and policy that limit people’s right to vote. The result is the perfect storm of voter suppression we saw on March 22.
We hope that by November, the Legislature will take action to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Josselyn Barry is interim executive director of Progress Now, a nonpartisan communication and advocacy organization working on progressive issues and public policy. Email her at josselyn.berry@arizonawins.org; follow her on Twitter, @ProgressNowAZ. Pita Juarez is director of communications of ONE Arizona, a nonpartisan coalition of 15 organizations dedicated to Latino voter registration, immigration, economic justice and education. Email her at pitaj.multimedia@gmail.com; follow her on Twitter, @OneArizona.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1MRkgtKSteven Adler’s band ‘Adler’ will be performing at at Whiskey A-Go-Go on April 1st in Los Angeles. Adler is also booked for the M3 Rock Festival on April 30th. Neither date conflicts with Coachella, but Adler is clearly not committing the entire month of April to Guns N’ Roses, even if he makes rumored guest appearances.
Eddie Trunk also reported on his podcast last week that Matt Sorum was never part of Guns N’ Roses reunion discussions. “I’ve heard from day one, when I first heard rumors of this reunion a year ago, that Matt would not be involved.” He added, “Apparently there’s heat with somebody, I don’t know.”
Billboard is reporting Guns N’ Roses will likely be paid $3 million dollars per U.S. stadium concert that they are expected to play this summer. With the reported total of 25 shows, that would be $89 million total with $75 million for the stadium shows along with the rumored $14 million pay day for Coachella. Tickets will top out at $250 to $275. This total number doesn’t even factor in rumored shows in Europe and South America, which will easily push the band into grossing hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Police’s 2007/2008 tour is the reunion to beat, taking in $362 million from 151 concerts around the world.
“It might very well be a home run,” Washington, D.C.-based indie promoter Seth Hurwitz told Billboard. “It might very well be that it’s not. I prefer not to take part in these kind of all-or-nothing bets myself.”
Former GNR manager Doc McGhee (2010-2012), maintains, “If it’s done right, it should do amazing [business]. If they have their shit together and go out there to kill, I think everybody comes to see them. If not, they’ll have a tough time selling it.”Indiana Gov. Mike Pence speaks during a news conference, Tuesday, March 31, 2015, in Indianapolis. (Photo: Darron Cummings, AP)
CLEVELAND — Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who on Wednesday is set to accept the Republican Party's vice-presidential nomination, has long been considered a star to pro-growth, fiscal conservatives across the country.
But to many members of Arizona's GOP delegation to the Republican National Convention, Pence was not a household name before incoming presidential nominee Donald Trump tapped him to join the ticket.
Several Arizona Republican delegates indicated Monday that although they didn't know much about Pence — who served 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before running for governor of Indiana — they also didn't question Trump's judgment.
John Rosado, a delegate from north Phoenix, said his first choice for Trump's VP would have been former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Rosado said he doesn’t know much about Pence beyond the highlights of his political career, which are good enough for him.
“I trust Trump to pick what he needs,” he said. “I know Pence is a conservative, and that’s what I like about this ticket. It’s the choice between conservatives or … Hillary 'Lying' Clinton," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, one of Trump's highest-profile supporters from Arizona, also said he is more familiar with Gingrich. In 1995, Arpaio made headlines by playing videos of Gingrich's 10-part lecture series titled "Renewing American Civilization" to county jail inmates.
“I trust Trump to pick what he needs. I know Pence is a conservative, and that’s what I like about this ticket.” Arizona delegate John Rosado
Asked if he thought Gingrich would have been a better choice, Arpaio said: "Well, you know, it's up to Donald Trump to decide. He knows what he's doing."
Pence, 57, was chairman of the Republican Study Committee, or House conservative caucus, during his time in the U.S. House.
As Indiana governor, he signed controversial religious-freedom legislation that was widely perceived as anti-gay and initiated a national backlash.
Christopher Morrill, an Arizona delegate from south Phoenix, likes Pence as the V.P. candidate, although he took issue with Pence’s subsequent decision to revise the religious liberty bill. Morrill said he has not been “a big Trump supporter,” in part because of his “personal attacks” on individuals over policy.
The addition of Pence to the ticket makes it not as bad, he said.
“I think out of the ones he actually considered, Pence is probably the one that I thought would be the best," he said.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who leads the state's delegation in Cleveland, said he's a big Pence fan, saying his experience in Congress and as a governor is a plus.
"He's a full-spectrum conservative," Ducey said Monday. "... He's an excellent communicator, and I think it was a really good pick."
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Jack Harper, a former state legislator in Cleveland as an alternate delegate, likewise said Pence’s credentials as a former congressman and governor give heft to the ticket.
“If there is a chance for funding the border wall, it lies with Pence,” he said. “Paul Ryan has a responsibility to keep the Republican Party as the majority in Congress. I think Mike Pence can put that issue over the top,” using his relationships and experience in Washington to get it done.
But Russ Clark, a delegate from Yuma, was among those still trying to figure out precisely what he adds to the ticket.
“It’s an unknown,” said Clark, a member of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors.
Asked if the VP pick even mattered, he said, “Yes, it does. It’s a reflection of Trump and what he’s looking for. When I’m looking at (Pence), I’m looking at what character and quality did Trump see in this gentlemen? What was he trying to balance out? Why did he need him on the ticket?”
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Another week, another resignation by a Labour MP.
The departure of Tristram Hunt, hot on the footsteps of the resignation of Jamie Reed, will not be the last.
Mr Hunt has decided running a museum is better than being trapped in one.
He insists that his move to the Victoria and Albert Museum should not be seen as a reflection on Jeremy Corbyn.
Though it is hard to believe he did not survey the state of Labour and conclude he no longer wanted to invest in a party that was filled with crusty relics covered with the dust sheets of obscurity.
Mr Hunt was once considered one of Labour’s brightest stars who, if Labour ever returned to power, could have sat round the Cabinet table.
Now he will be in charge of looking after priceless cabinets and other pieces of ornate furniture.
He saw this as a better prospect that fighting the next general election under a leader in whom he had no confidence and on a platform he disagreed with.
We shall know if Hunt and Reed’s judgement is right when the by-elections are held.
If Labour holds both seats then the Corbyn project will be vindicated.
If there are a brace of defeats then expect other MPs to start brushing up their CVs.
Some will leave because of boundary changes or because they can no longer stomach the local infighting; others will conclude they are doomed to lose in 2020 and would rather find gainful employment now.
Whatever the reason, they point to a party that is moribund, depleted of morale and miserable about its future.
In the 1980s the moderates dug in and fought the party's left.
Now they appear to have little appetite for protecting their brand of Labour.
(Image: Sky News)
If you want to know how bad Labour’s problems are look at Sunderland, not Hunt’s seat in Stoke.
Last night Labour lost a by-election in the city to the Lib Dems.
While there are always local factors in play in any council contest, it should terrify the Labour leadership that the Lib Dems can score such as success in an area that heavily backed Brexit.
This is the challenge for Jeremy Corbyn. He must show that Labour is still an election winning machine.
If he fails to do so then many MPs will conclude his staying in power is a costly act of vanity rather than a well-intentioned attempt to create a better country.A bill just introduced in the General Assembly would scrap the state’s current health care regulatory apparatus, known as the certificate of need or CON.
Georgia’s CON laws play a crucial role in health care facility construction and services across the state.
House Bill 1055 has sent tremors through Georgia’s hospital industry, which has been a strong defender of the CON process.
Basically, after eliminating CON, the legislation would set up a system under which health care facilities could apply for a permit if they pledge to provide some care for Georgia’s poor.
Passage would appear to give hospitals broad latitude to build facilities wherever they wish, as long as they obtain a state permit.
The proposal would apparently allow Cancer Treatment Centers of America, which has its hospital for the Southeastern United States in Newnan, to escape current state regulatory restrictions. The bill also would allow Georgia physicians to run multispecialty surgery centers, which they are currently barred from doing.
CON has long been a contentious process. Almost annually, legislators have wrangled over bills to alter the program. If HB 1055 passes, though, it would represent a sea change in the Georgia health care business.
The sponsors of HB 1055 are a powerful group: state Rep. Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; state Rep. Richard Smith, R-Columbus, chairman of the House Insurance Committee; state Rep. Carolyn Hugley, a Columbus Democrat who is the House minority whip; and state Rep. Matthew Hatchett, R-Dublin, the chairman of the House Republican Caucus.
Last year, Willard sponsored a bill to let Cancer Treatment Centers expand its Newnan hospital’s capacity — and allow it to treat more Georgians. That bill, which was withdrawn after fierce opposition, would have eliminated the requirement that 65 percent of the hospital’s patients come from outside Georgia.
It’s fairly late in the General Assembly session for a high-profile bill to start through the legislative process. And opponents in the Georgia hospital industry appear to have mobilized quickly against the proposal.
Earl Rogers, the president of the Georgia Hospital Association, said in an email Friday that his organization “remains committed to protecting the Certificate of Need (CON) program, which is vital to controlling health care costs and ensuring access to care for all Georgia patients. GHA is strongly opposed to HB 1055 and any other effort to weaken CON.”
HB 1055 would establish some requirements for hospitals to serve Medicaid, Medicare, State Health Benefit Plan patients and the uninsured.
Hospitals have often used the CON process to challenge competitors’ planned projects. It has also sometimes pitted doctors against hospitals in battles over building surgery centers.
Single-specialty surgery centers, such as those limited to orthopedic operations, have an exemption from CON. But physicians have been calling for a similar exemption for multispecialty surgery centers owned by physicians, saying they would lower health care costs for employers, patients and insurers.
That effort has so far been blocked in the Legislature. Hospitals oppose it, saying they need profits from surgery to offset the losses they incur through intensive care, trauma and other unprofitable services.
Physician-owned multispecialty surgery centers would apparently be allowed under the new bill, which would also allow “specialty hospitals.’’
Maggie Gill, the president and CEO of Memorial Health in Savannah, said in an email Saturday that a repeal of CON “would be especially harmful to safety-net hospitals.”
“Without the CON process, providers would have the ability to selectively offer only the most profitable services,” Gill said. “This would lead to a disproportionate number of uninsured and underinsured patients seeking care at safety-net hospitals. The added financial strain will directly impact the ability to continue to provide resource-intensive services, like emergency services, trauma, neonatal ICU, and behavioral health. These services are needed for our communities and for business development in Georgia.”
AJC Capitol Insider newsletter The Capitol Insider is your guide to what’s happening under the Gold Dome. To subscribe, visit: www.ajc.com/newsletters/subscriptions. Log in or create a free account, then check the box next to “Capitol Insider” and be smarter every single day.KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Murky satellite images that a Chinese science and defense agency said may show debris from the missing Malaysian Airlines jetliner provided a fresh clue Thursday in the search for the plane, pointing searchers to a location nearer to the plane's original flight path south of Vietnam.
The revelation could provide searchers with a focus that has eluded them since the plane disappeared with 239 people aboard just hours after leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early Saturday. Since then, the search has covered 35,800 square miles (92,600 square kilometers), first east and then west of Malaysia and even expanded toward India on Wednesday.
The Chinese sighting, if confirmed, would be closer to where the frantic hunt started.
The Xinhua report said the images from around 11 a.m. on Sunday appear to show "three suspected floating objects" of varying sizes in a 20-kilometer radius, the largest about 24-by-22 meters (79-by-72 feet).
The images originally were posted on the website of China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. That site reports coordinates of a location in the sea off the southern tip of Vietnam and east of Malaysia.
But since the satellite images were taken four days ago, it is far from certain that whatever they show would be in the same location now.
No other governments have confirmed the Xinhua report, which did not say when Chinese officials became aware of the images and associated them with the missing plane.
Two-thirds of the passengers were Chinese, and the Chinese government has put increasing pressure on Malaysian officials to solve the mystery of the plane's disappearance.
Malaysia's civil aviation chief, Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said Malaysia had not been officially informed by China about the images, which he said he was learning about from the news.
He said if Beijing informs them of the coordinates, Malaysia will dispatch vessels and planes immediately.
"If we get confirmation, we will send something," he told The Associated Press early Thursday.
Until then, he urged caution. "There have been lots of reports of suspected debris."
On Wednesday, it was revealed that the last message from the cockpit of the missing flight was routine. "All right, good night," was the signoff transmitted to air traffic controllers five days ago.
Then the Boeing 777 vanished as it cruised over the South China Sea toward Vietnam, and nothing has been seen or heard of the jetliner since.
Those final words were picked up by controllers and relayed in Beijing to anguished relatives of some of the people aboard Flight MH370.
The Chinese reports of the satellite images came after several days of confusing and conflicting statements from Malaysian officials.
Earlier Wednesday, the Malaysian military officially disclosed why it was searching on both sides of country: A review of military radar records showed what might have been the plane turning back and crossing westward into the Strait of Malacca.
That would conflict with the latest images on the Chinese website.
For now, authorities said the international search effort would stay focused on the South China Sea and the strait leading toward the Andaman Sea.
Chinese impatience has grown.
"There's too much information and confusion right now. It is very hard for us to decide whether a given piece of information is accurate," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in Beijing.
"We have nothing to hide," said Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. "There is only confusion if you want to see confusion."
Flight MH370 disappeared from civilian radar screens at 1:30 a.m. Saturday at an altitude of about 35,000 feet above the Gulf of Thailand between Malaysia and southern Vietnam. It sent no distress signals or any indication it was experiencing problems.
If all those on board are confirmed dead, it would be the deadliest commercial air accident in 10 years.
The amount of time needed to find aircraft that go down over the ocean can vary widely. Planes that crash into relatively shallow areas, like the waters off Vietnam, are far easier to locate and recover than those that plunge into undersea canyons or mountain ranges.
Much of the Gulf of Thailand is less than 300 feet (91 meters) deep.Get the biggest football stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Danny Welbeck has backed Manchester United sensation Marcus Rashford to follow in his footsteps to stardom.
Arsenal striker Welbeck took the same route as 18-year-old Rashford from junior team Fletcher Moss Rangers into the first team at Old Trafford.
Welbeck, 25, knows Rashford from his days as a kid at United and believes he is destined for the very top after an amazing start to his career.
Rashford scored twice in United’s win over Arsenal on Sunday and is being tipped for a big-money contract after four goals in his first two senior games.
Welbeck’s brother Chris is a friend of the Rashford family and Arsenal’s former United striker says the teenager has all the attributes to be a big hit.
(Image: Getty)
Welbeck said: “We both grew up in Manchester, came through Fletcher Moss Rangers and then onto Manchester United, coming through the academy, making it into the first team and making a debut.
“He’s done brilliantly well. Individually I was really pleased for him, obviously to make a great debut like that in the Europa League and then into the weekend he did well.
“It was disappointing (for us) on the day. I was down when we lost that match. I’m pleased for Marcus but disappointed to lose that game.
“My brother is very close with his family. He’s known his family for a very long time and Marcus was coming through the ranks at United when I was playing in the first team and I would see him all of the time.
(Image: Getty)
“He’s someone that I always spoke to. He’s a great kid. He’s very level headed. He’s got great potential and I hope he does very well. I’ve spoken to him a couple of times.
“Fletcher Moss was where it started for me and a lot of other players as well. It’s vital that they get the stature back up again, get everything running smoothly again.
“There’s a lot of talent in Manchester that grows up in and around that club. Hopefully it can keep going for many more years.”
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Welbeck is likely to be on the bench against Swansea tonight after making a brilliant return from his ten-month lay-off with a knee injury.
The England striker scored the winner against Leicester last month and was also on target at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Welbeck admits it is good to be back on the score sheet - but says Arsenal must find their form to claw their way back into the title race.
(Image: Martin Rickett/PA Wire)
“It was good to be back on the scoresheet but I was very disappointed with Arsenal to lose that game and to drop the three points we needed to get back up there with the title leaders,” said Welbeck.
“I have been out for a long period of time and it is difficult to come back and just keep jumping into game after game, recovering and then going into the next match after a couple of days. It is something that I have got to manage.
“I am probably a bit ahead of schedule since the surgery so I have got to manage it well, recover right and hopefully I will be fine to play a part in the (Swansea) game.
“It was a great moment against Leicester. It was great to back playing the game that I love. After being out for so long, I wasn’t used to it at all.
“Watching it from the stands and not being able to play my part on the pitch, it hurt a lot and it is something that, once you get back on the pitch, you really want to enjoy.
(Image: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty)
“Scoring the winning goal and celebrating with fans and team-mates was great. But you look back at it and want that moment to actually mean something at the end of the season. I think we have got a lot to play for.
“There is no easy game in the Premier League and you need to go into every single game with the right mentality, prepare right physically, mentally and tactically.
“We have to be 100 per cent right and know what we need to be doing to get three points.
“We have got a lot of experience in the squad as well as a lot of youth as well. With the past seven days and how its gone, you have to learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“However hard it is, you have to get a positive out of the negative side of things. We have got to be focused on ourselves. Swansea is a massive game and we have got to win it. Simple as.
“There is an excellent solidarity between us and great camaraderie within the group. When the going gets tough, we have got to stick together and come through as one and try to get as many wins as possible.”
Welbeck now believes Arsenal must dig deep and go toe-to-toe with title rivals Leicester and Tottenham in the race to win the Premier League.
Welbeck added: “Both Leicester and Spurs have had great seasons. The way Tottenham have played, they are looking confident and strong while Leicester are fighting every single week and getting results. It is difficult.
“That’s why every single game in the Premier League, coming up against any team, results can go either way so you have to be prepared for every single game.”Louis van Gaal has been getting a lot of heat in the media this month. Apparently players aren’t happy with his discipline and decisions, and fans aren’t happy with his style of play. Well, guess what – Van Gaal’s Manchester United is doing some important things so well it’s practically miraculous. They’re just not the things that fans and the media seem to appreciate.
I’ve already posted here that Van Gaal seems to be overachieving given the talent – including a lot of young players – at his disposal. But how is he doing it? In a word, defending. Currently, no team presses as well as Manchester United. The team ends almost 40% of opponents’ possessions using pressure; no other club comes close. Moreover, only one club presses higher up the field, and even then, just barely:
Manchester United has an insanely high, aggressive, and successful press by the standards of the English Premier League. Only about 5% of Manchester United’s opponents’ possessions lead to shots. That’s a tiny number that only one other club in the league comes close to matching.
And of course, this pays dividends in the attack. Fully two thirds of Manchester United’s shots from open play come from attacks that start in the final third – another figure that no other team can match. Not surprisingly, these attacks yield excellent shots. For non-headers in open play, Manchester United has the highest quality shots of any team, with expected goals averaging almost 12% in NYA’s basic model. Again, that’s an amazingly high number.
Manchester United may not be easy on the eye, but Van Gaal knows what he’s doing. He lacks superstars |
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Celebrate your love with dinner for two at Terrace Bistro and live music in front of the beautiful Dallas skyline atop NYLO Dallas South Side at Soda Bar. Chef Jerry de la Riva’s Valentine’s Day menu begins with a duo of eggplant frittos and smoked tomato gazpacho with goat cheese and olive tapenade. First course selections include Chilled Pea Soup, Potato Rosti or a house made Charcuterie Platter. Follow with a main course of Lamb Osso Bucco, MoonFish or Honey-Soy Glaze Quails. Dessert choices include Strawberries with Olive Oil and Sorbet, Citrus Fruit Panna Cotta, White Coffee-Passion Fruit Parfait or Hot Chocolate Bourbon with Meringue. A complimentary glass of champagne will be offered and wine pairings are available for an additional $20. Full menu descriptions are attached. NYLO invites couples to enjoy a staycation with its special Valentine’s Day package including two complimentary cocktails, strawberries and champagne in the room and breakfast for two in the morning.
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Ocho
8411 Preston Road Ste 132
Dallas, TX 75225
P: (214) 217-0888
F: (214) 217-0889
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Oak
1628 Oak Lawn Avenue
Dallas, Texas 75207
214.712.9700 or [email protected]
http://oakdallas.com
Amuse
1st Course
Diver scallop carpaccio| smoked egg, passion fruit, celery
or
Artichoke salad| calabrese, arugula, white anchovy vinaigrette 2nd Course
Beet fettuccini| lobster, black trumpet, turnips
or
Seared foie gras| hazelnut, pear, sauternes Main Course
Turbot| leeks, hedgehog, fingerlings
or
Venison| red cabbage, brussels sprouts, chestnut
or
Kabocha squash ravioli| winter squash, fennel pollen, sage butter Dessert Course
Chocolate mousse pyramid | cherries jubilee ice cream, almond brittle
or
Vanilla roasted strawberry profiteroles | strawberry malt ice cream, chantilly cream
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The Pyramid
Valentine’s Day Menu
$85 per person
$140 per person inclusive of wine pairings
1717 N. Akard St.
214-720-5249
Carbonated Pears with Bleu Cheese and Prosciutto
Maschio, Prosecco di Treviso NV Romanesco Soup with Oyster and Caviar
Château Goudichaud, Graves de Vayres 2010 Mixed Greens with Yuzu Vinaigrette, Truffles, Parmesan and Crispy Onions
Couly-Dutheil, La Baronnie Madeleine, Chinon 2007 Champagne Grapefruit Sorbet 4oz Petit Filet, 1/4 Lobster Tail, Asparagus and Béarnaise Sauce
Five Vintners, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2008
Or
Roasted Duck Breast with Marcona Almond, Glazed Carrots and Shallots, Blood Orange Au Jus
Lemelson, Pinot Noir, Thea’s Selection, Willamette Valley 2009 Chocolate and Passionfruit Fantasy for two
RCW, Port-Style Red, Meridian, Texas NV
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Rathbun’s Blue Plate Kitchen
February 14, 2013, 5pm – 9pm
$55 per person plus tax and gratuity.
Reservations are recommended. Please call 214-890-1103.
6130 Luther Lane
First Course
• Beet “tartar” with crispy latte da chevre and sunny side up quail egg
• Oysters on the half with blood orange sorbet, champagne mignonette and house yuzu
• Hearts of romaine Caesar salad with grana padana frico crisp and Amelia’s Farm confit tomatoes
• Smoked beef carpaccio with meyer lemon, citrus falk salt and truffle popcorn
• Lobster bisque with lobster pate a choux and port wine syrup Second Course
• Pan seared sea scallops with king crab risotto and edamame
• Allen Brother’s 6-ounce Beef tenderloin with Adirondack potato gratin, roasted mushrooms and classic Bearnaise
• Hickory grilled organic pork tenderloin with crispy pork belly, house spaetzel and cherry gastrique
• Pan seared walu with duck fat poached potato, sunchoke puree and Brussels sprout leaves
• Grilled Sterling lamb chop with polenta fries, grilled beets and mint-sorrel pistou Third Course
• Trio of truffles with dark chile, salted caramel milk and white tea
• Meyer lemon Napoleon with short bread cookie and Swiss meringue
• Cheesecake with blood orange-vanilla bean and dulce de leche Fourth Course
• Raspberry chocolate kiss
Samar
February 14, 5:00-11:00pm
4 course menu with multiple shared dishes per course
$50 per person, $75 with wine pairings
2100 Ross Avenue
Dallas, 75201
214-922-9922
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Salerno’s
Sweetheart dinner- February 14th, 15th and 16th
3407 Long Prairie Rd, Flower Mound
972-539-9534 or [email protected]
MENU
FIRST COURSE:
Choose between the following Spinach and apple salad with goat cheese, walnuts with smoked bacon dressing
or
Lobster bisque soup SECOND COURSE:
Choose between the following Osso Bucco
served in a demi glaze with julienne vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes. $45.00 pp
(limited quantities available, please pre-order) 8oz Tenderloin with lobster meat in a demi-glaze
with risotto and fresh asparagus and baby carrots. $45.00 pp Pan seared Halibut
in a lemon butter cream sauce with rice pasta and fresh asparagus $ 40.00 pp THIRD COURSE: A Heart shaped pastry filled
with white chocolate mousse and served
in a pool of raspberry sauce.
Champagne toast with dessert
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Sea Breeze Fish Market
4017 Preston Rd., Ste. 530, Plano
972-473-2722
I know most restaurants promote Valentine’s Day is a great time to eat out – in fact it’s usually the busiest restaurant weekend of the entire year. And while the guys at Sea Breeze would be glad to host you and your sweetie in the restaurant for V-Day, we think it’d be much more romantic (and much less chaotic) to celebrate a night of romance at HOME. So for Valentine’s Day weekend, February 14-17, they’ve prepared Lobster Dinner To Go! For only $95 a couple, guests will enjoy two 1 ½ pound lobsters, one dozen little neck clams, and a pound of mussels, all prepared with potatoes and corn – plus a special Valentine’s Day dessert. Make your reservations by Monday, February 11 to guarantee availability.
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Ser Steakhouse
Danger may be sexy, but nothing says “true love” like planning ahead. This Valentine’s Day, show that special someone your romantic, smart and considerate side with this special offer from SĒR Steak+Spirits and Uber. This Valentine’s Day, receive a complimentary glass of champagne at SĒR Steak+Spirits when you book a car through Uber Dallas. Pump up the romance and surprise your date with a private car booked through Uber. Then take in the exquisite cuisine and breathtaking views at SĒR, recently named one of the Top 10 Most Romantic Restaurants by an Open Table survey. The restaurant will offer the full menu for Valentine’s Day. Present the Uber receipt to your server to receive a complimentary glass of champagne for you and your date. Then let Uber safely transport you to your next romantic adventure. SĒR Steak+Spirits is located at 2201 North Stemmons Freeway on the top floor of the Hilton Anatole. For reservations, contact 214-761-7479 or visit them online.
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Sevy’s Grill
$59 per person for three courses
Reservations (214) 265-7389 or OpenTable.com
8201 Preston Road, 75225
Come to Sevy’s where we will be cooking for love! On Valentine’s night we will feature a special 3 course menu and amuse bouche, rose petal covered tables and our (always) professional service. $59 per person. We will also feature champagne and wine specials for the evening. Make your reservations early by calling (214) 265-7389 or email, [email protected].
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Stampede 66
February 14, Open for Lunch and 6:00-11:00pm
4 course menu with multiple shared dishes per course
$60 per person, $85 per person with wine pairings
1717 McKinney Avenue #100
Dallas, 75201
214-550-6966
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Steel Restaurant and Lounge
Thursday, February 14
$60 for 4 Course Dinner
Reservations recommended by calling 214-219-9908
3180 Welborn Street
COURSE 1: Tower of Love (tuna tower, avocado, spicy tuna, strawberries, tobiko, wasabi honey), Grilled Satay of Braised Pork Belly, Beef Tataki, Scallops (sake beurre blanc), Sushi Share Plate for Two
COURSE 2: Seafood Bisque (velvety bisque with crab & shrimp), Eurasian Salad (frisée, gorgonzola, yuzu citrus vinaigrette)
COURSE 3: Roast Chilean Sea Bass (miso & sake, miso-wasabi vegetables), Shaken Beef (stir-friend baby bok choy), Bangkok Chicken (Thai peanut sauce, stir fried pea pods), Singapore Noodles (stir fried curry noodles, mushrooms, vegetables, prawns)
COURSE 4: Grand Marnier Marinated Strawberries, Chocolate Ganache Cake, Red Velvet Cupcake
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Stephan Pyles
February 14, Open for Lunch and 5:00-11:00pm
4 course menu with choices
$75 per person, $125 with wine pairings
1807 Ross Avenue, #200
Dallas, 75201
214-580-7000
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Tart Bakery
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TJ’s Seafood Market
For Valentine’s, TJ’s Says “Make Love, Not Dinner”
Both TJ’s- LOBSTER SPECIAL! 15.99/lb, live or steamed and cracked.
TJ’s HP/Oak Lawn (4212 Oak Lawn Ave.)- Join us in our cozy dining room for our normal menu and a surf & turf special. Call 214-219-3474 for reservations.
TJ’s Preston Forest (11661 Preston Rd., Ste. 149) – Same menu for take out, pick up until 8pm.
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Zanata
Thursday, Feb. 14
1022 E. 15th St., Plano
For reservations, please call 972-422-9999
We’ll be serving our Full Menu all night but you’re in for a treat with Chef Zack’s romance inspiring specials: Coconut and Chilli Texas Shrimp
mango salsa
Red beet roasted Salmon
Parsnip puree, paprika honey glaze, crispy beet strings
Filet de Boeuf
wild mushroom melange, pommes dauphinoise, asparagus
Raspberry Bread Pudding
cream cheese frosting, raspberry sorbet
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Zen Sushi
$169 for two
Seatings are at 6 or 8:30pm.
380 W. Seventh St.
214-946-9699
“Includes Custom Floral Arrangement with Personalized Card YOUR CHOICE (Pick one)
– Michael David Sauvignon Blanc, California
– Concannon Pinot Noir, Central Coast
– Lychee White Sangria Carafe
– ZEN Margarita Carafe with Patron Silver” FIRST
Curried-Kabocha Squash Soup COLD APPETIZER
Kumamoto Oysters / Yuzu Granita / Tobiko HOT APPETIZER
Sweet Pork Carnita Steamed Buns SUSHI
Tuna, Fresh Salmon, Yellowtail Sushi / Sakura Roll MAIN
Two 5oz Cold-water Lobster Tails Steamed in Sake and Seaweed 8oz Angus NY Strip / Roasted Vegetables SWEET
Passionfruit Crème Brulee
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The iPhone X won't be available for presale for a couple more days, but that hasn't stopped Apple from overhauling its home pages to promote its new flagship phone.
Veteran observers of presales will recall that Apple's home page traditionally goes "down for maintenance" a few hours before presales begin so that Apple can prominently promote the new device or devices. But Apple appears to have gotten a jump on things Tuesday, replacing the usual images of the company's various hardware with a page now totally devoted to showcasing the various features of the device.
Visitors to the site now will be greeted by a large image of the phone and a reminder that it will be available for preorder one minute after midnight on Friday, Oct. 27 -- a little more than two days from now. A slew of images below the main pic go on to highlight the different features of the device.
The page overhaul comes just hours after Apple issued an unusual press release encouraging shoppers interested in purchasing the iPhone X when it hits store shelves on Nov. 3 to arrive early if they want to get their hands on one. The advice seemed to buttress reports of a possible shortage of iPhone X units.
Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Smartest Stuff: Innovators are thinking up new ways to make you, and the things around you, smarter.
iHate: CNET looks at how intolerance is taking over the internet.WASHINGTON (AP) — Another bad month for the U.S. job market is lengthening the list of perils facing the global economy.
American employers added only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year and not even close to what economists expected. For the first time since June, the unemployment rate rose, to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent.
It was the third month in a row of weak job growth and further evidence that, just as in 2010 and 2011, a winter of hope for the economy has turned to a spring of disappointment.
"This is horrible," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, a consulting firm.
The job figures, released Friday by the Labor Department, dealt a blow to President Barack Obama at the start of a general election campaign that will turn on the economy.
They also deepened the pessimism of investors, who even before the report was released were worried about a debt crisis in Europe with no sign of solution and signs of a slowdown in the powerhouse economy of China.
"The U.S. is not an island, and what happens abroad matters here," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. "The weakness in Europe, in particular, has a global reach and is affecting us."
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 275 points, its worst day of the year, and for the first time was down for 2012. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is almost 10 percent below its 2012 high, the traditional definition of a market correction.
Mitt Romney, who on Tuesday cleared the number of convention delegates required to win the Republican presidential nomination, told CNBC that the report was "devastating."
He called for an emphasis on energy development, pledged to "kill" the health care overhaul that Obama saw through in 2010 and said he would reduce taxes and government spending. The clearest fix for the economy, he said, was to defeat Obama.
"It is now clear to everyone that President Obama's policies have failed to achieve their goals and that the Obama economy is crushing America's middle class," said Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
Obama, in Minnesota, pushed a proposal to expand job opportunities for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the economy is not creating jobs "as fast as we want" but vowed that it would improve.
"We will come back stronger," he said. "We do have better days ahead."
Alan Krueger, head of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, pointed out that the country has added jobs for 27 months in a row, including 4.3 million jobs in the private sector. The economy still has a few bright spots. Americans bought cars and trucks a strong pace last month, giving automakers their best May since 2008.
Underscoring the challenge for Obama with five months to go in the campaign, a May poll by The Associated Press and GfK, a research company, showed that 52 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy while 46 percent approved.
Some financial analysts said that the dismal job figures put pressure on the Federal Reserve to take additional steps to help the economy, but it was not clear how much good the Fed could do beyond trying to inspire confidence.
The central bank has already kept the short-term interest rate it controls at a record low of almost zero since the fall of 2008, during the financial crisis, and pledged to keep it there through late 2014.
It has undertaken two rounds of massive purchases of government bonds, starting in March 2009 and November 2010, to help drive long-term interest rates down and stimulate stock prices. Another program to lower long-term interest rates, known as Operation Twist, was announced last September and ends in June.
But low interest rates, other analysts pointed out, are not the problem. An investor stampede into bonds on Friday drove the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note as low as 1.44 percent, the lowest on record.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies next week before a joint committee of Congress, and the Fed next meets June 19 and 20.
Complicating the challenge for the economy, tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush will expire after Dec. 31, as will a cut in the Social Security payroll tax. More than $100 billion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs also kick in Jan. 1. Less money in consumers' pockets next year and less spending by the government would be a significant drag on the economy.
Congress could extend the tax cuts, but Republicans control the House of Representatives, and they have little political incentive to help Obama in the November election by doing so.
The Congressional Budget Office has said the tax increases and spending cuts would cause the economy to shrink at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the first half of next year. The economy grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the first quarter of this year.
And there is little significant action that the White House can take on its own.
Meanwhile, the global economy's troubles continue to pile up.
Europe has grappled for more than two years with the crippling debt owed by many of its countries, and leaders remain divided over how to solve it. Stronger countries like Germany have insisted on government spending cuts, but voters in weaker countries are in no mood for further fiscal pain. Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro countries is a record 11 percent.
Spain insisted Friday that it is financially stable, but its borrowing costs are creeping close to the 7 percent level that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek international bailouts.
And even fast-growing economies in the developing world appear to be slowing.
India reported Thursday that its economy grew just 5.3 percent in the January-March quarter, slowest in nine years. And manufacturing in China, the world's second-largest economy after the United States and one of the fastest-growing, barely grew in May.
The U.S. government uses a survey of mostly large businesses and government agencies to determine how many jobs are added or lost each month. That is the survey that produced the 69,000 number.
It uses a separate survey of American households to calculate the unemployment rate. That survey picks up hiring by companies of all sizes, including small businesses, companies being started, farm workers and the self-employed.
The household survey found that 422,000 more Americans had jobs in May than in April. But the work force grew by 642,000 as more Americans who hadn't been looking for work started to look. That is why the unemployment rate inched up from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent.
The economy lost 28,000 construction jobs, the worst for that industry in two years, and 13,000 government jobs. A category of employers called "leisure and hospitality" cut almost 9,000, mostly at amusement parks, museums and casinos.
And March and April, already disappointing months for job creation, were not as strong as first thought. The government revised the job-growth totals lower by 11,000 to 143,000 for March and by 38,000 to 77,000 for April.
From December through February, the economy added an average 252,000 jobs per month.
"There is virtually nothing positive in this report if you are trying to build a case for an economy that is supposed to be in recovery mode and gaining momentum," said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist for RBC Capital Markets.
Investors made their disappointment clear.
The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite index all fell by more than 2 percent. The S&P, which was up 12 percent for the year through March, was left with a slender gain of 1.6 percent.
Homebuilder stocks fell the most, apparently because the dismal picture for the U.S. economy outweighed a report that construction spending rose for a second month in April.
The price of gold, which some investors have often bought over the past three years for safety in turbulent economic times, climbed $58 an ounce, to $1,622, the highest since early May.
Anticipating weaker world demand, investors drove down the price of oil by $3.49 a barrel to $83.04, the lowest since October and 24 percent below its peak of $109.77 in February.
That will at least provide help for American drivers: The price of gasoline, which peaked at an average of $3.94 a gallon in April, has fallen to $3.61. It is below $3 in parts of South Carolina, and the national average should be below $3.50 soon.
Business owners cited a range of reasons for pulling back on hiring in May. Some said sales had been hurt by the weak economy in Europe. Others, like a California road construction company, said slower government spending was costing them.
But in interviews Friday, most expressed general uncertainty about the U.S. economy.
Alan Gaynor's architectural design firm in New York, Alan Gaynor & Co., isn't hiring because his clients, real estate developers, are uneasy about starting projects.
"It's a wait-and-see attitude they have. Everyone's a little nervous. The economy's growing a lot slower than anyone would have liked," said Gaynor, who has 15 employees, the same as a year ago.
Still other businesses cited tight credit, a vestige of the 2008 financial crisis.
Robert Stewart Inc., a 93-year-old New Jersey company that makes neckties, wants to add five or six workers to its staff of 18, and business is up, said Steven Wishnew, the company's operations director.
But the company can't get the $50,000 to $100,000 in credit that would "kick-start our engine," he said, and sellers that used to give them 90 days to pay now demand payment in advance.
The bank wants the company's owners to put up their homes as collateral for a loan or line of credit, he said.
"You have to be insane to do that," Wishnew said. "Who knows where this economy is going?"
___
AP Writers Martin Crutsinger, Christopher S. Rugaber, Liz Sidoti, Darlene Superville and Daniel Wagner in Washington and Jonathan Fahey and Joyce M. Rosenberg in New York contributed to this report.Last week I discussed the Norwegian Petroleum Fund — or the “Government Pension Fund — Global” as it is known formally — which saw its size grow steadily from the 1990s to its present value of about $740 billion (Dh2.7 trillion).
The performance of the Fund between its first equity investment in 1998 and 2007 yielded average annual returns of 4.3 per cent according to Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), a unit established by the Central Bank to manage the fund with a staff of more than 200 people. It as set up on a directive from the Ministry of Finance and approved by Storting, the Norwegian parliament.
Some years have seen losses — 3.37 per cent in 2008 and 2.5 per cent in 2011, caused by the global financial crisis. However, other years have seen stellar results.
For example, in 2010 the returns were 9.6 per cent, or 264 billion Norwegian Kroner (approximately $44 billion). In 2012, as the economy recovered, returns were 13.4 per cent and especially generated from the equity markets.
Even in the first quarter of 2013 the Fund returned 5.45 per cent and gained 219 billion crowns ($37 billion) “as stocks surged amid unprecedented stimulus from central banks to boost economic growth”. The same quarter, the government deposited 60 billion crowns of petroleum-generated revenues into the Fund.
Given these numbers, the 4 per cent of the total value of the fund that is withdrawn by the Ministry of Finance each year to support the annual budget is unlikely to arrest its growth in coming years. Perhaps this is why the populist Progress Party wants to spend more of the oil revenue for research and building infrastructure in Norway. The 4 per cent rule, first established in 2001, is designed to integrate the Fund with the rest of the budget to satisfy current needs while thinking ahead for future generations.
Real estate investments
Since 2011, the Fund started investing in real estate, especially in Europe. However, since this year it is expanding into the US and other overseas markets. Such a move “spreads the Fund’s risk across more markets and can also protect against inflation as rents are often linked to price indices” and “the Fund is gradually increasing real estate investments to as much as 5 per cent of its assets through a corresponding decrease in its bond holdings”.
The investment in the UK’s real estate market is relatively small compared to the total property portfolio or to other investments in equity and bonds there. Norway has a 50 per cent stake — valued at £348 million — in a mall in Sheffield in addition to a £452 million investment in London’s Regent Street.
Yet these investments have brought interesting comments about how the UK squandered its North Sea resources by not establishing a similar fund and by not being able to do cross investments.
Similarly, a deal in 1978 to give Volvo, the Swedish automaker, access to Norway’s North Sea oil reserves for a 40 per cent share in Volvo failed to materialise due to shareholder opposition. Yet the Fund is now the second largest owner of Volvo.
In addition to its performance, the long-term health of the Fund seems to be assured given the forecasts for the oil and gas sector in Norway.
Drop in production
Oil reserves declined from their peak of 11.6 billion barrels in 2001 to 6.9 billion barrels in 2011. At the same time production fell from 3.4 to 2.1 million barrels a day (mbd). Forecasts suggest further declines to between 1.2 -1.5 mbd in 2035, sufficient to keep the fund well supplied with revenues.
Gas reserves were at 2.2 trillion cubic meters (tcm) in 2001 and have declined to 2.1 tcm by 2011. Gas production was at its maximum of 101 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2011 and may fall by only 20 per cent by 2035. Therefore its contribution to the fund will still be substantial, especially as 95 per cent of the gas is exported.
The numbers are likely to improve if operations north of the Arctic Circle in the Barents Sea, which are now starting, turn out to be more promising especially after the agreement with Russia to delineate the area between the two countries.
The ageing population and the extensive social services and generous pensions will demand much of the Norwegian economy but they can be met by a combination of Fund contributions to the budget, increased government revenue and curbs on expenditure.
The writer is former head of the Energy Studies Department at the Opec Secretariat in Vienna.Steve Reich’s exploration of rhythm and phase take on special meaning in the age of ubiquitous electronic instruments. What started with clapping, with pianos and marimbas, and tape loops doubles now as a way of thinking about machine rhythm, too. Hearing Reich on Game Boys here isn’t just a novelty. It feels like a real re-instrumentation – Wendy Carlos’ Switched on Bach approach for the Mario Bros. generation. Listen & watch (it’s all live):
Some specs:
Piano Phase. The original Reich score comes from 1967. It’s a transcription in the opposite direction – the first attempt by Reich to take phasing effects from tape loops (saying “it’s gonna rain” or “come out to show them”) on a live performance on acoustic instruments.
Game Boy micro. A tiny Game Boy from 2005. It’s roughly similar to the Game Boy Advance (SP) in specs. But since it’s able to run cartridges, it can use —
Nanoloop. Specifically, Nanoloop 2. I always admired Nanoloop as it isn’t another “tracker,” exactly – it’s a sequencing instrument imagined specifically for the Nintendo platform.
And this is another production of Pselodux, aka one Rob Curulli, whose wonderful music on live little automata we enjoyed earlier this week.
He’s got a tour on the way, which I suppose means for anyone who wants to listen, he’s gonna come out to show them.
And more on Bandcamp:by Susan E Gingrich
I’m starting this commentary with a confession. I’ve always liked men, and I still like them a lot. My husband is the best man I know. I like compliments from men, doors opened for me, harmless hugs, and other things some women don’t. Throughout my professional career, it was my male bosses who encouraged and promoted me, appreciating my independence, intelligence and abilities. The only problem bosses I ever had were women who felt threatened by those same qualities. I feel no sisterhood with women because we share a common body part, preferring to select those women I feel friendship with akin to sisterhood. My wish for 2018 is that all women participating in it, End the War on Men!
Didn’t many of the same women involved in the current conflict fight for women’s liberation years ago? You wanted to be equal to men, you burned your bras, boldly demanded equal pay, and many of you abandoned any ladylike behavior. You use profanity as well as any man, can compete well in drinking contests, and by golly, are you sexually liberated. You truly have come a long way baby thanks in large part to other men and women in business and society recognizing the legitimate need for change. Why now is there so much attention to past behavior of men? Of course, I know why, but play along with me.
Women have been mistreated by some men since the beginning of time. Real crimes are committed against women who are the genuine victims. They need the support and protection available from law enforcement, the legal system, friends and family and society as a whole. I’m not talking about these real victims, although I do feel they and their needs are marginalized by women piling on the “Me Too” confessions. As a woman of age, I’ve had male improper behavior directed to me, some pretty despicable, but all a long time ago. I do admit that I was young and foolish ending up in a place or two I shouldn’t have been and quite ignorant of the effect alcohol can have on some men. But instead of “Me Too” I say “So What”? I am a stronger, more confident, and successful woman now because of all that happened in my past, good and bad. As a born again Christian, I’ve also forgiven anyone I felt slighted me, including those men and even the Queen Bee bosses. Maybe some of you claiming to be Christians should try it too-it can be quite liberating.
Of course, the goal of this timely war on men is to drive President Trump from office. As a member of their sex, women involved in this effort especially disgust me. Is there anything more sleazy than women incentivizing other women by tempting them with money and fame? Encouraging them to tell stories about men, many of them ancient history without any credible or legal evidence? Honestly, how many people would make up stories to have their mortgage paid, a boatload of money, or 15 minutes of fame? Fake news happens all the time. Society today is greatly lacking in character, decency, and godliness, as are many of the lawyers making money from sexual allegations. Please “Me Too” women, if it happened and you are still emotionally scarred by looks from a man, your perceived interpretation of a man’s words, or behavior which didn’t physically harm you, get some counseling and move on with your life. Dwelling in the past is not healthy or constructive.
I have a special disdain for those political opportunist women in Congress using this issue for their own advantage or selfishly to promote the sisterhood of electing more far left leaning women to Congress. By your actions, you yourselves are using sexual bullying behavior against men. Most of you are democrats, but republican women are also using this issue for political points. I highly suspect you all have advanced to your powerful positions because of support from men. You could not have done it on your own or only with support from other women. You are all hypocrites who took much and now dish out your venom towards men. Diane Black, running for Governor of Tennessee, with her recent “Me Too” confession contributed to the current Trump pile on. She is known to her supporters and detractors for many things-being a shrinking violet is not one of them. Neither are the women in Congress and across the country leading the accusations and allegations against our president. They remind me more of a prickly cactus.
How could any of you, especially Diane Black with her budget and financial leadership responsibilities, not be aware of federal taxpayer money being used to hush victims of inappropriate sexual behavior? Worse yet, since you all seem to have experienced similar things in the past and you are so knowledgeable about it, how could you not have noticed the sexual misbehavior occurring right in front of your noses? Didn’t you care, or did you just ignore it to get along? I’m glad corrective action is being taken by congressional male and female members to stop this improper use of taxpayer dollars and to change internal practices. I do however wonder if this political expediency isn’t partly motivated by house members and many senators running for reelection. Also, because those running for new state or federal offices, such as governor or senator, crave attention just like all politicians.
Alright feminists, enough with your disingenuous efforts to hurt President Trump and return society to the Victorian era when women were frail and so at the mercy of men. More Victorian like morality in society would be refreshing, as well as renewed expectations of personal responsibility. No Virginia, we are not all victims. Thanks to the disastrous Obama administration’s eight years, also involving the too timid, politically correct republicans in Congress, President Trump inherited many serious problems including national insecurity, the opioid crisis, North Korea, mucho debt, the health care crisis, welfare fraud and abuse, illegal immigration, infrastructure needs and so many more. Let’s stop the war on men and address these legitimate, important problems that women and men can solve together. May my wish for the new year come true, and may 2018 be an even greater year for America!
– – –
Susan E Gingrich is a freelance writer and political activist residing in Loudon, TN. She is the sister of former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, and an occasional contributor to The Tennessee Star.Can't imagine anything going wrong with this plan:
Beijing is to install 100 deodorant guns at a stinking landfill site on the edge of the city in a bid to dampen complaints about the capital's rubbish crisis.... Beijing's waste problem—and China's—is expanding as fast as its economy, at about 8% each year. With millions more people now able to afford Starbucks, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and other elements of a western, throwaway lifestyle, the landfill sites and illegal tips that ring the capital are close to overflowing.
Granted, deodorant guns aren't the only option out there. China could build a slew of incinerators to burn all that trash. The central government, for its part, is planning to increase the incineration rate to 40 percent by 2015.
But the trouble is that trash incinerators have a nasty habit of emitting mercury and dioxins, which are linked to all sorts of health problems and can waft across the Pacific. (The World Bank has estimated that dioxin levels in China could double if the government goes ahead with its planned incinerator spree.) Meanwhile, no one wants to live near an incinerator, so it's a nightmare trying to put them anywhere. Europe and Japan have dealt with this problem by forcing stricter pollution standards on their waste-disposal facilities, but those cleaner incinerators tend to be pricey.On the plane to San Francisco, I pondered the past year in bourbon and the trends that could impact my beloved category. We’ve seen age statements drop like flies and distilleries discontinue or slow down private barrel selection programs (that’s where a retailer, bar or consumer buys and bottles a barrel of bourbon they select). Were distilleries running out of good aged whiskey to bottle? Have they been following a private barrel selection strategy that has consumed their best barrels?
That’s what I wondered going into my second year as a judge on the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. (Read my notes from last year’s competition.)
I also wondered how the new rules would play out. Last year, I worked with the competition to develop new categories, ensuring the bourbons finished in special barrels had their own class and that bourbons under 5 years old didn’t |
” — which stands for Tokyo — is drawn in two existing typefaces: Didot, which features thin, elegant strokes, and Bodoni, which features thick, dynamic lines.
He said he decided to create a “T” incorporating both typefaces, and then placed it inside a square and laid it over a circle, with Japan’s “Rising Sun” flag in mind. The logos for the Olympics and the Paralympics have the same geometric pattern, though they look different because they are colored differently. The two emblems reflect his idea that the two games are equal, Sano said.
In contrast, the theater logo is presumably drawn from two letters, “T” for Theatre and “L” for Liege, Sano said.
Hidetoshi Maki, head of marketing at the organizing committee for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, confirmed reports that Olivier Debie, the designer of the logo for the Theatre De Liege, sent a letter to the committee raising issue. But he refused to discuss details of the letter, adding that the committee will reply directly to him.
Debie sent a letter seeking the retraction of the emblem and asking the committee to provide a response within eight days, according to media reports. He has reportedly said he will file a lawsuit in a Belgian court if there’s no response.
Maki said the Tokyo organizers checked international trademarks before deciding on the logo and determined that there was no problem. He added that his office never came across the Belgian logo because it wasn’t trademarked.
Besides Debie’s work, the Tokyo Olympics logo sparked attention on the Internet for its similarity in colors to a design conceived by Spain’s Hey Studio to solicit donations for victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku. Sano denied there were similarities between them, saying he never referred to the Spanish logo either.The following just showed up on Samuel Decal's news feed...
A FUTURE NEWS.... MG AGE-2 7月14日
MegaSize 1/48 AGE-3 8月
RG Justice Gundam 形状試作公開 7月21日
MG Buster Gundam 8月
MG Aegis Gundam 9月
HGUC Rose Zulu 8月
HGAC Wing gundam 8月
HGAC Tallgeese 9月
HGFC Dragon Gundam 9月
PG Unicorn Gundam 製作發表 11月 ※8月のキャラホビで形状試作公開
PG Banshee 製作發表 11月 ※8月のキャラホビで形状試作公開
For those too lazy to open up Google Translator, 月 means month, so this list represents August through November of this year. The notes following the PG Unicorn and Banshee seem to indicate that it's currently in a testing phase and my premier at this year's Chara Hobby???
Rumors are just rumors, but there's enough there to get the blood flowing. HG Gundam Wing kits? A PG Unicorn?! Considering what Bandai's been up to recently the list isn't all the surprising. A MG AGE-2 is pretty much inevitable (though I would've liked to see a MG G-Exes first) and a MegaSize AGE-3, though in tune with what the previous MegaSize AGE1/2 kits, would be bloody massive.
The SEED kits make sense considering the already announced MG lienup on the way and the RG Strike and Strike Freedom. Perhaps most exciting is the potential for a HGAC Tallgeese! Tallgeese, along with Wing and Dragon, are bound to sell like hotcakes. Unfortunately this doesn't bode well for those of us wanting a MG Tallgeese release following the recent Ver Ka. MG Wing kits.
What I find most troubling on a personal level is a potential Perfect Grade Unicorn and/or Banshee. Since the announcement of the PG Strike Freedom a year ago many have suspected the Unicorn Gundam as the next in line for PG treatment. If it comes out, I am getting one. Am I getting a PG Banshee too? Gotta start saving. If only if I wasn't in the midst of my 6th MG Unicorn project as I negotiate a trade for a 7th. Insanity.There she is. Screen grab/Reuters video Good news: China claims it has discovered the world's largest hole.
On Wednesday, state broadcaster CCTV announced that the newly found "dragon's hole," a 984-foot (300-meter) cavern in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, is now the world's largest hole.
With territorial claims by Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Taiwan, and China, the South China Sea — rich in natural resources and crisscrossed by shipping routes — is one of the most militarized areas on the planet.
According to Xinhua, the blue hole is called the "eye" by locals and lies within the disputed Paracel Islands, which is claimed by China and Taiwan and Vietnam.
Reuters/Amanda Macias/Business Insider This would surpass the Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas, which plunges to a 663-foot depth.
Yang Zuosheng, a professor at the Ocean University of China, said researchers used a variety of methods to ascertain the hole's depth.
"[Determining] the depth has to be done through a series of calibrations — for example, calibrations [based on] tidal water levels, temperature, level of salt, sea water density. But no matter which type of calibration, the depth should be around 300 meters," he said.
Blue holes were formed during previous ice ages.
Chinese scientists will continue to study the marine life within the hole, though because of its depth, water beyond a certain level has no oxygen, meaning few creatures are likely to be found in the lowest reaches, scientists said.My workplace is vegan and animal-friendly, so every day I get to work in the company of not just people committed to animal rights but also a number of furry, four-legged creatures who make coming in to work a lot of fun.
We have four cats who live in the office and dogs who come in every day with their parents. It is not unusual for me to walk into my office after a meeting and find my chair taken over by Fergie, a beautiful tabby with grave eyes, and never mind the cat bed sitting right there. Or to be pleasantly startled when Oliver, the handsome black cat, rubs against my legs while I am staring at the computer, trying to deal with a particularly tough problem.
Once in a while I’ll hear soft footsteps outside the office and look up to find Bailey the dog making his rounds. He will stop at my feet, give me a soulful look with soft, brown eyes, and then offer up his chin for a good scratch.
Of course, it takes a certain kind of dog– or cat– to be comfortable in a workplace. I cannot even imagine taking Opie, who gets inordinately stressed in strange new places (and likes to chase cats) to work. But that’s another story for another day.
Is your workplace animal-friendly? Do you wish it was?
***
I wanted to make bread rolls this past weekend, and the recipe I came up with sounded like a winner before I had even started: Maple Sourdough Rolls. And here’s the clincher: it’s partly whole-wheat and wholesome with the nutty goodness of flax.
Maple and sourdough might sound like a strange combination, but these rolls are neither sour, nor do they taste cloyingly sweet. They have just the lightest kiss of maple flavor and the sourdough is only there to help make these rolls tender and give them a great rise. You won’t taste it at all.
This recipe makes a lot of rolls– 24– so they are great if you are expecting guests — or an army– to feed. I shaped them in a spiral for a little cuteness, but you can just roll them into smooth rounds or in crescents. They would also make great slider buns– halve the size of the rolls and you’d get 48 slider buns out of this recipe.
Here’s the recipe. Enjoy, all!Hello everyone,we were recently made aware that some people in ingame chat try to lure players on a website trying to phish the login data to your Albion Online account. The design very closely resembles the design of our own webpage and differs only in details (font is wrong, for example): i.imgur.com/in5M9PY.png The link to it was spread through ingame whispers by someone pretending to be a Game Master. The text promised a gift if you go to their page and "log in to claim it". Doenter your login data on any other webpage than albiononline.com as it will compromise the security of your account.If you receive comparable messages ingame that look suspicious, please take a screenshot and send it to support@albiononline.com For comparison, a message from a proper GM looks like this: i.imgur.com/NMpujak.png - the differently colored (GM) makes it legit.Thank you for your attention.-TalionA team of experts have warned that huge seismic events, including volcanic eruptions, plunging global temperatures and destabilisation of the Earth's crust will become more common after worrying changes to the surface of the Sun were recorded.
It could take up to 15 years for solar activity to return to normal with extreme weather and freezing temperatures continuing until 2035. The warning will infuriate environmental campaigners who argue by 2030 the world faces increased sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at the poles.
Solar activity, measured by the appearance of sun spots, has been declining at a greater rate than at any other time in history, it has emerged.
The Sun is now without spots for the first time in five years after 21 days of minimal activity were observed through the course of 2016.
GETTY It could take 15 years for solar activity to return to normal
Although spots reappeared sporadically during the summer, repeated slumps of no activity were recorded through the year.
The trend has prompted scientists to warn that the world is hurtling towards a historic solar minimum event with output potentially dropping to an all-time low.
GETTY The world could be facing a 15 year winter
The phenomena are thought to drive extreme cold weather in Europe, including Britain, Northern America and across the lower southern hemisphere affecting New Zealand and parts of South America.
They have also been linked to major earthquakes in tremor hotspots igniting fears that major cities including Tokyo and Los Angeles could be facing the next ‘big one’.
Research by the The Space and Science Research Center in Florida revealed a strong link between low solar activity and seismic events.
The study looked at volcanic activity between 1650 - 2009 and earthquake activity between 1700 - 2009 comparing it to sunspots records.
It revealed a terrifying correlation between reduced solar activity and the largest seismic and volcanic events in recorded history.
Antarctica: Ice age the frozen world Wed, November 4, 2015 Antarctica, the southernmost continent and site of the South Pole. Most cruises to the continent visit the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches toward South America where you will find Port Lockroy, a former British research station turned museum. Play slideshow Getty Images/Flickr RF 1 of 22 Icebergs in Antarctica
Researchers at Japan’s Institute for Cosmic Ray Research concluded there is a link between global volcanic activity and solar activity lows.
Study author Toshikazu Ebisuzaki said: “Volcanoes with silica-rich and highly viscous magma tend to produce violent explosive eruptions that result in disasters in local communities and that strongly affect the global environment.
“We examined the timing of 11 eruptive events that produced silica-rich magma from four volcanoes in Japan (Mt. Fuji, Mt. Usu, Myojinsho, and Satsuma-Iwo-jima) over the past 306 years (from AD 1700 to AD 2005).
“Nine of the 11 events occurred during inactive phases of solar magnetic activity (solar minimum), which is well indexed by the group sunspot number.
“This strong association between eruption timing and the solar minimum is statistically significant to a confidence level of 96.7 per cent.”
The frequency of sunspots is expected to rapidly decline over the next four years reaching a minimum between 2019 and 2020.
Solar expert Piers Corbyn of forecasting group WeatherAction warned the Earth faces another mini ice age with potentially devastating consequences.
He said: “We are now in a decline of solar activity and are on course for a very quiet period.
“This can cause a shift in the jet stream making it move further south and as a result it turns very cold in temperate latitudes including Europe, Britain and North America.
“We are anticipating temperatures to drop leading to ocean water freezing and ice drifts washing up around the coasts in Europe - we expect the next mini ice age.”
He said the link between huge changes in solar activity and earthquakes is down to a reduction in the strength of magnetic fields around the Earth.
GETTY Parts of the world will face extreme freezing temperatures and oceans could turn to ice
Japan, America, the Philippines and quake prone regions of the Middle East and Asia are about to be put on high alert, he warned.
He explained fewer solar flares associated with a minimum period reduce the magnetic pull over the surface of the Earth.
This stops all movement of tectonic plates, even the frequent harmless shifts which go unnoticed, allowing huge pressure to build up underneath the Earths crust.
The result, Mr Corbyn said, is much like a pressure cooker with any slightest movement triggering a massive earthquake.
“Think of it like comparing two bags of sugar being filled,” he said.
“If you have one with a small hole in the bottom it is constantly emptying while more is being added so there is no overall effect.
GETTY Much of the world could look like the world's current coldest city in SiberiaAsian Americans have finally had enough. They’re tired of working harder, achieving more academically, then having that held against them as they try to fulfill their educational dreams in our nation’s most elite universities. To gain entry into top private schools such as Harvard or the best public schools such as the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, no one has to do better than Americans of Chinese or Japanese or Korean descent. To make room for black, Latino, and — yes — white students, deserving Asian Americans are pushed aside. And they’re tired of it.
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So last week a coalition of more than 60 Asian-American groups filed complaints with the Department of Justice and Department of Education, alleging systematic racial discrimination in college admissions. They’re right, of course. Colleges do systematically disadvantage Asian students, and the problem is worse than they imagine. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Years ago, before I became a full-time constitutional lawyer, I taught at Cornell Law School — an Ivy League school and one of the top law schools in the country. My second year on the faculty, I served on the admissions committee, and I saw firsthand how not just race but ideology distorts the admissions process. Ivy League admissions are one part meritocracy — the students are quite bright — and one part ideological engineering. And if Americans broadly understood how the process works, support for affirmative action would diminish even further.
RELATED: Smash the ‘Bamboo Ceiling’ of Racial Quotas
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First, few people understand how dramatic the boost is for favored minority groups. If students were black or the “right” kind of Latino, they would often receive admissions offers with test scores 20 or 30 percentile points lower than those of white or Asian students. When I expressed concern about an admissions offer to a black student with test scores in the 70th percentile — after we’d passed over white and Asian students with scores in the 98th percentile and far higher grades — I was told that we had to offer admission or we’d surely lose him to our Ivy League rivals.
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Second, these dramatic breaks rarely go to poor kids who are overcoming the challenges of ghetto schools. Many Americans, myself included, understand it is a real and substantial achievement — one that can’t be measured in test scores — to overcome extreme poverty and America’s worst public schools to compete with students from far more prosperous backgrounds. But the same reasoning doesn’t apply to the children of doctors and lawyers. Yet they get dramatic advantages as well. In fact, unless admissions committees gave rich black and Latino kids dramatic advantages, they wouldn’t be able to hit their diversity targets. At the Ivy League level, affirmative action is an enhanced-opportunity program for favored rich kids.
RELATED: Affirmative Discrimination in Higher Education: Notes on the Continuing Struggle
Third, affirmative action isn’t necessarily for every black or Latino applicant. Cuban Americans often get less help. African students get less help. And, worst of all, there are times when admissions committees will actually ideologically cleanse the minority applicant pool of minorities who are seen as “less diverse” because of expressed interest in “white” professions such as, say, investment banking. If you’re a Mexican American who writes an admissions essay about defending the rights of migrant farm workers, you’re a dream candidate. If you’re a black candidate who aspires to work for Goldman Sachs, you’re “less diverse” (these are real-life examples, by the way).
Like-minded admissions committees admit like-minded students while marinating in the ‘soft bigotry of lower expectations.’
The ideological cleansing also happens to white candidates. In one of the most memorable incidents, the committee almost rejected an extraordinarily qualified applicant because of his obvious Christian faith (he’d attended a Christian college, a conservative seminary, and worked for religious conservative causes). In writing, committee members questioned whether they wanted his “Bible-thumping” or “God-squadding” on campus. I objected, noting that my own background was even more conservative. To their credit, the committee members apologized and offered him admission.
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It was sobering to see the immense achievement gap between most of the black and Latino applicants and their white and especially Asian counterparts. But I couldn’t help but think that part of that gap was due to the well-known lowered expectations for favored minorities. Even achievement-oriented students tend to work hard enough to accomplish their goals — and no harder. Why tell the best and brightest black and Latino students that they don’t have to do as well, that they can take their foot off the accelerator and still attend the best schools?
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RELATED: The Modern University Is Failing Students in Every Respect
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Like-minded admissions committees admit like-minded students while marinating in the “soft bigotry of lower expectations.” During my one year on the committee, I did what I could to try to introduce a different perspective, but I felt as if I were fighting a raging fire with a garden hose.
In the interests of full disclosure: My youngest daughter is black, adopted from Ethiopia. The last thing I want to see is her placed in a school where she’s not equipped to compete and succeed. I love her too much to see her well-being sacrificed so an academic liberal — no matter how well-intentioned — can meet a quota.Naming rights for Anfield’s new Main Stand should not be expected to be announced until next year.
EXCLUSIVE BY ALEX MILLER
Follow @alexmiller73
The incredible new Main Stand will be open for Liverpool’s first home game of the season against champions Leicester City on September 10, but an official announcement regarding a sponsor is unlikely to be made until 2017.
Club officials have always ruled out selling naming rights to Anfield itself, but remain in talks with several interested parties, based both in the UK and overseas, to become the official sponsor of the Main Stand.
However the club are only willing to sign a deal with a long-term partner. Club officials are aware of the tremendous opportunity for a sponsor and are looking for a minimum five-year agreement.
With the naming rights estimated at around £5 million a year, the club could be looking at banking at least £25 million from a deal.
Sources close to the Main Stand deal suggest potential sponsors have been eager to experience the new stand in all its glory, as well as sample the new facilities and its operational prowess on matchdays. They will get that chance very shortly.
Even so, it is unlikely any official sponsor for the stand will be announced until next year.
FSG are prepared to wait for the right partner and understand that these deals take time. Likewise, West Ham has still to announce a naming partner for the Olympic Stadium.
Several names have previously been linked to naming rights, including Qatar’s Ooredoo and Air China.
Meanwhile, it is understood corporate ticket sales have gone exceptionally well, with Executive Lounge seats and packages selling out well over 12 months ago.
The redevelopment of the Main Stand will boost Liverpool’s match day revenues by an estimated £20 million a year.Image caption Arctic sea ice extent on 19 August 2012 (orange line shows the 1979-2000 median)
Arctic sea ice looks set to hit a record low by the end of the month, according to satellite data.
Scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said data showed that the sea ice extent was tracking below the previous record low, set in 2007.
Latest figures show that on 13 August ice extent was 483,000 sq km (186,000 sq miles) below the previous record low for the same date five years ago.
The ice is expected to continue melting until mid- to late September.
"A new daily record... would be likely by the end of August," the centre's lead scientist, Ted Scambos, told Reuters.
"Chances are it will cross the previous record while we are still in ice retreat."
'Rapid melt'
Sea ice extent refers to a measurement of the area of Arctic Ocean that contains at least some sea ice. Areas with less than 15% are considered by scientists to mark the ice edge.
In its latest summary, the centre said the average rate of ice loss since late June had been "rapid", with just over 100,000 sq km melting each day.
However, it added, the rate of loss doubled for a few days earlier this month during a major storm.
Responding to the latest update, Prof Seymour Laxon, professor of climate physics at University College London, said that he was not surprised that 2012 was set to deliver a record minimum.
Image caption The melt season is expected to continue until the second half of September
"We got very close to a record minimum last year," he told BBC News.
"The fact that Cryosat showed thinner ice last winter, it is not surprising to me that it looks like we will have a record minimum this year."
Cryosat is a radar spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency (Esa) that was launched in 2010 to monitor changes in the thickness and shape of polar ice.
Prof Laxon added that this year's projected record minimum could result in a change in projections of when the Arctic would be sea ice-free during summer months.
"The previous [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report (published in 2007) stated that the likely date for an ice-free Arctic in the summer - and definitions for this vary a bit - was 2100," he explained.
"When we had the 2007 minimum, that date was brought forward to 2030-2040.
"The fact that we look set to get another record ice minimum in such a short space of time means that the modellers may once again need to go and look at what their projections are telling them."
Arctic sea ice plays a key role in help keep polar regions cool and helps control the global climate system.
The white surface of the ice reflects about 80% of incident sunlight back into the atmosphere, or into space.
When the sea ice melts, it exposes more of the dark ocean surface, resulting in 90% of the sunlight being absorbed, which warms the Arctic ocean.Polygraph operator Patrick T. Coffey of San Francisco has threatened AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke with a defamation lawsuit. In a letter (877 kb PDF) dated 4 September 2009 sent by U.S. mail and fax, Coffey’s attorney, Carleton L. Briggs, demands “a full and complete retraction” of the 20 August 2009 blog post, “Is Patrick T. Coffey Fit to Be Screening Police Applicants?”
The letter, ominously titled “Coffey v. SF Weekly, Maschke, et al.” begins (hyperlinks supplied):
I represent Patrick T. Coffey, the subject of an article entitled “Is Patrick Coffey Fit to Be Screening Police Applicants?” which appeared on your blog on August 20, 2009. Your article referred to, and contained a hyperlink to, an article entitled “The Lie Detective” by Matt Smith in the August 19-25 issue of SF Weekly, Volume 28, Number 30. I enclose a copy of your article and of the SF Weekly article, which quotes both you and your blog.
It should be noted that the SF Weekly article does not quote this blog. Rather, it quotes posts that Coffey made to the AntiPolygraph.org message board. Briggs continues:
The SF Weekly article attributes various quotes and opinions to Mr. Coffey, some of which are not his and some of which are taken out of context to make him appear prejudiced. For example, Mr. Coffey did not refer to any such questions or topics as “Are you racist? A dissembler? A bully?”, and there is no professional in his field who would ever test with such questions, which are not testable subjects with the polygraph.
It is true that these exact questions would not likely be asked in the context of a pre-employment polygraph examination. But while the question, “Are you a racist?” might not be asked in those terms, until recently the Los Angeles Police Department asked applicants the following relevant question while strapped to the polygraph: “Based on your personal bias, have you ever committed a negative act against anyone?” And while “Are you a dissembler?” might not be asked in those words, the question “Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?” is a commonly used probable-lie “control” question. Likewise, while “Are you a bully?” might not be asked so bluntly, the LAPD asks applicants, “Have you physically harmed a significant other during a domestic dispute?”
Coffey’s lawyer continues:
The SF Weekly article attributes to Mr. Coffey controversial views about the changing national face of Holland and France, when in fact he told Mr. Smith that this was based on a “60 Minutes” story he had watched and that, in context, the comments were made on your blog about your possible perceptions….
The SF Weekly article quotes two posts that Mr. Coffey made to the AntiPolygraph.org message board under the moniker, TheNoLieGuy4U. The first quotation is from a post Coffey addressed to Maschke on 17 March 2005. Coffey wrote: “I doubt even without the polygraph that you could now meet security criteria to serve in any capacity given your choice to ‘work’ in socialist Holland, which like France is losing it’s idenity [sic] to Islamic Immigration there.”
The second quotation in the SF Weekly article is from a post Coffey made on 28 May 2005. Coffey wrote, among other things, “George should stay in Holland or some other Socialist nation. He is apparently more comfortable in a nation like that, or France, which has lost its/their respective identities to massive Arab/Islamic immigration.”
Nowhere in either post did Coffey make any reference to any 60 Minutes story. And while Mr. Coffey may now profess that he was commenting on George Maschke’s “possible perceptions,” others might reasonably conclude that Coffey’s posts provide more insight into his own perceptions. Attorney Carleton L. Briggs continues:
…The SF Weekly article labels Mr. Coffey as a “peculiar choice” by the SFPD, when in fact by all measurable criteria he is a highly qualified professional with twenty-three years of experience. The SF Weekly article questions Mr. Coffey’s contract with the SFPD, saying the issue should be raised because Mr. Coffey’s alleged bias and prejudice may make the polygraph tests he administers unreliable. You are quoted therein as saying, “He’s got a lot of biases coming to the table. To have someone with that mentality screening police applicants is inappropriate.” Your blog also questions Mr. Coffey’s fitness to screen police applicants.
Indeed. The bigotry in Patrick Coffey’s posts to the AntiPolygraph.org message board speaks for itself. It calls to mind the prejudice of those who in the early 20th century lamented that Germany had “lost its identity” to “massive Jewish immigration.” Briggs continues:
The SF Weekly article falsely states that Mr. Coffey paid $10,000 to settle a claim that he had performed a voice-stress analysis on a subject without permission. Your article does, as well. In fact, Mr. Coffey has never performed any such voice-stress analysis, and he never paid any such settlement.
The SF Weekly article states that “according to court records,” Coffey ended up “paying a $10,000 settlement” to Jesus Guerrero, who in a 2003 lawsuit (1.1 mb PDF) alleged that “Mr. Coffey told Mr. Guerrero that he was submitting him to a lie detector (i.e., voice stress analyzer) test, which testing was performed without Mr. Guerrero’s permission.” AntiPolygraph.org has obtained a copy of a court order (90kb PDF) implementing a settlement agreement between Guerrero, Coffey, and the latter’s erstwhile employer, Triad Consultants. According to the order, Coffey and Triad Consultants were to pay Guerrero $10,000.
It’s certainly possible, as Mr. Briggs avers, that Mr. Coffey “never paid any such settlement.” But on 15 April 2005, Coffey and Triad Consultants were ordered to pay it by California Superior Court Judge Ronald Evans Quidachay. Coffey’s attorney continues:
Finally, the SF Weekly article suggests that Mr. Coffey isn’t bigoted against Arabs and Muslims who happen to be fee-paying representatives of regimes which condone torture, but that he may be against ordinary Arabs and Muslims with their minds set on a career with the San Francisco Police Department. As a matter of fact, Mr. Coffey has never failed an SFPD applicant of Arab extraction or of the Muslim faith. Devout Muslims actually do quite well in such tests, as they tend to have a conservative lifestyle which does not conflict with being in law enforcement.
Again, the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry inherent in Coffey’s posts to the AntiPolygraph.org message board speaks for itself.
Coffey’s lawyer goes on to cite examples of defamation case law before making the following allegation and demand:
Your statements, repetitions and implications were materially false and damaging to Mr. Coffey, as they indicated that he is a bigot and that his alleged prejudice against Arab immigrants makes him unsuitable for his profession as a polygraph consultant to the San Francisco Police Department. As a result, Mr. Coffey has been receiving death threats, seven so far. Without conceding that any demand for retraction is required, I hereby demand that, within ten days of the date hereof, you publish a full and complete retraction. Please have your counsel contact me if he or she wishes to discuss the terms of the retraction.
AntiPolygraph.org condemns any threats of violence against Mr. Coffey. But AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke has made no materially false statements regarding him. There will be no retraction.
It should be noted here that in addition to his expressed views about European countries “losing their identity” to Arabs and Muslims, Coffey has made numerous intemperate remarks about Maschke–an honorably discharged US Army veteran–threatening him in 2008, for example, “You are no patriot, you piss me off, and I and others have the resources to deal with you if and when it ever becomes necessary. Stay in Holland you traiterous [sic] bastard.”(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)
By Alison Frankel
NEW YORK, Feb. 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions assured the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearings in January that he is dedicated to fairness, impartiality and the rule of law. Sessions has been in office for a mere two weeks and his promises are already being put to the test.
News broke last week that counterintelligence agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are examining alleged contacts between Russian officials and Donald Trump campaign and transition advisors and business associates.
On Thursday, all of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent AG Sessions a letter requesting his recusal from the Justice Department's investigation. On Friday, two dozen nonprofits also called on the attorney general to step aside from any inquiry into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign and transition, including any secondary investigation into leaks about the FBI probe.
The Senate Democrats and the nonprofits argued that Sessions was himself an advisor to the president's campaign and has close ties to Trump and to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who resigned after misinforming the vice president about his conversations with a Russian official during the transition. Because of those relationships, according to recusal advocates, Sessions cannot be regarded as an impartial arbiter.
"You endorsed and served as a principal advisor to President Trump during his campaign and have continued to play a key role advising the Trump administration," the nonprofits said in their letter to the AG. "That relationship precludes any possibility of avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest."
POLITICAL TOOL
Recusal demands can be a valuable political tool, as Sessions, a former senator from Alabama, well knows. During the Obama administration, it was Republicans, including Sessions, who demanded the recusal of Democratic AGs.
Remember the Republican stink over AG Loretta Lynch's Phoenix tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton while the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of State?
Lynch's predecessor, Eric Holder, also took heat from Republicans when the Justice Department began investigating reports that the Internal Revenue Service had targeted conservative groups for audit. (Lynch said she would accept the FBI's determination on Clinton's emails; Holder recused himself in the IRS investigation and a couple of other investigations of the administration or of his former clients.)
Sessions, in other words, might be tempted to dismiss the Democrats' request that he step aside as sheer partisanship. And even if he does abide by his pledge to the Senate Judiciary Committee to consult with Justice Department ethics officials when his impartiality might reasonably be questioned, he doesn't have to explain himself.
AGs' recusal decisions "are shrouded in mystery, often not made public and the reasoning left to the imagination," according to a report last month by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).
In the short term, the attorney general answers only to the president and to Congress. If Sessions decides not to step aside from the Justice Department's investigation of alleged Russian contacts with the Trump campaign, it seems unlikely that the Trump administration or the Republican Congress will clamor for Sessions to change his mind. (I asked the Justice Department to respond to the Senate Democrats' letter requesting the AG's recusal and to describe the recusal consideration process; DOJ spokesman Peter Carr said in an email that the department was "reviewing the letter" and had no additional comment.)
After talking to three law professors who specialize in prosecutorial ethics, I think there's a strong case for Sessions to recuse. The professors – David Sklansky of Stanford, Bruce Green of Fordham and Kathleen Clark of Washington University – gave three overlapping reasons why: history, current regulations and public faith in the integrity of the Justice Department.
"UGLY HISTORY"
The POGO recusal report details the ugly history of conflicted AGs, culminating with President Richard Nixon ordering then Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst to drop an antitrust investigation into ITT, a Nixon campaign contributor. In Senate testimony, Kleindienst denied he had been pressured by the president. After Nixon's clandestine tape recordings proved otherwise, the AG ended up pleading guilty to the misdemeanor of refusing to testify before Congress.
Nixon's presidency, of course, led Congress to enact a law allowing for the appointment of independent counsel to investigate high-ranking government officials. Two different versions of the independent counsel statute were in place from 1978 until 1994, when the second iteration expired.
Were the independent counsel statute still operative, said Fordham professor Green, there is little doubt that Sessions would have referred the investigation of alleged Russian contacts with the Trump campaign team to a special panel of judges tasked with the deciding whether to appoint a prosecutor from outside of the Justice Department. "This would have been easy back in the day," said Green.
Sessions' potential conflict - serving as a member of Trump's cabinet while leading an investigation that could involve presidential advisors – is exactly why there was an independent counsel law, Green said. Prosecutors do not like to step aside from the jobs they're empowered to do, Green said. The old law took the decision out of the AG's hands.
Green said his reading of federal ethics regulations would require Sessions at least to consult with ethics experts at the Justice Department. Professor Clark at Wash U said the regulations are clearer than that: The rules, she said, demand Sessions step aside.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The key rule (found in Title 28 of the U.S. Code) on disqualifying federal prosecutors bars them from participating in a criminal investigation if they have "a personal or political relationship" with someone involved in the conduct under investigation or with someone who will be directly affected by the outcome of the inquiry.
According to Clark, Sessions might plausibly have argued that the rule did not preclude his involvement of an FBI investigation into Russian hacking or interference in the presidential campaign. But once the FBI reportedly expanded its inquiry into alleged Russian contacts with Trump campaign advisors, Clark said, the rule gives Sessions no choice but to recuse himself.
A provision of the ethics rule says prosecutors may stay involved if supervisors determine they do not have a conflict of interest, but, according to Clark, that provision does not apply to the attorney general because AGs do not have supervisors. "Any counterargument has to be on the merits of the regulation," she said. "Generally, these standards are pretty well thought through."
Stanford professor Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor, said Sessions' involvement in any Justice Department investigation of Trump's campaign will cast doubt on the inquiry. (He has also written about Sessions and recusal at Stanford's Legal Aggregate blog.)
Given the AG's prominent role in President Trump's campaign, Sklansky said, Sessions may appear to have a conflict of interest, regardless of how impartial he may consider himself to be. "The standard is never, ‘Do you trust yourself?'" Sklansky said. Nor can Sessions refuse to step aside if the AG believes there is no merit to allegations of Russian contacts, the Stanford prof said: "The rule is not that if you think you are in the right, you don't recuse."
Undoubtedly, Sessions is in an unenviable spot. Independent prosecutors have a tendency to |
than 1,100,000 ounces. Now before anyone claims that this demonstrates the legitimacy of the Comex and The Paper Derivative Pricing Scheme, be sure to note that total paper claims increased by over 20,000,000 ounces over the same time period. So, in the most crude of calculations, we can say that The Banks took the newly-vaulted gold, levered it over six times and then flooded it into the “market” as a way to control the ascent of price.
But let’s not stop there because that’s not the focus of this post. Before the Cartel/System Apologists and Shills take the information above and claim that all is well and that the Comex is working as it should, perhaps they should look at the same numbers in Comex silver.
Back on December 31, 2015, Comex silver closed at $13.80. As I type, I have a last of $20.10. This is a gain of $6.30 or about 46%. Over the same time period, The Banks that “make markets” on the silver Comex have increased total open interest from 168,153 contracts to yesterday’s 211,347. That’s an increase of 43,194 contracts or 26%. And again, stated another way, at 5000 ounces per contract, this represents about 216,000,000 ounces of additional paper silver.
So, have we also seen an increase in the total amount of silver vaulted in the eight Comex silver repositories? Well, let’s check. Below is the report from December 31, 2015. Note that the vaults hold a total of 160,671,058 ounces of silver, of which a little over 25% or 40,000,000 ounces is in the registered category:
And now here’s your report from yesterday:
So, the paper price of silver has risen by 46% WHILE the amount of available paper silver derivatives has increased by 26%. At the same time, the total amount of silver held within the Comex vaults has decreased by 5.6%. Perhaps even more interesting, while price has risen 46%, the total amount of registered Comex silver has decreased by 15,638,897 ounces or 39%.
Let’s sum it up this way:
COMEX GOLD: Price up 29%. Total open interest up 48.6%. Total vaulted gold up over 3,000,000 ounces or 47%.
COMEX SILVER: Price up 46%. Total open interest up 26%. Total vaulted silver DOWN nearly 9,000,000 ounces or 5.6%.
And let’s consider one more thing…
With total open interest of 652,971 contracts, the Comex currently has paper obligations for 65,297,100 troy ounces or 2,031 metric tonnes of gold. Total annual mine supply is around 3,000 metric tonnes so total Comex paper derivative supply equals about 66% of total mine supply.
However, with total open interest of 211,247 contracts, the Comex currently has paper obligations for 1,056,235,000 ounces of silver. Total annual mine supply is around 880,000,000 million ounces so total Comex paper derivative supply equals about 120% of total mine supply.
Putting it all together…
While it’s clear that The Banks on The Comex are desperately feeding new paper contracts to The Specs in an effort to contain/restrain the gold price, at least there has been a coincident rise in the physical collateral backing the paper contracts. In silver, where the situation is equally tenuous, The Banks are issuing new paper contracts without conjuring up any additional physical collateral. The Banks are simply adding additional leverage to an already-teetering system and, in doing so, have extended their potential delivery liability to 120% of total global mine supply. (Actually, if you take out China’s 150,000,000 ounces of annual production that’s NOT for sale, total global silver production falls to 730,000,000 ounces and the liability rises to 145%!)
In 2011, the Comex price of silver shot higher due, in large part, to physical demand. This run culminated in a $10 move during the month of April that was almost entirely driven by near-panic short covering by The Comex Banks. The CFTC-generated data at the time left zero doubt regarding this conclusion. Only The Sunday Night Massacre of May 1, 2011 and the CME’s five margin hikes in the nine days that followed saved The Banks from massive further losses and possible collapse.
Could silver be on the verge of another, similar event? Only time will tell and global physical demand will be the key. However, silver investors would be wise to consider the possibilities and act accordingly, knowing full well the extent of the fraud and scam of the current Comex Paper Derivative Pricing Scheme.
Courtesy: Craig Hemke
Please check back for new articles and updates at Commoditytrademantra.comMore than three decades after “Airplane!” came out, the directors and some of the stars have reunited to make ads urging you to go to Wisconsin. (Sure, makes sense so far, let’s keep right on going.)
The new ad campaign from the Wisconsin Department of Tourism mixes references to the original movie with an ode to Wisconsin. The spots star Robert Hays, who played Ted Striker in the original movie (cue drinking problem clip), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played Roger Murdock (but, you know, actually played Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; anyway, here’s a clip). They were directed by Jerry Zucker, David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, the same trio of Wisconsin natives behind the wonderful and rightly sainted 1980 movie.
You can watch the first of the ads here:
This first spot, which came out this week, is aimed at summer tourism and will be followed by ads focused on the fall and winter seasons, the Wisconsin Department of Tourism said. (It’s not all “Airplane!” references, either: Kareem drops in a reference to how he spent six seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks before ditching them for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1975.)
“The jewel of my career and one of the high points of my life was being able to work with these folks … so when we had a chance to recreate a little insanity, in the original cockpit, that was really fun,” Hays said in a news conference this week.
Hays actually starred in another ad that doubled as a mini-“Airplane!” reunion last year. He and David Zucker teamed up for this commercial, which involves a fish slapping Hays in the face.
But the new spots go full “Airplane!” even resurrecting the automatic pilot (wearing a cheese hat, naturally). This mix of nostalgia and marketing follows in the footsteps of other recent ads that resurrected characters from beloved comedies like “Seinfeld” or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” playing on our affection for the original works while promoting something else entirely.
Also, here’s one more great “Airplane!” clip.When I first joined Tinder, in the summer of 2013, it was like gaining entry to the VIP section of an exclusive Justin Hemmes nightclub: a hidden oasis where everything felt so new, so exciting, yet so innocent. I matched, chatted and sexted with girls — pretty girls — of all colours and creeds. For the first time in my life, I was able to experience what it meant to have what had always come so effortlessly to many of my white mates.
But things changed when I returned to the app a year later, when the barriers to online dating were well-and-truly broken down. The vocal, open invitations that had previously been enthusiastically extended my way were replaced by letters of rejection in the form of a non-response. I was back to being denied entry by the Ivy nightclub bouncers, relegated to hearing day-old details of my mates' tales of their successful Tinder conquests.
The science shows certain groups getting pushed to the bottom of the pile on Tinder, but societal attitudes mean talking about it is taboo. Credit:Andy Zakeli
I tried everything to change the way I presented myself — smiling and smouldering looks, casual and dramatic poses, flamboyant and conservative clothes, playful and intense introductions — but was always dismissed in the same fashion: immediately and without explanation.
After spending nearly all my life reinventing my personality in order to impress others and adapting my values to fit in, it turned out the one thing I couldn't change was the only thing that mattered: my race.Professional People is a new Broadly series that examines the business of for-hire companionship. In this episode, host Mish Way meets the people behind ManServants, a Los Angeles-based startup that allows women to rent men by the hour.
The modern woman has a lot more choice than her predecessors when it comes to satisfying her desires. Recently, a few companies have cropped up to capitalize on this new market: Women who have extra money but little time to find a man that will cater to their needs.
ManServants is one of them, offering women a luxurious social experience, emotional support, and, of course, eye candy. The working men heed the requests of those who order them, providing an array of services that aim to make a woman feel good. We talk with the founders of the company about their business model, the men who serve, and the women who are looking to be pampered for a price.
Watch Now: Meet the Real People Behind Your Virtual BoyfriendIn his latest Scouts Eye analysis, Matt Williamson ranked NFC North running backs. You'll need an Insider subscription to read the entire post, but his decision to rank the Chicago Bears third among our four teams points to a secondary issue that we haven't bantered around much during the offseason.
Namely: How certain are we that Chester Taylor will return as the primary backup to Matt Forte?
#29 RB
Chicago Bears
2010 STATS
Rush 112
Yds 267
TD 3
Rec 20
Yds 139
TD 0
Williamson's ranking was based largely on the players behind Forte on the depth chart. Taylor, as we've pointed out, was the NFL's first post-merger running back to average less than 2.4 yards per carry on at least 100 carries in 2010. Williamson termed the acquisition "a colossal flop."
I think Taylor provided the Bears some nuanced help in 2010, especially in short-yardage. But let's face it: When a 31-year-old running back rushes for 267 yards on 112 carries, as Taylor did last season, it's at least worth questioning his future with the team. The Bears have two other running backs on their roster, Kahlil Bell and Harvey Unga, who might provide younger (and cheaper) alternatives.
To be clear, if the Bears had already decided to move on, they would have released Taylor before the lockout as they did with defensive tackle Tommie Harris. But they really had no incentive to part ways with Taylor in February. Taylor received more than half of his $12.5 million deal in 2010 compensation. He's due a relatively affordable $1.275 million in 2011, a decent price for a veteran backup that the Bears could still avoid paying if they released him after training camp.
Offensive coordinator Mike Martz seemed incredulous when asked about Taylor's future in March, telling Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune: "Why would he get cut? Why would that happen? It wouldn't make any sense, would it? We're pleased with him. We're very pleased with him. He really played well, especially in the last few games."
It makes sense to bring Taylor to training camp. Should he make the team? I'm not sure that's an easy answer.Published by Steve Litchfield at 19:48 UTC, October 24th 2017
Nawzil Nejeeb is a senior manager at Microsoft and very techy - he's a great source of information online on all things Windows and, in this case, he's been updating a particular Facebook status page for the last few years - and there's a lot of official data there for Windows 10 Mobile users, right up to and including the Facll Creators Update (FCU). So I've quoted the relevant bit below.
From Nawzil's official post:
Windows 10 Mobile Support Lifecycle
Support for Windows 10 Mobile is almost the same as other editions of Windows 10, but the support duration is slightly longer. Each version of Windows 10 Mobile is supported for around 26 months (2 years and 2 months) from the date of release. End of support dates for each version of Windows 10 Mobile:
Windows 10 Mobile version 1511 build 10586 / Initial Release: January 9, 2018
Windows 10 Mobile version 1607 build 14393 / Anniversary Update: October 9, 2018
Windows 10 Mobile version 1703 build 15063 / Creators Update: June 11, 2019
Windows 10 Mobile version 1709 build 15254 / Fall Creators Update: December 10, 2019 *
* Tentative dates, support may be extended. The exact date will be announced within 1 year of these dates.
Lumia Support Lifecycle
Lumia phones are supported for 2 years from the date they are launched. This means they get Feature Updates during those 2 years. Each Feature Update is supported for around 26 months. The last Feature Update that a Lumia phone gets at the end of the 2 years will be supported for around 2 years, so the total support period for a Lumia phone is around 4 years from the date it is launched.
In short, a Lumia phone will get Feature Updates for 2 years and it will get Cumulative Updates for the last Feature Update for 2 more years.
We already knew about most of this, but it's great to see the dates so clearly laid out.
Phones then that are FCU-compatible may well be officially supported with fixes and security updates into 2020, which would be quite something! The rest of the mainstream Lumias (I'm thinking Lumia 735, 640, 830, 930, etc.) will end their days on the Anniversary Update (AU), if they've never been part of the Insider programme, or the Creators Update (CU), which rolled out a few months ago and which was obtainable for months (is it still?) via a little Insiders programme 'dance'.
In all cases, phones with each branch installed will receive updates for that branch until the end of support dates listed above.
Right, all clear now?(Reuters) - Tesla Motors Inc CEO Elon Musk will invest $20 million as part of the company’s $500 million stock offering in a show of confidence at a time when the electric car maker is burning through cash.
A Tesla S electric car and a charging station are displayed during the press preview day of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, in this file photo taken January 14, 2014. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/Files
Tesla said on Thursday it would use the proceeds from the sale to help fund its upcoming Model 3 project and its battery gigafactory in Nevada. (bit.ly/1TuIQJa)
Musk is telling the market “I’m putting my money where my mouth is”, Jefferies & Co analyst Dan Dolev said. “He did it so he kind of shows that he leads by example.”
The offering of 2.1 million shares, Tesla’s first equity sale in more than two years, comes a week after the company reported a larger quarterly loss and said it may raise more cash to offset heavy spending.
Tesla’s shares rose as much as 3.5 percent, before giving up some gains to trade up 0.8 percent on Thursday afternoon. Up to Wednesday’s close, they had fallen 12 percent since Aug. 5 when Tesla reported results.
Tesla, which has been losing more than $4,000 on every Model S electric sedan it sells, had $1.15 billion in cash and equivalents as of June 30, down from $1.91 billion as of Dec. 31.
The company said in a filing that it assumed the shares would be priced at Wednesday’s closing price of $238.17. The stock is expected to be priced after the market closes.
Musk, who is buying about 84,000 shares in the offering, is already the company’s largest shareholder with a 22.25 percent stake as of Dec. 31, according to Reuters data. On that basis, the latest purchase will slightly reduce his holding.
Tesla had 127.1 million shares outstanding as of July 30.
The company has said its Model 3 vehicle, which will compete with BMW’s 3 Series sedans, will go on sale in 2017.
The offering’s underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to $75 million of additional shares, Tesla said.
Goldman Sachs & Co and Morgan Stanley are lead joint book-running managers for the offering, while J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank Securities are additional book-running managers.
BofA Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo Securities are co-managers.ASHBURN, Va. -- Shortly after receiving his new dumbbell set, Washington Redskins running back Samaje Perine, then about 12 years old, realized it wasn't enough. He needed more weight. But rather than ask his mom for a new set, he found bricks, duct-taped them to the dumbbells and proceeded with his workouts.
And a legend was born. Sort of. His ingenuity, and love of working out, placed him on a path to the NFL. It helped him top Adrian Peterson in one area, lifting a car and becoming an almost mythical figure in the Oklahoma Sooners weight room. One story toppled another.
Even now, his mother shrugs her shoulders at the memory of his first dumbbell set.
"All he had to do was ask for a new set, and we would have gotten him more," his mother, Gloria Perine said.
That strength is one reason why he was good enough that Washington drafted him in the fourth round. It helped him rush for an NCAA-record 427 yards in one game as a freshman. It broke the spirit of defenders throughout his college tenure.
"I remember defensive backs checking out of the game like, 'I’m done tackling this guy,'" said Oklahoma's Jerry Schmidt, the Sooners' strength coach whose official title is director of sports enhancement.
Here are tales about Perine's feats of strength:
Lifting cars: Late one night in the summer of 2015, Perine noticed a woman with a flat tire in the parking lot of the Bud Wilkinson House on Oklahoma's campus. She didn't have a car jack.
"So I just helped her out," he said.
By lifting the car so the back left tire could be changed. Perine's mom said he would only laugh when she asked him about it, not knowing if it was myth or real. But it was real. Perine sort of shrugged it off by pointing out it was "a pretty small car. A Smart Car." They weigh 1,500 pounds.
"If you lift one side, the whole side is coming up," he said. "It was kind of heavy... I mean, I wouldn't say it was easy. It's still a car."
Perine said he was alone, but Oklahoma running back Daniel Brooks once told Soonersports.com that he saw what happened. Brooks added to the myth when he told the website, "He was curling the car, too, I think."
Perine laughs.
"That part is made up," he said.
Perine's love of working out started to blossom during his middle school years. Photo courtesy of Gloria Perine
Balcony pullups: At their two-story house in Pflugerville, Texas, Perine, sometime around his freshman year of high school, found another way to work out. He did pullups on their second-floor balcony.
"Which freaked me out," Gloria said. "He would hang up there and do pullups, which was pretty scary."
The rails on the balcony did not go all the way down to the floor, leaving a gap so Perine could hang off the balcony with his hands on the floor and pull himself up.
The only thing between Perine and the ground: a flower bed.
Did he ever fall?
"Not that I know of," she said.
Deck of card workouts: Before heading home for a break during his sophomore year, Perine asked an Oklahoma assistant strength coach for a strenuous workout he could do at home. So the assistant, Mahala Wiggins, suggested using a deck of cards.
Every card was assigned a point value. In Perine's workouts, a king, for example, would be worth 25. Whatever card he pulled, that's how many sit-ups or push-ups he'd do. In his numbering system, a deck would equate to 792 reps. He'd finish an entire deck -- for both sit-ups and push-ups. Now that he's away from the Redskins facility, Perine said he'd resume these workouts.
"I always work out when I go home," he said. "I'm never the type to sit down and chill out too long. I have to keep moving -- do something else or I get bored. I eat too much just to be bored so I find a way to work out."
Stronger than Peterson: The one-time Sooner great, and future NFL Hall of Famer, was known for his strength as well. Schmidt said Peterson's bench was about 390 or 400 pounds. Schmidt said Perine's max bench was 440 pounds. That's like benching an average-sized piano -- with a small child sitting on it.
Of course, the 217-pound Peterson ran the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds at the combine, broad-jumped 10 feet, seven inches and had a vertical leap of 38.5 inches. Perine ran a 4.65; had a vertical of 33 inches and a broad jump of nine feet, eight inches. But at 238 pounds, those are still solid numbers.
"The way Samaje explodes and his low center of gravity... that's what makes him," Schmidt said. "His legs are the size of tree trunks. AD would run higher, but he's faster.
"Samaje is so explosive, and Adrian was the same way. There's a 20-pound weight difference, but the amount of explosion and the amount of power these guys have is ridiculous."
But Perine said, "AP's in a whole other league."
Still, Schmidt said some linemen can bench what Perine does, but they can’t match his squat (540) or power clean (380). Perine said he once squatted 600 pounds in high school.
"No one was lifting more [at Oklahoma]," Schmidt said. "It wasn't even close."
Sometimes, when Perine would get in position to lift the amount of weights coaches had placed on the bar, he'd shoot a glance at the strength coaches.
"The main thing is just the look you get from him like, 'Is this all you’ve got?'" said Schmidt, Oklahoma's strength coach for the past 18 years. "It's hard to explain as a coach when a guy looks at you like that. I thought I'd do something to him, and he's laughing at this."
Perine said now when he does squats, he'll do five sets of eight repetitions squatting between 315-345 pounds and two sets of 10 at 285 pounds. Instead of benching this spring, he'd bench dumbbells, with 115 pounds in each hand. At the combine, he benched 225 pounds 30 times -- only four offensive linemen did more. And Perine said he once did 35 reps of 225 pounds in high school.
"I just see what I’m doing as being the norm for me," he said. "I love the weight room, and I love to work out."President Obama has ordered a top-to-bottom review of how the U.S. government tries to win the release of Americans held hostage by terrorist groups overseas, The Daily Beast has learned. The review, which will include a specific emphasis on how the U.S. treats hostages’ family members, follows criticism that current hostage-negotiation operations are plagued by bureaucratic infighting and a lack of leadership, particularly by the White House.
The review was prompted “as a result of the increased frequency of hostage-taking of Americans overseas,” Christine Wormuth, the undersecretary of Defense for policy and one of the Pentagon’s most senior officials, informed Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) in a letter last week (PDF). Hunter sits on the House Armed Services Committee and has been pressing the administration to do more to free Americans held by ISIS and other terrorist groups. Wormuth said the president had ordered the review “recently,” but she didn’t specify when.
On Sunday, ISIS released its latest video showing the beheading of one of its American captives, Peter Kassig. The group is holding one more American, a 26-year-old woman who was kidnapped in Syria last year while delivering aid to Syrians affected by the country’s civil war. The brutal series of beheading videos has been a persistent reminder that the U.S. faces an implacable enemy, even as it steps up airstrikes on ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq. President Obama took heat for playing a round of golf on Martha’s Vineyard after the first video showing the beheading of journalist James Foley aired in August.
Wormuth said the review will include a “specific emphasis on examining family engagement, intelligence collection, and diplomatic engagement policies.” The emphasis on the families of hostages is particularly noteworthy; the parents of Americans murdered by ISIS have criticized the White House for threatening them with potential criminal prosecution if they were to pay a ransom.
Family members have also complained that the administration didn’t follow up on leads that they provided about where ISIS might be holding the Americans. Several groups of parents have banded together in efforts to locate their children but say they’ve run up against a wall at the White House. Foley’s parents reportedly told Obama in a phone call after their son was shown murdered that the government had “failed” him by not trying harder to win his freedom. It was during that phone call that Obama told the Foleys an earlier mission by the military had failed to extract the hostages from Syria.
While not overtly acknowledging the complaints of family members and critics of the U.S. bureaucracy, Wormuth said the review would seek to “improve interagency coordination and strengthen the whole of government approach,” code for putting a stop to turf wars and getting the various corners of the government on the same page. Recent efforts to free ISIS prisoners have put the White House and the State Department at odds with the FBI, which has long sought more creative ways for getting Americans out of terrorists’ clutches, including facilitating ransom payments.
Wormuth replied to Hunter after an earlier letter in which he urged the president to put someone in charge of all the government’s efforts to free Americans. In the letter, sent after the video of Foley’s beheading appeared, Hunter said he was “very concerned” that the government is not “adequately pursuing and exhausting opportunities” to bring Americans home.
“The administration’s goal has always been to use every appropriate resource within the bounds of the law to assist families to bring their loved ones home. In light of the increasing number of U.S. citizens taken hostage by terrorist groups overseas and the extraordinary nature of recent hostage cases, this summer President Obama directed relevant departments and agencies, including the Departments of Defense and State, the FBI, and the intelligence community, to conduct a comprehensive review of how the U.S. government addresses these matters,” said Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “While we are not in a position to detail every effort or every tool we are using to try to bring American hostages home, we will continue to bring all appropriate military, intelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic capabilities to bear to recover American hostages. Those efforts continue every day.”NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott sealed a civil nuclear deal to sell uranium to India on Friday and also offered to increase supplies of conventional fuel to help it overcome chronic shortages.
“We signed a nuclear cooperation agreement because Australia trusts India to do the right thing in this area, as it has been doing in other areas,” Abbott told reporters after he and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed a safeguards pact to sell uranium for peaceful power generation.
“That is why we are happy to trust India with our uranium in months, years and decades.”
The nuclear deal is a further step toward India achieving international acceptability for its nuclear program despite not ratifying the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and follows similar agreements with the United States and France.
It will also help end lingering mistrust between the former British colonies, who share just A$15 billion in annual trade, a fraction of Australia’s roughly A$150 billion trade with China.
Talks towards the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement began about two years ago after Australia lifted a long-standing ban on selling uranium to energy-starved India.
“Australia can play the role of a long-term reliable supplier of uranium to India,” a brief description of the pact issued by the Indian foreign ministry said.
India faced sanctions after testing nuclear weapons in 1998, but the restrictions have eroded after a 2008 U.S. deal that recognized its growing economic weight as well as safeguards against diversion of civilian fuel for military purposes
India is the first customer to buy Australian uranium without being a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The deal, which is criticized by environmentalists and nuclear campaigners, was welcomed by Australian uranium mining company Toro Energy.
Toro Energy has environmental approvals for a uranium project in Western Australia and is in initial talks with India companies for investment.
“This unlocks the opportunity for negotiations around new mines being opened up,” said Toro Energy CEO Vanessa Guthrie, in India during Abbott’s visit.
“We are seeking a long-term strategic partner that will take a 20-25 year view and in return will secure long-term supplies of uranium for counterparts in India,” Guthrie told Reuters.
COAL CRISIS
The leaders also agreed to work towards the “long-term, sustainable and reliable supply of Australian resources based on India’s energy needs” - including increasing sales of conventional fuels such as coal and natural gas to India.
Prior to a meeting with Abbott hosted by business chambers, one group said India should make use of Abbott’s visit to seek more coal imports at a time when Indian thermal power stations are running critically short of the fuel.
With two-thirds of India’s power stations fired by coal, and latest data showing that half of them down to a week’s stock, tapping into Australia’s coal reserves is a more pressing need than accessing uranium.
Nuclear power accounts for just 3 percent of output, down from 3.7 percent three years ago.
“While Coal India can be asked to step up its production, the growing needs make it imperative to go in for more imports... and what better source than Australia whose top leadership is engaged with strategic relationship with India,” Rana Kapoor, president of business chamber ASSOCHAM, said in a statement.
The Australian government in July approved a A$16.5 billion coal and rail project in the province of Queensland by Indian firm Adani Mining Pty Ltd, controlled by billionaire Gautam Adani.
Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi (R) wave towards the media during Abbott's ceremonial reception at the forecourt of India's presidential palace Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi September 5, 2014. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
However, nuclear power is key to future energy plans in India, where a quarter of the 1.2 billion population has little or no access to electricity, a situation Modi says he will tackle.
India operates 20 mostly small reactors at six sites with a capacity of 4,780 MW, or 2 percent of its total power capacity, according to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited. The government hopes to increase its nuclear capacity to 63,000 MW by 2032 by adding nearly 30 reactors at an estimated cost of $85 billion.
It currently has nuclear energy agreements with 11 countries and imports uranium from France, Russia and Kazakhstan.Airbnb has finalized its deal to buy social payments startup Tilt, TechCrunch has confirmed. We reported on the acquisition talks last month, but now everything has been made official.
We are told that investors will be getting back about $12 million in cash, but the deal value is tens of millions of dollars higher if you include employee retention packages, which were paid for in cash and stock. Many of Tilt’s San Francisco employees including CEO James Beshara were asked to stay on board, but most of the remote team was not.
Airbnb is obtaining the Tilt assets and will keep the app operational, at least for now. But some sources are characterizing this as more of an acqui-hire, because Airbnb is spending most of the money on retaining the team.
While it’s better than shutting down, this was certainly not the dream outcome that Tilt investors had been hoping for when they invested over $60 million. Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel and other big Silicon Valley names including Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian all made bets that Tilt would be a leader in mobile commerce.
Founded in 2012, Tilt was an early pioneer in peer-to-peer money transfers. It is geared more toward group payments than individual transactions, but in some ways competes with PayPal’s Venmo and Square Cash. It is also used for crowdfunding anything from “activities” to “causes,” which makes it an alternative to fast-growing GoFundMe.
The deal makes sense for Airbnb, because it is gaining top talent in the payments space, an area which could complement trip-booking. Airbnb has already built a big lodging business, but wants to expand its travel offerings.
Airbnb’s VP of product, Joe Zadeh, has provided us with the following statement. “Airbnb and Tilt have a common vision for building community-oriented products that make it easy to bring people together. Tilt’s experience and expertise complement our ongoing efforts to transform the way people travel. By joining forces, we’ll reimagine how groups travel and enhance Trips, our new platform that brings together where you stay, what you do, and the people you meet all in one place.”
Airbnb, which has a valuation of $30 billion, has been using its clout to buy up smaller startups. They recently agreed to buy Luxury Retreats and in the past year have also acquired ChangeCoin and Trip4real. They’ve additionally been making investments in startups like Resy.
Airbnb itself is likely too expensive to be acquired, so there has been a lot of speculation about IPO possibilities. While this is an eventual goal of the company, we are hearing that they are unlikely to go public this year.
Additional reporting by Matthew Lynley.Cody Wilson, who heads 3D printed firearms group Defense Distributed, has apparently received a federal firearms license officially allowing him to manufacture or sell the group's guns. Defense Distributed posted a Facebook photo of the license with a note reading "The work begins!" Wilson tells Ars Technica that his Type 7 license will allow him the same rights as other manufacturers: "I can sell some of the pieces that we've been making. I can do firearms transactions and transport." He'll be required to keep records on what he makes and sells, and he's not planning to sell anything at all until he receives a supplemental license to make a broader range of firearms.
"The work begins!"
While a number of enthusiasts have designed and created gun parts with 3D printers, Defense Distributed has been at the forefront of the practice, successfully testing 3D printed rifle lowers and high-capacity magazines with politically charged names like "Cuomo" and "Feinstein." It's also revealed plans to launch a commercial search engine for its catalog of 3D printable designs, which was originally created in response to MakerBot removing gun files from its Thingiverse.
As Defense Distributed's name implies, the political power of firearms printing is in its low barrier to entry: anybody with a consumer printer and some crafting know-how can make one of the parts, regardless of gun regulations. The organization itself has faced problems with companies who don't want to help support what they've called an "illegal" operation, so becoming licensed is a prudent move, albeit an apparent tradeoff for the staunchly anti-regulation group.(Reuters Health) - Transgender women who take sex hormones to feminize their bodies may not experience as much breast development as they expect, a new European study suggests.
Researchers followed 229 people transitioning from male to female for one year after they started taking what’s known as cross-sex hormones. For this type of transition, hormone therapy consists of both anti-androgens to block the activity of male sex hormones and curb male characteristics as well as estrogens to encourage breast development and feminization.
Only 21 of the trans women attained a bra size of an A cup or larger after one year of hormone therapy, the study found.
“In our experience, trans women have high expectations of the breast size they gain with hormone therapy,” said lead study author Dr. Christel de Blok of the Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.
“This study provides doctors with some evidence that it is less than often thought or hoped,” de Blok said by email.
Participants were patients at specialized clinics in Amsterdam; Ghent, Belgium; and Florence, Italy.
To assess breast growth, researchers measured the circumference of the chest underneath the breasts and at the largest part of the breasts. The difference between these two measurements can be used to determine breast growth and bra sizes.
At the start of the study, participants’ average difference between chest and breast circumference was 4.1 centimeters (1.6 inches). After one year on hormones, the average difference increased to 7.9 centimeters (3.1 inches).
Most of the breast growth happened during the first six months of treatment.
During the first three months on hormones, participants had average breast growth of 1.8 centimeters, followed by growth of about 1.3 centimeters over the next three months. After that, average growth tapered off, with 0.5 centimeters between six and nine months and 0.2 centimeters during the final three months.
After translating the growth into bra sizes, the results were modest.
Almost half of the trans women had a bra cup size of less than AAA, or less than 8 centimeters, after one year of hormone therapy, researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Another 26 percent had an AAA cup, which runs from 8 to 10 centimeters, and 14 percent had an AA cup, from 10 to 12 centimeters.
Average breast growth didn’t change even after researchers accounted for how large participants’ breasts were at the start of the study.
Breast development also didn’t vary based on whether the trans women gained or lost weight. Although obese trans women had |
5, about 93% of world potassium production was consumed by the fertilizer industry.[92]
Medical use [ edit ]
Potassium, in the form of potassium chloride is used as a medication to treat and prevent low blood potassium.[98] Low blood potassium may occur due to vomiting, diarrhea, or certain medications.[99] It is given by slow injection into a vein or by mouth.[100]
Food additives [ edit ]
Potassium sodium tartrate (KNaC
4 H
4 O
6, Rochelle salt) is the main constituent of baking powder; it is also used in the silvering of mirrors. Potassium bromate (KBrO
3 ) is a strong oxidizer (E924), used to improve dough strength and rise height. Potassium bisulfite (KHSO
3 ) is used as a food preservative, for example in wine and beer-making (but not in meats). It is also used to bleach textiles and straw, and in the tanning of leathers.[101][102]
Industrial [ edit ]
Major potassium chemicals are potassium hydroxide, potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, and potassium chloride. Megatons of these compounds are produced annually.[103]
Potassium hydroxide KOH is a strong base, which is used in industry to neutralize strong and weak acids, to control pH and to manufacture potassium salts. It is also used to saponify fats and oils, in industrial cleaners, and in hydrolysis reactions, for example of esters.[104][105]
Potassium nitrate (KNO
3 ) or saltpeter is obtained from natural sources such as guano and evaporites or manufactured via the Haber process; it is the oxidant in gunpowder (black powder) and an important agricultural fertilizer. Potassium cyanide (KCN) is used industrially to dissolve copper and precious metals, in particular silver and gold, by forming complexes. Its applications include gold mining, electroplating, and electroforming of these metals; it is also used in organic synthesis to make nitriles. Potassium carbonate (K
2 CO
3 or potash) is used in the manufacture of glass, soap, color TV tubes, fluorescent lamps, textile dyes and pigments.[106] Potassium permanganate (KMnO
4 ) is an oxidizing, bleaching and purification substance and is used for production of saccharin. Potassium chlorate (KClO
3 ) is added to matches and explosives. Potassium bromide (KBr) was formerly used as a sedative and in photography.[8]
Potassium chromate (K
2 CrO
4 ) is used in inks, dyes, stains (bright yellowish-red color); in explosives and fireworks; in the tanning of leather, in fly paper and safety matches,[107] but all these uses are due to the chemistry of the chromate ion, rather than the potassium ion.[108]
Niche uses [ edit ]
There are thousands of uses of various potassium compounds. One example is potassium superoxide, KO
2, an orange solid that acts as a portable source of oxygen and a carbon dioxide absorber. It is widely used in respiration systems in mines, submarines and spacecraft as it takes less volume than the gaseous oxygen.[109][110]
4 KO
2 + 2 CO 2 → 2 K
2 CO
3 + 3 O
2
Another example is potassium cobaltinitrite, K
3 [Co(NO
2 )
6 ], which is used as artist's pigment under the name of Aureolin or Cobalt Yellow.[111]
The stable isotopes of potassium can be laser cooled and used to probe fundamental and technological problems in quantum physics. The two bosonic isotopes possess convenient Feshbach resonances to enable studies requiring tunable interactions, while 40K is one of only two stable fermions amongst the alkali metals.[112]
Laboratory uses [ edit ]
An alloy of sodium and potassium, NaK is a liquid used as a heat-transfer medium and a desiccant for producing dry and air-free solvents. It can also be used in reactive distillation.[113] The ternary alloy of 12% Na, 47% K and 41% Cs has the lowest melting point of −78 °C of any metallic compound.[15]
Metallic potassium is used in several types of magnetometers.[114]
Precautions [ edit ]
A reaction of potassium metal with water. Hydrogen is produced, and with potassium vapor, burns with a pink or lilac flame. Strongly alkaline potassium hydroxide is formed in solution.
Potassium metal reacts violently with water producing potassium hydroxide (KOH) and hydrogen gas.
2 K (s) + 2 H 2 O (l) → 2 KOH (aq) + H
2 ↑ (g)
This reaction is exothermic and releases enough heat to ignite the resulting hydrogen in the presence of oxygen. Potassium tends to explode in contact with water and without the oxygen presence. It is called coulombic explosion, possibly splashing onlookers with potassium hydroxide, which is a strong alkali that destroys living tissue and causes skin burns. Finely grated potassium ignites in air at room temperature. The bulk metal ignites in air if heated. Because its density is 0.89 g/cm3, burning potassium floats in water that exposes it to atmospheric oxygen. Many common fire extinguishing agents, including water, either are ineffective or make a potassium fire worse. Nitrogen, argon, sodium chloride (table salt), sodium carbonate (soda ash), and silicon dioxide (sand) are effective if they are dry. Some Class D dry powder extinguishers designed for metal fires are also effective. These agents deprive the fire of oxygen and cool the potassium metal.[116]
Potassium reacts violently with halogens and detonates in the presence of bromine. It also reacts explosively with sulfuric acid. During combustion, potassium forms peroxides and superoxides. These peroxides may react violently with organic compounds such as oils. Both peroxides and superoxides may react explosively with metallic potassium.[117]
Because potassium reacts with water vapor in the air, it is usually stored under anhydrous mineral oil or kerosene. Unlike lithium and sodium, however, potassium should not be stored under oil for longer than six months, unless in an inert (oxygen free) atmosphere, or under vacuum. After prolonged storage in air dangerous shock-sensitive peroxides can form on the metal and under the lid of the container, and can detonate upon opening.[118]
Because of the highly reactive nature of potassium metal, it must be handled with great care, with full skin and eye protection and preferably an explosion-resistant barrier between the user and the metal. Ingestion of large amounts of potassium compounds can lead to hyperkalemia, strongly influencing the cardiovascular system.[119][120] Potassium chloride is used in the United States for lethal injection executions.[119]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]You’re into Board games now, right? You’ve been reading and watching Best Play, growing a small but amazing collection of the best games money can buy.
Well how do we take it up a notch, and make those games feel extra special? Well you gotta spruce em up, treat ‘em nice and show them how much you care. You’ve got to make sweet, sweet love to them. Read on to see how.
Expansions
If you love a game and have played it a lot, then maybe it’s time to make it even better. Lots of games have expansions that take it in a new direction, expand on existing ideas or add just that little bit more. Most of the time they’re also much cheaper than splashing out on a whole new game. Now that’s what we call R O I.
Some expansion recommendations for games we’ve recommended before:
Survive expansion collection (US / UK) – Letting you play with more people and adding more water beasties.
Colt Express Coach and Horses (US / UK) – Adding more options and chaos in the form of a good old horse and carriage.
Mysterium Hidden Signs (US / UK) – More pictures to haunt your dreams.
Upgrade them pieces
Lots of games have similar parts, be that dice, tokens or meeples. Invest in some nice heavy metal coins to replace those crappy cardboard ones.
You could also get some nicer dice, or maybe even a dice tower. You can even find custom-made pieces for games you love on sites like Etsy.
If you’re feeling really ambitious then try to make some yourself. We’ve seen some nice ones made with 3D printing.
Print all the things
You can upgrade your games for free. Say what?!
Most games have fan-made (and sometimes official) additions you can find on Board Game Geek. Like the rail road for Colt Express to add to the scenery or these helpful rules summaries and reminders to make it easier for everyone to follow along. If you have a game you love, someone has probably made it better and won’t even charge you for it.
Storage and smarts
You want your games to look their best right? You can replace the box innards with some nice wooden or foam inlays meaning the game is neater, more secure and will be more likely to squeeze in your new expansions. You can have go all out and replace the box altogether for the games you love the most.
You can cover your cards in sleeves for a slicker feel, which will have the added benefit that they last a lot longer and look fresh fresh fresh. This is also a great tip for any of those print ‘n’ play games you made at home after reading that great Best Play article about it.
A Killer Soundtrack
Everyone wants something in the background when they play. To heighten the tension, increase the good feel vibes or just something to bop along to. There are lots of great fan made soundtracks for popular games, and you can start making them too. Here’s one we made earlier for Colt Express.
Dress up and set the mood
Music has set the mood nicely but if you really want to get into it then maybe its time to make this night special.
Dim the lights, get some candles and get out those halloween costumes for a game of Mysterium.
Don your cowboy hats and plastic pistols for Colt Express or get on your Kigu onesies and play King of Tokyo. We all know the best secret last round of Monikers is a costume and props round.
How else do you like to spruce up your games and make ‘em POP? Lets us know in the comments.M@
Woolwich Foot Tunnel Reopens After Revamp
The Thames foot tunnel linking Woolwich and North Woolwich has reopened following an £11.5 million refurbishment. The 99-year-old structure has been closed for well over a year while the council shored up a few structural problems, and completely refitted the stairs, lighting, lifts and CCTV.
A lesser-known sibling to the Greenwich foot tunnel, the Woolwich crossing is similarly furnished with dome-capped surface buildings and glazed white tiles. Its reopening restores triple redundancy to this part of the river, where you can also cross via the Woolwich Ferry or the DLR link.
Meanwhile, work on the lifts serving the Greenwich foot tunnel continues. The sub-riverine passage reopened to pedestrians some time ago, but only those willing and able to use the stairs. Both tunnel revamp projects have been beset by delays, to the consternation of regular users.
Image by Nicobobinus in the Londonist Flickr pool.After canceling a scheduled appearance at a Los Angeles gay bar this weekend and facing threats of a lawsuit, Ciara was served papers during her performance at LA Pride on Saturday night.
The "Goodies" singer was performing on the catwalk when a woman reached out amid fans to hand her the lawsuit during the middle of a song. Ciara reached out for the papers nonchalantly while continuing to sing and then flung them back. TMZ published a video of the incident on Sunday morning.
The concert interruption came after Ciara bailed on West Hollywood's popular club The Factory. The singer's reps said they informed the club that Ciara couldn't make it, yet the performance was promoted nonetheless. Still, The Factory is suing for breach of contract.
Ciara's people spoke out after news of the lawsuit first emerged on Saturday, saying the singer's appearance at LA Pride the next day contractually prevented her from appearing at The Factory.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Smithfield, Va. - 81-year-old Jessie Pittman doesn't move around like most people. He had spinal tuberculosis, leaving him permanently bent over.
Friday, he was at the bank getting money to pay his bills when police say 20-year-old John Hassell blindsided him, robbing him of $2,000 in cash.
"I just hollered 'is my money gone?" Pittman says.
It happened at the BB&T on South Church Street in Smithfield. Police say Hassell was watching Pittman, and waiting until he walked outside. Pittman says he was almost to his car when Hassell snatched the money from his hand. Pittman says he didn't even see it coming.
"I didn't have all that tight a grip on it,” Pittman says, referring to the envelope of cash in his hand. “I just had it like that and he went like this."
Investigators say Hassell pedaled away on a bike, however police were able to track him down a few blocks away and arrest him.
Pittman got his money back; he’s thankful the robbery did not turn violent.
"Not scary,” he says. “I mean if he had come with a gun or knife or something, but he just took it and run off. 'So it could've been worse?' yes it certainly could."
Pittman may have been taken advantage of, but he's not holding a grudge.
“ I mean I don't have any hard feelings against him," he says.Artist's conception of 55 Cancri e. Haven Giguere/Yale University
Arthur C. Clarke, the late science-fiction writer most famous for " 2001: A Space Odyssey," let his mind wander all over the universe. In a sequel, "2010: Odyssey Two," one of his extraterrestrial characters discovered that "the core of Jupiter, forever beyond human reach, was a diamond as big as the Earth."
Now, a team of researchers led by Nikku Madhusudhan of Yale University say they may have found the real thing - a so-called super-Earth, orbiting a star 40 light-years away in the constellation Cancer the crab. From its orbit and the size of its host star, they can calculate its size and mass - its diameter is double that of Earth - and have concluded that it is unusually dense.
How dense? To borrow a line from Clarke, "De Beers shareholders, please note."
"The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite," said Madhusudhan in a statement from Yale. "This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth."
The planet is called 55 Cancri e, and you would not like it there. Madhusudhan and his colleagues said it whips around its host star in just 18 hours. The surface temperature is something like 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit. The researchers said there is probably little water to speak of. Life would be out of the question.
A lot of this is educated conjecture, of course, because the planet is so distant that the only sign it exists is that once every 18-hour-long "year," it passes between us and its host star, blocking an infinitesimal amount of its light. But astronomers say that stars are remarkably consistent in their size and composition, and they can calculate a planet's likely size and density even if they cannot see it.
The findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, said Yale. The authors estimated that up to a third of 55 Cancri e could be diamond.
So if you could get there you would be very rich. But you wouldn't want to stay.“I asked her if Meagan was going to the prom, maybe around January, and we started talking about it, so I offered to take her if she wanted to go,” she said.
The bond between the three girls was apparent during one interview at the high school. While Jessie answered some questions, Kelsey held Meagan’s hand in a touching way that showed their closeness, all the while reassuring Meagan with the occasional, “it’s okay.”
Staci said she agreed to the idea right away, adding she was very excited, impressed and overjoyed with Jessie for thinking of Meagan and not wanting her to miss the special occasion.
“It made me cry … it still does. There are a lot of dreams you give up when you have a special needs child and one of them was doing the mom and daughter dress shopping for prom like I did with my mom. We did all the mom and daughter things, dress shopping for the perfect “princess” dress (Meagan’s terms), getting her hair done, mani-pedi and pictures. My husband took tons and tons of pictures of her and Jessie and Kelsey at our friend’s house on the Muskoka River.”
Staci didn’t realize the magical night had something else special in store for her daughter.
Kelsey was a member of the prom committee and during one of the meetings, the idea of making Meagan the prom queen for the night was floated. She said the committee members discussed the idea with the rest of the graduating class, and all of them supported it.
During the prom, which was held at Touchstone Resort in Bracebridge on May 29, the students came in their finest attire, posed for pictures … and later on that night, awarded the promo queen crown and sash to a very special person.
Meagan’s excitement at being chosen queen was only matched by the emotion of many of the students as she went up to receive her honour.
“Her face when she heard her name (as queen) and we put on her crown and sash … we were all in tears and just so happy,” Kelsey said.
The students weren’t the only ones moved by the crowning.
“When Jessie texted me telling me that Meagan had won prom queen and I read it to Michael, we both cried,” said Staci. “I still cry when I think about it, that this graduating class could give her such a spectacular, memorable moment in her life.”
Meagan got to dance with the Prom King, Tim Knight – someone who has known her since junior kindergarten – and many others during the evening, one that according to her mom, will be something Meagan will remember the rest of her life.
“The prom party as Meagan calls it, was very memorable to her and she talks about it and winning prom queen every day,” Staci said. “She has her sash on the footboard of her bed and her crown on her dresser and looks at it every day. It still makes me cry that the girls and the rest of the class did this without any prodding or interference from anyone else. They just did it out of the goodness of their hearts.”
… and they all lived happily ever after.Share your craft ideas for a share of the ad revenue. Click on Write For Us.
Sweet Wrapper Flowers
Time
Age
Level
Materials
Coloured cellophane
Popsicle sticks
Washi tape (or any tape will do)
Method
Take a square of cellophane and pinch in the middle.
Wrap another piece around in a different colour. You can add more layers for a larger flower.
Take the pinched central part and lay over the top of a popsicle stick.
Wrap tape around to secure.
Categories
At Christmas we were given a big box of Quality Street chocolates, each wrapped in brightly coloured cellophane. I saved the cellophane thinking it would come in handy for a creative project. This weekend my niece and nephew made some flowers to add to a window box they used to decorate a cardboard play house.: 5 minutes: 5-10's: MediumWhy not make lots and give a bunch as a gift or stick into a homemade window box like we did.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mayor of Grey District Tony Kokshoorn: "At the moment we cannot contact the miners"
Twenty-seven miners are missing after an explosion at a remote coal mine on New Zealand's South Island.
The mayor of Greymouth, 46km (29 miles) south-west of the Pike River mine, said the situation was "pretty serious" but that rescuers were on hand.
However, concerns about the possibility of another explosion have delayed attempts to enter the mineshaft.
There has so far been no contact with the missing miners, whose friends and relatives have gathered at the scene.
Earlier, two workers walked out of the mine with moderate injuries.
'Charred trees'
The explosion at the Pike River mine is believed to have happened at around 1530 local time (0230 GMT).
An electrician went into the mine at 1550 to investigate a power failure, and 1,500m (4,920ft) into the shaft he discovered the driver of a loader who had been blown off his machine. He then raised the alarm.
Analysis The last mining disaster to occur in New Zealand was back in 1967 at the Strongman mine, close to the mine involved in this latest accident. Then, a gas explosion killed 19 miners. Officials say better safety standards and more opencast mining have reduced fatalities, although Pike River is one of several functioning underground pits. Elsewhere, sadly, deaths are still measured in the thousands. Last year in China, which mines almost half the world's coal, a total of 2,631 miners were killed - about seven a day. But even these terrible figures are an improvement - back in 2002, the death toll almost reached 7,000. Deaths in Chinese mines make up some 70% of the global total, but other states also have poor records. In 2008, 201 people were killed in India's coal mines and 64 in Russia's, according to figures collated by the BBC. In the same year in the United States, 53 miners were killed, 35 in Colombia and 30 in Poland. These deaths and the latest incident are a reminder that coal mining is highly dangerous. The walls and roof of tunnels can fail, and there is the danger of explosions caused by gases such as methane or hydrogen sulphide. Many of these dangers can be reduced by adequate bracing of the mine, and gas drainage and monitoring equipment.
They and one other miner later emerged safely from the mine and told officials that three others were also making their way to the surface. They came out sometime later.
The operator of the mine, Pike River Coal, said that 27 workers remained unaccounted for - 15 of its staff and 12 local contractors.
Its chief executive, Peter Whittall, also denied that a body had been found.
"I've not had any reports of that at all," he said. "We've had two miners who've walked out of the mine and they're currently being spoken to and treated on the surface. We've had no communication with anyone else underground at this stage."
The two miners who emerged earlier had moderate injuries, Mr Whittall said. They are being treated at the hospital in Greymouth.
Mining experts said it could have been a methane gas explosion, a coal dust explosion, or a combination of both.
Television footage showed charred trees and light smoke billowing from the top of the mineshaft. A nearby cabin had been blown away, suggesting there had been a powerful blast.
'Worrying time'
Specialist mine rescue crews, ambulances and helicopters rushed to the mine as soon as the blast was reported.
However, the helicopters were later sent back to their bases, when it became apparent that the rescue effort might take days.
Police spokeswoman Barbara Dunn said rescuers were still assessing the safety conditions inside the mine, and making sure the ventilation system was functioning as there was a potential for a build-up of gas.
Until that happened, it was unsafe for rescuers to enter the mine, she added.
"They're itching to get in there and start looking for other people and a bit frustrated at having to stand and wait," Ms Dunn told reporters. "There is concern that ventilation inside the mine shaft may be compromised by the power outage."
Mr Whittall said every worker at Pike River carried a "safety rescue device at all times including a breathing apparatus with oxygen".
"The men are between 2 and 2.5km inside, but because the mine drills into the side of the mountain they are probably only 120m below the surface," he said.
"The issue for the rescue team will be to ensure that the ventilation underground is adequate for them to go in and find the men."
Mr Whittall added that the men might not be trapped, because they were trained to find oxygen stores and a place of safety, and then await rescue. The oxygen stores would allow them to survive for "several days".
New Zealand mine disasters 1879: Probable gas explosion kills 34 men and boys at Kaitangata mine 1896: Suspected gas explosion kills 65 men at Brunner mine, near Greymouth 1914: Gas explosion kills 43 men at Ralph's mine in Huntly 1926: Explosion kills nine men at Dobson mine, near Greymouth 1939: Carbon monoxide asphyxiates 11 men at Glen Afton mine in Huntly 1967: Gas explosion kills 19 miners at Strongman mine, near Greymouth
Prime Minister John Key said the government would put whatever resources were needed into the operation, and stood ready to support the miners' families.
"Our hearts and thoughts go out to them at this time. It will be a very worrying time for them," he said. "We will do anything humanly possible to aid the miners and to rescue them."
'Slow recovery'
Greymouth's Mayor, Tony Kokshoorn, told the BBC that the friends and relatives of the missing miners were "hanging on to hope".
"The rescue crews are doing a magnificent job. They are well trained for this and are doing everything they can. But this is going to be a very slow recovery," he said.
"Everybody knows what they are doing, but it's just a patience game. We've got support people everywhere. We've got families starting to arrive at the scene. We're just consoling them at the moment. We're setting up places for them to go.
"We're all hoping that everything will turn out all right, but it's looking pretty serious at the moment," Mr Kokshoorn added.
The Pike River mine, which employs some 150 people, has been operational since 2008 and runs deep under the Paparoa Ranges on the rugged western coast of the South Island.
It accesses the Brunner and Paparoa coal seams via a 2.3km (1.4-mile) tunnel under the mountains, which then branches out into sub-areas.
The 5.5m-wide (18ft), 4.5m-high (15ft) shaft slopes uphill near the top of the Paparoa Ranges, and bisects the Hawera fault, through which a large quantity of methane gas is known to leak.
In 2008, the former head of Pike River Coal said that because the tunnel passed through the fault, flameproof mining equipment had to be used.
Pike River is on the opposite side of the Paparoa Ranges from the former Strongman mine, where an explosion killed 19 miners in 1967.Keith Olbermann “is despised at MSNBC,” Tucker Carlson tells Mediaite.com. “He’s the most disliked person in the building by a factor of 10.” Carlson bought the Web site KeithOlbermann.com just to drive him crazier. The site redirects to Carlson’s site, DailyCaller.com, saying, “We Own You, Keith.” Carlson also owns Keith@keitholbermann.com, which he uses as a personal e-mail address. “We were confident that Keith knew so little about the Internet that he wouldn’t notice,” Carlson told Page Six. But he did, and started tweeting Thursday morning about taking legal action against Carlson for buying the domain name. Olbermann told us, “If I were Tucker Carlson, I’d pretend to be somebody else, too.” Carlson said, “I don’t have any malice toward Olbermann. I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him because of his various phobias. He won’t drive a car. He’s obviously a sad guy, in elastic-band jeans.”CALGARY — The Calgary Stampeders have re-signed national defensive lineman and special-teamer Ben D’Aguilar, the team announced Wednesday.
The four-year veteran had been eligible to become a free agent on Feb. 14.
D’Aguilar appeared in all 18 regular-season games for the Stamps in 2016 and he recorded nine special-teams tackles, two defensive tackles including one tackle for loss and a fumble recovery. In 49 career games over four seasons for Calgary, D’Aguilar has amassed 35 special-teams tackles, four defensive tackles, one forced fumble and three fumble recoveries.
“Ben has been an important contributor to our special-teams units since joining the Stampeders and we are pleased to have him back,” said president and general manager John Hufnagel.
D’Aguilar was selected by Calgary in the second round of the 2013 CFL Draft and he joined the team that year. The former McMaster University standout was the 2012 winner of the J.P. Metras Trophy as the top lineman in Canadian university football.
“Calgary is my city,” said D’Aguilar. “I found my family here and I found myself. I just love coming into the locker room every day and seeing the guys. They’re more than just teammates, they’re friends.”Cross River Productions have done a great job with this Transformice spin-off. Check out some episodes and take a look behind the scenes!
Sozap writes:
I'm currently working at Cross River Productions in Paris on a 52x1mn30s webseries based on the Transformice online videogame. Basically it's all about mice fighting for cheese. Here are a few episodes :
We are using Blender intensively for this project : for 3D of course but also for editing, color grading and compositing. Rendering is done with internal renderer and Freestyle. GCRU/Afanasy is used for the renderfarm, Photoshop, After effect and Natron for some tiny 2D work. We have set up a custom pipeline that allows us to automate a lot of tasks like linking assets in scenes and scenes in a edit.blend next to renders.
Using this process we are much more efficient, because we don't need to jump between softwares to see the result of what we are doing. If you're curious here is a screenshot of an edit file :
A typical shot/layout file :February 27, 2012, the controversial news organization Wikileaks has been publishing a large and growing trove of emails from the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc (more widely known as Stratfor). The leak publication began with 200 emails, with Wikileaks progressively publishing more and more emails through the final publication date of July 18, 2014, at which time a single file containing over 5 million emails was published. Beginning in
It has been widely reported that Monsegur used an FBI-provided laptop and often worked full-time from an FBI office New York during the nine month period that the #antisec and #lulzsec released their widely distributed hacks, including the Stratfor job. To confuse matters further, court documents include reference to a third party, someone named
The content of the emails, though of obvious political and social significance, is not relevant to our post here. Newspapers around the world have spent a significant amount of time reporting on those leaks. However, no one appears to have noticed that a significant number of the files included in the leak contain malicious files that are designed to, among other things, retrieve detailed information about the computers which have downloaded them and send them to a variety of remote systems.
My research at this time is still in progress, however given the wide circulation of this data & the apparent lack of notification of the danger in these files has convinced me to publish what little I have found immediately.
I ought to be clear from the outset: I have no information linking Wikileaks, Asssange, Hammond, Monsegur, the FBI or anyone else directly with these malicious files. That very well may change quickly as research progresses, but at no point should this post be considered finger pointing. The purpose of this post is not to assign responsibility but to ensure that the journalists and activists downloading these files or who have already downloaded these files understand the consequences and take proper precautions. If I can encourage security researchers to take a look at these files it would be a bonus.
The files in question are not being distributed directly through the wikileaks.org domain, but through a secondary domain
seem to (but doesn't entirely) rule out the notion that traffic is being diverted from Wikileaks to a fake server to fool users to download the malicious files. wlstorage.net. While the domains are separate, the wlstorage.net is linked directly from the Wikileak Global Intelligence Files web page (at https://wikileaks.org/gifiles ), the two share the same SSL certificate as well as the same IP addresses. This would(but doesn't entirely) rule out the notion that traffic is being diverted from Wikileaks to a fake server to fool users to download the malicious files.
# host wikileaks.org wikileaks.org has address 195.35.109.53 wikileaks.org has address 91.218.114.210 wikileaks.org has address 91.218.244.152 wikileaks.org has address 95.211.113.131 wikileaks.org has address 95.211.113.154 wikileaks.org has address 195.35.109.44 wikileaks.org mail is handled by 1 mx.wikileaks.org. # host wlstorage.net wlstorage.net has address 91.218.114.210 wlstorage.net has address 91.218.244.152 wlstorage.net has address 95.211.113.131 wlstorage.net has address 95.211.113.154 wlstorage.net has address 195.35.109.44 wlstorage.net has address 195.35.109.53
The Wikileaks.Org Global Intelligence Files web page
The link to wlstorage.net from Wikileaks
The link to wlstorage.net points to a list of torrent files. As mentioned previously, Wikileaks began with a small initial leak of documents, and released progressively more documents. Each of these torrents is a different version of the leak, which over time grew to include more and more files as they were apparently reviewed by the Wikileaks team. Notice that the very last torrent uses a different compression method and file nomenclature than the rest of the torrents. It is this very last file, and this file only, that I have identified malware inside of.
The Global Intelligence Files torrent files on wlstorage.net
The SSL Certificate for both domains is the same:
issuer= /C=FR/O=GANDI SAS/CN=Gandi Standard SSL CA subject= /OU=Domain Control Validated/OU=Gandi Standard Wildcard SSL/CN=*.wikileaks.org notBefore=Oct 14 00:00:00 2013 GMT notAfter=Oct 14 23:59:59 2015 GMT 00b5f826 SHA1 Fingerprint=10:B3:D9:66:7F:BC:57:B5:C1:CF:98:5B:16:E3:EC:61:A4:C3:ED:32 # echo |\ > openssl s_client -connect wikileaks.org:443 2>&1 |\ > sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIE6DCCA9CgAwIBAgIQKAc9xHmKh6q3z95GsMA9IjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADBB MQswCQYDVQQGEwJGUjESMBAGA1UEChMJR0FOREkgU0FTMR4wHAYDVQQDExVHYW5k aSBTdGFuZGFyZCBTU0wgQ0EwHhcNMTMxMDE0MDAwMDAwWhcNMTUxMDE0MjM1OTU5 WjBjMSEwHwYDVQQLExhEb21haW4gQ29udHJvbCBWYWxpZGF0ZWQxJDAiBgNVBAsT G0dhbmRpIFN0YW5kYXJkIFdpbGRjYXJkIFNTTDEYMBYGA1UEAxQPKi53aWtpbGVh a3Mub3JnMIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAwpQwc3GxL/BS gnQyIoYth18lqHwl70IYbPrM1rJnQ/kgnTOBE2ztEI8DGWAxoxZaeV7XckCTproL u6lVFQlNQWW8FxhqFwSpC6NkVUoYDcSKnxwrj9UUy15BpGwmMCUOcnIe0U1YUfGo hzJAzoqWEmXvaYnC8iIrv2Yd+jT511/Q38hjcQWJUOxQl8XNPbuQmD1WHYhH252j tEiTo9W72fhQa9Gdzxy2J4223n3iK4vQZx+RSwBF7JpbhUpCWXKqOnf6oboDtwsS TDzVpdiaMUh2PhdqJR0E+dkX3h0WT1ShLiKkb3zc0D3pRoCFRLEZXMQeDCM0aLco NHxIe4lGQwIDAQABo4IBuDCCAbQwHwYDVR0jBBgwFoAUtqj/oqgv0KbNS7Fo8+dQ EDGneSEwHQYDVR0OBBYEFGs9iHIkjSj3V1CgThX0Fs+sNogDMA4GA1UdDwEB/wQE AwIFoDAMBgNVHRMBAf8EAjAAMB0GA |
it takes to give him an edge over his drifting competition. He was excited to have MAPerformance custom build his turbo manifold, and the result is an outstanding piece of fabricated artwork! His drift car has a single cam KA24E boosted by a 5858 Precision Turbo so he needed a nice, free flowing exhaust manifold to go with it! The manifold is made here in house at MAPerformance from mandrel bent 1.5" 304SS and has a PINK (Boost for Boobies) Turbosmart HyperGate45 wastegate. The header flange is CNC machined from stainless steel to match up to the KA24E exhaust ports. The whole unit has been masterfully welded by our shop fabricator Andrew. The manifold will be going on the car in the very near future along with a bunch of new Nissan 240SX mods, and you will be able to see Eric slinging his green machine around the track this summer! Now take a look at this manifold! Keep an eye on our blog for more information regarding Proving Grounds, Eric's drift competitions, and many other events we have planned for the summer of 2014! Also, if you'd like information on fabrication or 240SX mods, feel free to comment below and we will be in touch.A bill passed by the Michigan State Senate would endanger the health of Michiganders by granting sweeping new powers to practitioners of unscientific bogus medicine and treatments, said the Center for Inquiry.
Anti-Witchcraft Campaign at CFI/Kenya
December 31, 2009
The Center for Inquiry/Kenya started 2009 on a high note, organizing the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth on February 12, 2009, in collaboration with the Anthropology department at the University of Nairobi. Many themes were discussed about the progress of science during the celebration. The Center will continue organizing this event every year and will include many learning institutions and organizations, for events like this are the best way the Center can spearhead public understanding of science in the republic.
Support our anti-superstition campaign in Africa by making a tax-deductible donation today.
February 17–19, CFI/Kenya organized a series of lectures and a workshop when Leo Igwe of the Center for Inquiry/Nigeria visited. Here, we engaged students at the University of Nairobi and Kenya Polytechnic with a talk on the dangers of superstitious beliefs. Leo also met with humanist leaders in Kenya and discussed the future of humanism in Africa. Students appreciated Leo’s enthusiasm and asked the Center to continually invite speakers to enlighten them with topics provoking their skepticism. The Center will continue inviting speakers through the help of Norm Allen Jr., transnational director at the Center for Inquiry/Transnational.
Afterward, in April, I embarked on strengthening the on campus movement by traveling to Maseno University and Kenyatta University. I met members of their student groups to discuss ways through which the movement can be strengthened and attract wider membership. There is a lot of potential for the on campus groups because students are known for being positive and flexible to new ideas. Most welcomed the ideals of secular humanism and believe it is the only means of liberating them from the many obstacles faced in a third-world republic like Kenya. We at CFI/Kenya have considered many ways to actively motivate the movement onwards, like starting essay-writing competitions and organizing debating competitions with other learning institutions.
Suddenly unreason and superstition started springing up in full force in some parts of Kenya and in other republics of Africa. The most publicized case, which made headlines in both the local and international news, was the burning of five suspected witches in Kisii, an interior village in the Nyanza province of Kenya. Then in Malindi, a small town in the coastal part of Kenya, old women and men started to be targeted with witchcraft accusations that resulted in their lynching.
In Nigeria, the witch accusations by evangelicals resulted in many children being hacked to death and others being fed with poison. News of these actions elicited a strong reaction with the public. The situation worsened further when news broke that Tanzanian albinos were being killed for their hairs, which fishermen believe can accrue large harvests of fish. Some businessmen also believe that body parts of albinos can make their businesses flourish. Hence albinos’ lives are at risk. We thought this was Tanzania’s situation, but it soon passed borders into Kenya, where many albinos went missing. After some investigation, it was brought to light that Kenyan albinos were being killed and their body parts sold to Ugandan witchdoctors who in turn sold them to businessmen.
In response to these events, the Center for Inquiry/Transnational launched an anti- witchcraft campaign, which aims to educate affected societies in Africa about the dangers of superstition and sound a call to the witch lynching that has rocked many African societies. And as other African branches embarked on this call, the Center for Inquiry/Kenya took the campaign in hand and went to the ground.
CFI/Kenya’s first approach was to visit the places where lynching took place to carry out various interviews of villagers who engaged in the lynching. In Kisii, a group of youths known as Sungu sungu were at the forefront of the lynching activities, and they believed that the witches possessed evil powers to harm the people. Hence they believed they were justified in hacking them to death. We then identified the youth organizations in these areas and made contact to engage them. Starting in February 2010, the Center will organize many anti-witchcraft educational campaigns with these youth organizations.
We also interviewed Mama Jane, whose story made both local and international headlines. Mama Jane was accused of being a witch by Pastor Muthee, and the town was about to lynch her when the police intervened. Mama Jane told us of her experiences when her life was endangered.
After carrying out the interviews, the Center embarked on anti-witchcraft activism that included organizing campaign seminars at institutions of higher learning and engaging local groups in the places where beliefs in witchcraft is most prevalent. With the materials we accumulated from this groundwork, we developed articles that we can use to educate the public. Our findings reveal that most belief in witchcraft is a result of lack of information about various phenomena. For example, in the case in which five old women were burned as witches, a report afterward on BBC revealed that the boy who was suspected having been bewitched was suffering from epilepsy. Those who did not understand this cause assumed that witchcraft was the culprit.
Of course superstitious ideas have been recognized as one of the main causes of human rights violation in most countries of Africa, which is why the United Nations listed it as its number one agenda for that area.
On September 1, taxi operators in Nairobi staged a protest against the murder of thirteen taxi operators. They were the victims of killings by unknown people who are suspected to have been working for various witchdoctors in the month of August. The bodies were found missing parts and organs such as the brain, skull, and tongue. These taxi drivers were approached by people who pretended to need transportation from the capital city, and they never returned. To the public’s surprise and dismay, their mutilated bodies were found dumped on the roadside.
We had our last campaign seminar on November 14 at the University of Nairobi, whose students saw the need to be actively involved in the campaign. They believed that with the right education and reading materials from the Center, they could spearhead the fight against superstition. The Center will continue to take the lead in this fight and will continue engaging other organizations and learning institutions.
As a leading humanist movement in Kenya, the Center has been consulted by many humanist organizations. On November 25, the executive director of the Center for Inquiry/Kenya was the guest of honor in the Launching of Kenya Humanist Movement. The Center and Kenya Humanist Movement have written a petition that has been distributed to humanist leaders for signing in support of initiation of the International Day against Witchcraft Violence.
Right now we see homophobia in Uganda, where the right of gays and lesbians are at risk because fundamentalist conservative leaders in the parliament have introduced a bill that prohibits same sex marriage. We hope it will never cross the borders and reach Kenya. As humanists, we will strive to see that each and every individual is given the right to practice what they think is best for their lives without interference from religion and authority. And as we prepare to vote for our new constitution, humanists have been keen on the rights of individuals; rights should not be interfered with by religious leaders who want to plant their slave morality on the heads of the masses.
The Center for Inquiry/Kenya will continue to work hard with institutions of higher learning. In 2010 and after, the Center will start working with the media as well. This is because our works have attracted the Kenya Times, which has shown particular interest in our anti-witchcraft campaign.
Onward!From The Hollywood Reporter:
By the end of the year, the $4.05 billion sale of Lucasfilm to Disney should be finalized. And since George Lucas owns 100 percent of his company – which has little to no debt – all that money goes to him.
After that, Lucas plans to quickly put the bulk of the money into a foundation which will primarily focus on educational issues, a spokesperson for Lucasfilm tells THR.
“George Lucas has expressed his intention, in the event the deal closes, to donate the majority of the proceeds to his philanthropic endeavors.”
…
“For 41 years, the majority of my time and money has been put into the company,” Lucas said in a statement Wednesday. “As I start a new chapter in my life, it is gratifying that I have the opportunity to devote more time and resources to philanthropy.”
The spokesperson noted that this “announcement continues a commitment that Lucas made in 2010 to The Giving Pledge where he stated, “I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education. It is the key to the survival of the human race. We have to plan for our collective future–and the first step begins with social, emotional, and intellectual tools we provide to our children. As humans, our greatest tool for survival is our ability to think and to adapt–as educators, storytellers, and communicators our responsibility is to continue to do so.'”Rush Limbaugh had some harsh words for Mitt Romney on Tuesday, over the candidate's response to the Supreme Court's immigration ruling.
The court recently determined that certain parts of Arizona's controversial immigration policy are unconstitutional. Romney was criticized for his late and vague response to the decision. He said that he "would have preferred to see the Supreme Court give more latitude to the states."
On Tuesday, Limbaugh expressed his frustration with Romney's reaction, calling it "tepid" and a "red flag" for the campaign. The radio host declared that "Mitt Romney blew it" with his response.
"The Romney campaign was not ready for primetime on this illegal immigration Arizona decision," Limbaugh insisted, noting that it was the first time he thought that in a while. He added that he thought the campaign has been doing a "superb job" rapidly responding to new developments.I sat on the floor in the bedroom and thought long and hard about it. How could I affix that belt to the door and wrap it around my neck to take my life? I was overwhelmed with sadness and guilt and I wanted it to end. I also thought it would be easier for everyone if I wasn’t here.
My single mother had three kids, but our landlord said she could only have two children living in the apartment. She accepted the terms; the alternative was homelessness. Our story was that my twin brothers officially lived with my mother but I lived with a relative, and if anyone saw me on the property we were to say that I was just visiting so my mother wouldn’t get evicted.
I felt like I had to hide myself, not be seen. I tried to take up as little space as possible until I felt incredibly small, worthless. But the fact is I was visible. I was taking up space, eating food, needing clothes, needing resources that our family really did not have.
I knew how hard it was for my mother to find low-income housing. I knew how hard it was for her to keep three constantly growing kids clothed and fed. And I knew how hard it was to keep feeling the shame of living in poverty and the sorrow of feeling like a burden on my family. Since I was the one who wasn’t supposed to live in the apartment, I thought it would be best if I didn’t live at all. So I seriously thought about ending my life. I was 8 years old.
Depression has been a constant part of my life since then. A lot of people don’t know that. Like most black people it’s not something I talk about openly with everyone. I’m already black, a woman, and overweight. Why add another stigmatized identity? Why give people another reason to doubt my capability? Why threaten my professional reputation? Why be vulnerable? As a community, some of us either suffer in silence or keep our mental health issues between us and the Lord.
But our silence is killing us. Health disparities that include higher rates of some cancers, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and other serious illnesses among African-Americans lead to premature deaths. Physical conditions can often be related to untreated mental health issues.
Race and racism both play a significant role in black people’s vulnerability to mental health distress and our reluctance to seek treatment, Kevin Washington, Ph.D., president of the Association of Black Psychologists, tells SELF. “Racism and our response to it kills us more than anything."
The Psychological Scars of Racism
In the days after the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, the St. Louis suburb erupted in protests. Demonstrators and police clashed. Military tanks rumbled down streets. Even after the war zone atmosphere subsided, people were left reeling. St. Louis clinical psychologist Marva Robinson, Psy.D., helped provide mental health services for the black residents of Ferguson in the wake of the events. She tells SELF that she witnessed a community that was “traumatized, devastated, torn apart, and left without the appropriate resources to help it rebuild.”
Many of the residents in Ferguson experienced trauma and mental distress, according to a 2016 study published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress. Black residents of Ferguson who participated in the study had significantly higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression than white residents in the months after protests.
The tragedy in Ferguson—and the psychological toll it took on people there—was at once an extreme example and a microcosm of the damaging effects of institutionalized racism in this country. The same conditions that are present there exist across the nation, Robinson says, and this race-based trauma that black people often encounter leaves them susceptible to mental health conditions and in need of treatment.
Black people are 10 percent more likely to report serious psychological distress than non-Hispanic whites, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. People who experience racial microaggressions—insults, invalidations, and interpersonal slights (subtle and often unintentional)—are more likely to show symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to a 2014 Journal of Counseling & Development study. Research demonstrates that racism can adversely affect mental health in direct and indirect ways. It can inflict psychological trauma, create unfavorable socioeconomic conditions that increase the risk of psychiatric disorders by as much as threefold, and lead to negative feelings of self-worth and wellbeing.
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“Every day you are struggling against a known traumatic event called racism,” Robinson says. “At every turn you’re reminded that you are a second-class citizen and you don’t have access to things that you should. That’s damaging to the psyche."
Going It Alone
Even facing a heightened risk of mental health issues, many of us don't seek treatment. Research shows that as many as two thirds of people with depression don't get treated, and that black people are less likely to get treatment than non-Hispanic whites.
“There’s a history of being denigrated or dehumanized and not wanting to have one more thing be wrong,” Washington says. Mental health doesn’t top the priorities list. “We don’t have time to be sad or depressed because we have too many things we have to deal with right now.”
Washington notes that many black people may expend a lot of energy using "high-effort" coping strategies to deal with the prolonged psychosocial stress imposed by racial discrimination—a behavioral predisposition called John Henryism. (The name comes from the story of an African-American folk hero from the 1800s who bested a machine in a steel-driving contest but died immediately after due to overexertion.) Studies show a link between this kind of active coping strategy and high blood pressure.
John Henryism is often applied to black men, but women are not immune to the fallout from constantly fighting oppression and inequality. Centuries-old archetypes project black women as having bodies and nerves of steel and make it unacceptable to show vulnerability. The strong black woman stereotype, historically used to justify abusing and oppressing black women, now calls for them to be impenetrable, twice as good as their white counterparts, and to never appear fragile. That’s a luxury black people feel they cannot afford in a world that already perceives them negatively.
These notions of strength and weakness extend into perceptions of mental health and treatment thereof. Some black people see therapy as a “white thing,” says Monica A. Coleman, Ph.D., a professor of constructive theology and African-American religions at the Claremont School of Theology who has written two books about her experiences with depression. White people can afford to be human, be vulnerable, seek mental health care ; black people can’t.
“I think there is also the stigma that’s tied to our relationship with the medical industry,” Coleman tells SELF. “The ways in which we’ve been abused by medical systems, not trusting them with our bodies with good reasons—forced sterilizations, the Tuskegee experiment.”
Robinson agrees: "There’s always been this history of teaching us where our place is and where it isn’t. So you are born out of a legacy of trauma—historical trauma—and in the current day you still experience it. It only makes for individuals to be distrustful of larger institutions.”
But by not seeking help when mental health issues arise, she says, African-Americans often do not get treatment until they are in dire need. “We tend to stuff things down, hold it within, and keep moving forward until something happens and a person has an acute crisis and they’re forced to have an interaction with an institution because of some sort of a psychiatric break." Black people are less likely than white people to receive medication or outpatient counseling for major depression and more likely to end up in the emergency room.
Church and Therapy
For many black people, the church is where they turn for mental and emotional relief. That can be good but also problematic, says Coleman, author of Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman's Journey With Depression and Faith. She says that charismatic worship, holy dancing, and spirituals can be useful resources for African-Americans to manage stress. “Being able to express how you feel is a great form of self-care.” Being connected to a congregation can also give a person a sense of community, ritual, discipline, and routine, things that support health and wellbeing. “Studies show that having faith is good for your health," she says. "People who have faith and pray and have some sense of a greater power tend to heal faster and feel better.”
But black people’s dependence on the church only for mental wellness can be problematic. “So many people take their problems to their clergy first,” Coleman says. “The average clergy person is ill-equipped to deal with most of the stuff that comes to us.”
She adds that sometimes messages about mental health and spirituality clash. Some traditions hold that "if you’re not well or great or happy it’s because of a lack of faith, [or] because you haven’t prayed right, because you haven’t given right,” she says. “Those kinds of things negate the experiences that people have around mental health.”
Faith leaders can help their black parishioners by not stigmatizing mental health conditions and by being connected to mental health professionals and providing referrals, Coleman says. In turn, mental health professionals must also understand the ways in which black people’s spiritual connections are linked to their culture, Washington says. Incorporating faith traditions into mental health care can lead to better outcomes for patients.
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But finding a therapist can be hard. African-Americans living in medically underserved communities may encounter a dearth of qualified professionals, often compounded by limitations due to health insurance or lack thereof. And there are less obvious challenges, too, Washington warns, like the insidious seeping of racism into patient care. Robinson concurs, adding that some of the unconscious bias that mental health professionals possess makes it difficult to find a clinician equipped to deal with black people’s unique experiences.
The first time I went to see a counselor, in my 20s as an undergraduate, I was referred to a white female clinician who was in her 50s. When we talked about one of the things that bothered me the most—the racism and sexual harassment that I experienced on my job—she asked me if I was sure people were disrespectful and unprofessional toward me because I’m a black woman. Maybe, she suggested, it was just my “attitude.” I’ve only seen black women therapists since then.
If finding a therapist is hard, finding a black mental health professional can feel impossible. African-American psychologists made up just 5.3 percent of the active psychology workforce in 2013, according to the American Psychological Association. Noting that "black clients are more likely to continue therapy beyond the first few sessions when seeing a black therapist," and that until recently, "access to preventive mind health services was limited to the wealthy, usually white middle class," the website africanamericantherapist.com lets people search for black therapists in major cities.
Opening Up to Opening Up
Addressing these hurdles to effective care is imperative—but first black people struggling with mental illness have to admit they need help and go out to seek it. And that often doesn't happen. Washington, along with members of the Association of Black Psychologists, is trying to change that with grassroots initiatives to get trusted leaders in black communities to encourage open, productive dialog about mental health. His barbershop initiative coaches barbers to talk to their clients about mental health. He is also calling on black sororities and fraternities, which have a long history of performing community service for African-Americans, to make psychological wellbeing a focus.
Having more of these open conversations in the black community can help destigmatize mental health issues and seeking treatment, says Jill Harkavy-Friedman, Ph.D., vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. TV shows and celebrities raising awareness about mental health issues also help to start community conversations, she says. Fox's hit Empire addresses one character's bipolar disorder and his family's complex reaction to it. Last fall, hip-hop artist Kid Cudi wrote publicly on Facebook about the "shame" of struggling with anxiety and depression and checking himself into an inpatient treatment center. In her memoir, released this month, actress Gabourey Sidibe reveals, "When I first told [my mother] I was depressed, she laughed at me. Literally. Not because she’s a terrible person, but because she thought it was a joke. How could I not be able to feel better on my own, like her, like her friends, like normal people?"
“Knowing that there are other people who feel the same way and there are things they can do about it has tremendous impact,” says Harkavy-Friedman, whose foundation consulted on an episode of the BET drama Being Mary Jane in 2015 when a black woman character on the show committed suicide.
For me, seeking mental health services became necessary when the depression became overwhelming. I knew I couldn’t pray it away like my sanctified Grandmama, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore if I really wanted to live beyond the pain. Whether it was the toxic job-related discrimination I faced in my 30s, or the sorrow of losing close loved ones, experiencing a string of disappointments and the stress of going through a doctorate program in my 40s, depression cycled through every decade of my life.
But I’ve worked to manage it and seek help. Most importantly, I started to view caring for my mental health as a revolutionary act, a form of resistance to the forces of oppression that were threatening to extinguish me, a working-class black woman. I come from a legacy of people who fought simply to be and I view my effort to fight my depression as a battle for freedom.
If you or someone you know is struggling with a mental health disorder, visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness website for valuable resources to find help and support, or call the toll-free helpline at 800-950-NAMI (6264). Visit the website africanamericantherapist.com to find black therapists in major cities.
Watch: "I have a pre-existing condition": Real People Share Their Health Conditions in Response to the AHCAThe Fact via Nate1. [+591, -42] I wish she'd just quit Instagram, it does nothing but cut down at her image. She looks so pretty when you only look at her in media pictures like this.2. [+492, -92] So pretty3. [+186, -7] She looks like a crazy person on Instagram but so normal at public events..4. [+48, -10] Probably her best pictures as of late5. [+45, -9] With beauty like hers, she could seduce any male idol or actor;;;;;;;;; but Choiza picked Sulli while she was ripe and naive...6. [+36, -6] Can't deny that she's unbelievably pretty7. [+33, -7] I personally think she's the idol one top when it comes to beauty ㅠㅠ has such an aura to her8. [+29, -5] She looks as fresh as spring flowers9. [+28, -2] She looks great here... but sad that there doesn't seem to be anyone around her who is an actual help to her life10. [+23, -2] Pretty. Let's quit SNS now. I hope her family is looking after her. Seeing news about her SNS activities makes me feel so sad for her...Doctor Whooves
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvRrR0…Dali discovery jogs memories in the arts world
Nicolas Petrov was shocked and happy to learn that the Carnegie Museum of Art still had the giant stage curtain painted by Salvador Dali in 1942 for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
"I thought it was lost or destroyed," said Dr. Petrov, founding director of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and the man who transported the curtain from New York to Pittsburgh in a rented truck in 1976. Five years later, he was told that nobody knew where it was.
In fact, the enormous oil-on-canvas rendering of Theseus fighting the Minotaur had been rolled up in a museum storage closet since its acquisition more than 30 years ago. Chief curator Louise Lippincott got curious about it while researching another project relating art and dance, so the staff hauled it out and unfurled it last week to examine its condition and figure out how to display it.
Dr. Petrov, 77, was a leading dancer with the Ballet Russe from 1955 to 1967 and a protege of its choreographer, Leonide Massine. Dr. Petrov left the company and founded the PBT, where he was director from 1968 to 1977.
When Mr. Massine was emptying his Long Island house of its contents, he offered Dr. Petrov the curtain, or "drop," as in backdrop, designed for the Ballet Russe touring production of "Labyrinth." In exchange, Mr. Massine requested what Dr. Petrov calls "a donation."
Dr. Petrov said he went to industrialist Leon Falk Jr., husband of the PBT's founding chairwoman, Loti Falk, and a major patron of the ballet.
Mr. Falk, a big fan of Dali, gave Massine about $1,800 for the Minotaur. In return, Dr. Petrov offered Mr. Falk the curtain, and the two men joked about what to do with something so oversized.
"He couldn't hang it in his living room," Dr. Petrov said of the piece that is 10 feet higher than the museum's highest gallery wall.
Dr. Petrov, now a professor of dance at Point Park University, said he used the drop once, for the 1976 PBT production of "Fantasia" at Heinz Hall, which is captured on video. Soon afterward, Mr. Falk donated it to the Carnegie.
About five years later, Dr. Petrov called the museum about using the curtain for a revival of "Fantasia" at Point Park.
"They didn't know where it was," he said. "I thought I would not see it again."
He staged the ballet anyway using a projection of a different Dali painting, and didn't think much more about the curtain until reading about it in the Post-Gazette.
In the week since the story appeared, more information has emerged about the rediscovered work.
For one thing, the recorded dimensions were wrong. It was registered in the museum's records as roughly 26 1/2 feet high by 49 1/2 feet wide. But when workers measured it last week, it was about 10 feet narrower, according to Dr. Lippincott.
No, it didn't shrink, she said.
"I just think our records were very inaccurate. I don't know why."
In addition, the signature of Gala Salvador Dali, incorporating the name of Dali's wife, was not due to her input on the artistic work, as Dr. Lippincott had thought.
Instead, it was Dali's homage to Gala, his lifelong inspiration and muse, according to the publicity director of the original Salvador Dali Museum in Beachwood, Ohio (now relocated to St. Petersburg, Fla.),
"Gala was his leading model and many of the females in his paintings are, in fact, Gala," said Paul Chimera of Buffalo, N.Y.
"But she had no role in the conceptualization or execution of any of his work. He venerated her so much that he often signed his works Gala Salvador Dali or just Gala Dali, but it was strictly out of reverence for her. It was his way of linking them. He looked at them as inseparable. It was an important role," he said, but not a hands-on one.
She did, however, help with the handling of her husband's financial affairs, Mr. Chimera said.
News of the curtain's existence has created a stir in the art world, Dr. Lippincott said.
"There's a lot of excitement about it," she said. "We definitely want to do an exhibition at some point, so stay tuned."
Sally Kalson can be reached at skalson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1610.
First published on January 7, 2010 at 12:00 am
Correction/Clarification: (Published Jan. 8, 2010) The original Salvador Dali Museum was in Beachwood, Ohio. This story as originally published Jan. 7, 2010 about the Dali stage curtain at Carnegie Museum misstated the city's name.James Ehrlich, founder of ReGen Villages, commissioned Danish architectural firm EFFEKT to envision a future where self-sustaining communities could grow their own food and produce their own energy. ReGen Villages are planned off-grid communities that address issues ranging from climate change to food security through sustainable design. They plan to start building these utopian communities this summer.
There are five principles behind the ReGen Villages: “Energy positive homes. Door-step high-yield organic food production. Mixed renewable energy and storage. Water and waste recycling. Empowerment of local communities.”
Related: Circular Hakka Houses Create Self-Sustaining Communities
Homes in these gorgeous communities are totally designed for sustainable living. They’re powered by photovoltaic solar panels, but passive heating and cooling systems take pressure off the electrical use of each house. Families grow their own vegetables and fruit in connected greenhouses. Together, the houses form a “shared local eco-system.”
Villages include several public squares that are equipped with electric car-charging stations, and there are also vertical aquaponic farming spaces. The community shares water storage facilities and waste-to-resource systems. In addition, there are areas for livestock, communal dining, playgrounds, and community learning centers.
EFFEKT Partner Simon Lynge told Dezeen, “Our modern lifestyle is utterly unsustainable and this calls for more resilient solutions for the future. The technology already exists, it is just a matter of applying science into the architecture of everyday life. ReGen Villages is engineering and facilitating the development of off-grid, integrated, and resilient neighborhoods that power and feed self-reliant families around the world. The time has come to redefine residential real-estate development for the next three billion people coming to the planet.”
ReGen Villages already has plans to take their vision to the next level with the first community to be built in the Netherlands this summer. They’re also planning pilot projects in Sweden, Germany, Norway, and Denmark, with plans in the early stages for communities in China, Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.
+ ReGen Villages
Via DezeenIn January 2014 I've published an article about the popularity of Perl in 2013. In that article I've also included a number of Ruby sites as well. This year I've moved the Ruby part to a separate article and added quite a few other sites.
I wanted to figure out which are the most popular sites in terms of pageviews and visitors.
As I don't have access to the logs of these sites, the second best approach is to look at the Alexa ranking of the sites. While it is far from being perfect, it seems to have a strong correllation to what Google Analytics reports.
This year for most of the sites I only have the current ranking, but it can already provide you some insight, and next year it will be really interesting to see how each one of these sites have changed.
If I have missed a site, that you think is important, please let me know!
Please note, the ranks mean "this is the N-th most popular site among all the sites in the world". So the smaller the number, the more popular the site is.
If you would like to get Ruby-related news to your in-box, sign up to the Ruby Weekly.
See also relative popularity of programming languages in 2014.Based off of Tom Brady's triumphant return and his admission that he feels better than he did ten years ago, Michael Smith thinks all signs point to Brady playing until 50 years old. (1:59)
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will turn 40 next summer but has said his goal is to play into the next decade.
That goal seems right on track after Sunday's 33-13 victory over the Browns, because it appears Brady won't be slowing down anytime soon. The four-time Super Bowl champion returned to action with a decisive performance, going 28-of-40 for 406 yards with three touchdowns after serving a four-game suspension to open the season as part of the NFL's Deflategate punishment.
Editor's Picks Brady in midseason form with 406 |
, and facilitated pub-going. For Ash it was a solely intellectual riddle. Guinness fiddled at the margins with the “draft problem” from 1932 until Ash got there, and then he set about solving it the way a mathematician would solve any problem.
Show me a brewer and I’ll show you a romantic. But Ash, back at the brewery for the first time in decades, didn’t get a tear in his eye for the old days. Instead, talking about his starring role in this drama seemed to spark anew that curiosity for discovery. He was energized by talking about how he’d solved the problem.
The Guinness of that era was a very different company. Bringing in non-brewers precisely so they would arrive at new solutions to old problems was a radical move. It undermined conventional wisdom—and the people who were committed to the status quo. Guinness decided to follow Ash’s lead and allowed its product to become transformed by a new dispensing system. It was the kind of move modern, risk-averse corporations (like Diageo, Guinness’ parent company) don’t make—and perhaps rightly so. Fundamentally changing a product can destroy a company. Yet there was a time when they were willing to do it, and that posture changed the trajectory of one part of brewing.
In any case, the next time you have a pint of beer on nitro, raise it to Michael Ash. You wouldn’t be drinking it without him.
Jeff Alworth is the author of the book, The Beer Bible (Workman, 2015). Follow him on Twitter or find him at his blog, Beervana.Every red dot on the map represents a shelter for asylum seekers - and there are red dots all over Germany.
A quick look at the online map, whose title translates roughly to "No refugee center in my backyard", suggests there is little space left in Germany that isn't already home to an asylum center or refugee shelter. Dots on the map are of equal size regardless of whether an address houses a single refugee or over a hundred.
A click on a dot offers more information - often, it's a full address with a street name and number. Sometimes the extra information spells out how many refugees currently live at a shelter or details how many people will reside at a center currently under construction. The former British military base in Niederkrüchten, for example, is expected to house "up to 1,000 asylum seekers," the map said.
In other instances, it's pointed out how refugees are "taking over" - a former medical clinic will be turned into a home for asylum seekers, just like a former school gym or a parish hall.
This house was slated to house refugees in Tröglitz in Germany's east but was burned down in April
Map linked to neo-Nazi group
The creators of the map, which uses the Google Map service, have requested help filling in details about the refugee homes' locations and sizes from people willing to send addresses to an email address that appears to be affiliated with German neo-Nazi group "The Third Way." The group has published guidelines with the same title as the map and gives detailed information on how to prevent shelters for asylum seekers.
The group also provides a guide on how to organize anti-asylum demonstrations, mobilize people against the construction of refugee accommodation and put pressure on local politicians so that the shelters are not built to avoid what the group calls the "flood of asylum seekers."
Stirring up hate
Activists have called on Google to delete the map, arguing that it stirs up hate and promotes violence against asylum seekers.
Google is currently investigating the matter, Google Germany spokesperson Lena Heuermann told DW: "MyMaps is a neutral platform that [people] can use to publish geographical information. We will of course remove every map that violates our guidelines and we are currently reviewing if that is the case."
Google was unable to comment on how many users had sent in requests to take down the map or when the map was first created.
A police officer investigates an arson attack on a former guest house in Bavaria
The map does not explicitly call on people to attack refugee homes. Instead it says it wants to prevent abuse of German asylum laws by people who do not require legal protection. Text accompanying the map says that just 2 percent of asylum requests are approved by German authorities.
Statistics from the German Interior Ministry for 2014, however, show that while 1.8 percent of applicants received asylum status, another 24 percent of people applying for shelter in Germany were recognized as refugees deserving protection.
There, is, however little that can be done in terms of legal prosecution when it comes to the map, said Robert Lüdecke of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which works to eliminate neo-Nazism and right-wing extremism. The foundation is one of the groups that have urged Google to take down the map.
"We realize, of course, that [deleting the map] is not the solution that will solve all problems, but it's important to send a message to operators such as Google to say that we don't tolerate such a thing," Lüdecke told DW.
Refugees at risk
Revealing the addresses posed a threat to asylum seekers, he added. That's also the case with shelters that have yet to be built or converted to housing.
"As soon as I say this is going to be housing for asylum seekers, there is the fear and risk as we've seen in the past months and years that right-wing extremists mobilize early on to prevent such housing projects," he added. "This, unfortunately, seems to be a tactic that's working."
German authorities said there has been an increase in right-wing violence
Figures from Germany's Interior Ministry published last month show that 990 right-wing attacks took place in 2014, an increase of 24 percent compared to 2013. Of last year's violent incidents, 512 of the cases were xenophobic attacks.
In the early hours of Thursday, a building in the southern German state of Bavaria that was slated to house refugees was set ablaze. Last weekend, a shelter in Saxony in Germany's east was shot at two nights in a row, bursting windows and scaring residents.
"They don't just want to document addresses, they also want to visualize this 'wave' of asylum seekers they always talk about," Lüdecke said. "They don't just want to reach the potential violent criminals and racists, but also those who might voice their displeasure with refugees and tell them: 'Look, in every German state there are refugees now and it's time to act.'
"I really fear that this map could provide a travel route for right-wing extremists," Lüdecke said.Django Developer (Contract)
OpenUp is seeking an experienced Python + Django developer to help work on an existing Django project, along with one other senior backend developer. Duration: Contract role, 2-3 months
Salary: Commensurate with years of experience
Starting date: Immediately Requirements At least two years Django and Python experience
At least three years software development experience
Familiarity with GitHub and GitHub Pages beneficial
Familiarity with Pandas or a similar data processing library beneficial
Able to self-manage, communicate clearly and work as part of a small team (2-3 people)
Able to be on-site in Claremont for at least the first 3-4 weeks, in order to come up to speed on the project.
How to apply: Apply for this position by sending an email to [email protected]. Please attach both your CV and a cover letter.Last weekend’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Michigan International Speedway was shaping up to be a big day for Brad Keselowski Racing.
Team owner Brad Keselowski’s foundation was the presenting sponsor of the race, his two team trucks driven by Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney swept the front row in qualifying, there were a host of guests in attendance, and all of it was taking place at Michigan native Keselowski’s home track.
However, once the race got underway, both trucks struggled mightily. Falling back through the pack, the team trucks both hit pit road on separate laps with issues in the nose section of the truck.
Article continues below...
As Keselowski joined the FOX Sports 1 broadcast team in the booth, he watched as both trucks had the lower section of the nose separate from their truck, as the crew members did their best to make repairs. At the end of the day, Logano would finish 18th, while Blaney finished a disappointing 21st.
Wednesday at Bristol Motor Speedway, Blaney indicated the issue was the result of a directive by NASCAR before qualifying to make a change to the nose section of the car; a directive that NASCAR would eventually apologize to BK Racing for making, according to Blaney and crew chief Doug Randolph.
"It’s taken care of," Blaney said of the issue. "It was a miscommunication on NASCAR’s and our team’s part before qualifying. It wasn’t anything we did different to our trucks. … Then they came up to us after the race and said, ‘Sorry, that was our fault. You didn’t have to adjust your noses.’ So, it was nothing that we did. It was just a miscommunication."
According to Randolph, crew chief on the BKR No. 19 Ford, that miscommunication was a mistake by a NASCAR official prior to qualifying.
"It’s a strange situation," Randolph told FOXSports.com. "We were asked going through tech — not original tech, but tech right before qualifying — to cut the nose guard on the front of our trucks, just our two trucks. Have never had to do that before. Never really had an issue with the nose before. They asked us to do that.
"At the end of the day, the inspector was just wrong," Randolph added. "She thought it was a character line instead of a seam that was already there, where the two pieces of nose come together."
Brad Keselowski Racing had high hopes for last week’s race at Michigan International Speedway until an issue with the nose on both trucks ruined the team’s chance at victory.
Randolph explained that by cutting the nose section of both trucks, air was allowed to get in the gap and — at the high-speed, high-downforce track — hat hurt the handling of the trucks and caused the nose sections to come apart during the race.
After the incident, Randolph said the team was able determine things they can do in the future that will prevent it from happening again, regardless of whether NASCAR calls on the team to make adjustments.
"I definitely think that what they made us do going through tech exposed that weakness," he said. "I think looking back at it, (NASCAR) understands that an official made an error there. There’s different character lines for different manufacturers, and I think she just got confused at what she was looking at."
With so much emphasis and momentum on the weekend, Randolph said, "words can’t describe the frustration we had as a company."
For team owner Brad Keselowski, the best thing his organization can do is learn from the experience and move forward, not dwell on what took place.
"It’s unfortunate, but you can’t race last week," Keselowski told FOXSports.com prior to Wednesday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Bristol. "It’s done, it’s over, we have to move forward."
Watching everything unfold from the television booth, Keselowski said the most difficult part was not knowing the cause of the issue.
"There were no facts," he said. "Obviously, that was not what we wanted to see happen. I was disappointed. But at the end of the day, it just looked like it was just an honest mistake."
Keselowski said NASCAR Camping World Truck Series director Chad Little came up to the team after the Michigan race to apologize to the team, something Keselowski called "a nice gesture."
"With the officiating process, and NASCAR cutting down the number of officials at the track, the expertise from series to series and knowing the rules is not as strong as it used to be," he said. "In this particular situation, you have to challenge the officials, and we didn’t. So, that was our fault."
NASCAR officials described the incident as a miscommunication between officials and the team, and said the incident was discussed with the team after the race.Below EW interviews Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker about the upcoming fourth season of his Emmy-winning Netflix series. Don’t worry, Brooker avoids anything resembling a spoiler about his ever-twisty and twisted anthology drama, but he does offer several tantalizing teases about the new season, which includes the show’s first black and white episode, a 74-minute epic and a “Treehouse of Horror”-style anthology (a’ la “White Christmas”).
But first, you might want to watch this Black Mirror season 4 teaser video, if you haven’t already, which we refer to during the interview:
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Last season you described the episodes as a collection of outliers. At first glance from the teaser trailer, “U.S.S. Callister” aside, several of these seem like more traditional Black Mirror episodes?CHARLIES BROOKER: All the episodes are intrinsically Black Mirror and also aren’t. Like “Metalhead” [photo above] is very unlike any episode we’ve done before. It’s a deliberately paired down and brutal tale. If you imagine every season like an album, this is like a 2-minute punk single. Each is pretty different from every episode we’ve done before and it’s difficult to explain why until you’ve seen them.
The “Metalhead” teaser gave us a glimpse of one of those horrifying Boston Robotics-style robots and a woman running, which makes us suspect a bot has run amuck.
Your instincts are not entirely incorrect there. Weirdly, the inspiration for this episode was I was trying to set myself a challenge of how paired back can I get. What’s a literally black-and-white story we can tell?
In the teaser for “Arkangel,” we have a device and a child…
Tone wise, that’s almost within the world of an indie drama — and you could say that’s classic Black Mirror. It’s about a mother and a daughter and a technological opportunity that comes along that’s seized upon [and then Brooker laughs a bit wickedly].
How did you land Jodie Foster to direct? That’s a huge score.
Netflix had worked with her before and they suggested Jodie. We were like, “Really? You think she would?” We had a Skype conversation during which I managed to keep my cool and not freak out. She responded to the script and she had a lot of thoughts and suggestions on the characters so there were a lot of adjustments. She’s not just a gun for hire, she’s incredibly intelligent and comes in with some thoughts on the material. Which is what you want in a director because each story is a stand-alone [episode], so you want each to be idiosyncratic to that director. And she brought a lot of that.
“U.S.S. Callister” is the WTF of the clips…
It certainly sticks out. Last time when we first released some images it was “San Junipero” that threw [fans], and that’s certainly the case with “Callister” this time around. In a way, [the story] is what it appears to be… and also obviously this is also Black Mirror. There’s certainly more to it than meets the eye.
Are they are other inspirations for that one other than the obvious — Star Trek?
There definitely was but if I say what it is then it gives it away. I will say there have been questions about how is Black Mirror going to address Trump and Brexit and the way the world is now. I kept saying, “Well it isn’t, really.” We tried not to think about that. But if you look at “Callister” there are some stuff that leaked in from the outside world. There is stuff that has to do with regimes, you could say, that’s not there and also very much there.
The vibe I got from “Crocodile” is isolation and paranoia. How far off am I?
Not entirely off! No one has guessed what that one’s about yet, probably because it’s got the most opaque title of all of them. That title tells you nothing, in the way that Reservoir Dogs doesn’t tell you anything about Reservoir Dogs. It’s a title that was echoing around in my head for all sorts of reasons that have no relation what’s going on there. So I’m happy to keep it that way. It’s a fairly taut story; it’s kind of a thriller…
For “Hang the DJ” you got the great Tim Van Patten (Game of Thrones) on board to direct and my guess on that one is some sort of dating app twist.
That’s not a million miles away. There’s a hint of that. It’s probably more societal. We’ve gone for lots of different tones this season. There’s a couple more comedic. There’s some that are not nihilistically horrible from beginning to end and there are others that are. This is one that’s more enjoyable [yet once again laughs].
“Black Museum.” Um, something to do with race relations?
No, a black museum in the U.K. is a crime museum. It’s a phrase I didn’t realize wasn’t a universal phrase. That’s a “Treehouse of Horror.” We did “White Christmas” before. The show itself is an anthology and that was an anthology within an anthology. I always wanted to do another one of those and that’s what this is. You’re getting several stories. “Tales from the Black Museum” we could have called it. There’s quite a lot going on there. We do little nods and winks to previous stories we’ve done.
Which is not something you normally ever do, right?
Right. My position on this has changed. I used to say “they’re all individual stories.” Emotionally, they are. Sometimes I’d make suggestions for something in a news ticker or a Facebook feed that eludes to other stories. Certainly, by the time I got to “Hated in the Nation” I could have them refer to the case that’s central to “White Bear,” because why not? With “Black Museum” I realized we can build upon previous episodes. The basic rule with Black Mirror is you never have to see another episode of Black Mirror, so it doesn’t matter if “Black Museum” is the first episode you see. But if you have seen the rest you’ll see quite explicit nods — literal plots and devices and references to things we’ve done before.
Wouldn’t it be too horrible if all these things in your show were happening in the same world though?
Well, they are and they’re not. It’s weird. It’s interesting that I’ve now become convinced this is a shared universe and was once convinced it wasn’t. I think I’m right in saying in “Black Museum” we have a reference to every episode we’ve ever done but I’m not sure if they’ll all end up on screen.
Have you started anguishing over the order of the episodes yet?
Yes. We’re pretty sure what opens and closes the season, but we’re still working out the order of what’s in between. We’ve got a real variety of tone again this season. We run the gambit between the most broadly accessible mainstream commercial story we’ve ever done and the most gritty and hard-nosed. In that respect, we’re gonna piss off everyone. Last time we felt opening with “Nosedive” was a good gambit because not only was it a very good episode but it was also accessible and we could ease you into the anthology. This time around we think [viewers have] a little more knowledge about the basic concept so we’re going to open with a bit of an epic. I think also in 2017 people need a bit of f—ing cheering up. Black Mirror might not be the obvious show to call for that — and don’t get me wrong, this is not a series you want to watch like The Waltons — but we’re just looking at the balance of the order. We’ve also got very different lengths — “Callister” is 74 minutes long and some of the other episodes that are below 40 minutes.
I always wrestle over which episode to tell people who have never seen Black Mirror to watch first. Which do you tell people to watch?
I used to say, “Just start at the beginning.” But I recognize that “The National Anthem” is very divisive.
Which is why I don’t tell anyone to start at the beginning.
“National Anthem” is perceived slightly differently in the UK where I’m known for comedy writing background. Going into it cold it’s quite a spoonful. There is no right episode. I would suggest jump into the episode list, scroll up and down, and pick one that appeals to you based on the photo and description. Or pick whichever episode your friends recommended. It’s like a little movie festival, you don’t have to watch all of them. That’s a long way of saying that I don’t know. “Nosedive” is a good place to start for a lot of people.
If you weren’t already assured of an another season beyond this I assume after the Emmy win you’re most definitely assured of another season.
I’m not allowed to say anything about that! Obviously, it’s pretty good to get an Emmy. There will be an update on that soon…
Speaking of that: What was your reaction when your show’s title was called twice at the Emmys for “San Junipero”?
Terror. Because beforehand when we flew out, we saw various websites had the odds of winning and we thought we maybe had a chance in the TV movie category. You never think these things are a done deal — that would be psychotic — but we thought there’s enough of a chance to think about what we would say if we won. But for the writing category I genuinely never entertained the prospect. As soon as they announce you won, there’s a nice warm spike of surprise and joy immediately followed by a massive wave of fear because you hadn’t thought of anything to say. But it was a very pleasant surprise. To win both was flabbergasting.
It’s the most uplifting and optimistic and, therefore, the most incongruent episode of Black Mirror that got the most acclaim. So how does that sit with you given the show’s usual darker tendencies? Does it make you want to explore the lighter side more?
I like to think the reason it’s had a warm reaction is less to do with the optimism and more to do with the characters. I was lucky that the scenario one I thought up was an evocative one. And originally it was a heterosexual couple, so it meant there was a different resonance that came in when that changed, and it forced me to think about the characters in a more three-dimensional way. Certainly, I was more acutely aware of not wanting to f— it up. Obviously, [the wins are] a bit daunting, it’s now a higher bar to clear, you can only fail from here — my characteristically optimistic view on things.
For more on Black Mirror season 4, check out our recap of the show’s recent PaleyFest panel that screened “U.S.S. Callister.”
To see an exclusive new photo from Black Mirror season 4, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday. You can buy the whole set of Supernatural covers now, or purchase the individual covers of the group shot, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, or Misha Collins. Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.
Black Mirror season 4 will premiere later this year.I had pretty well resigned myself to another exchange with no happy ending. No bookmarks for me. And then today, much to my surprise...I found a cheery yellow envelope in my mailbox, all the way from Australia!
And inside...Oh. My. God. No, literally!! There were these exquisite bookmarks, and clearly they were lovingly, brilliantly hand-made. Some pretty gift tags, a feather, and...
A bit of background, first. In my likes and dislikes, I said there wasn't much I really dislike, except maybe excessive gacky-cuteness (Precious Moments figurines and the like), and religious stuff--except, I said, if you could find a Flying Spaghetti Monster bookmark, I would like that. A lot.
And here I have a beautifully hand-drawn and hand-colored and carefully cut-out Flying Spaghetti Monster bookmark. It's probably the only one of its kind in the world. I am humbled. I am ecstatic. My faith in Secret Santa is restored. May Leveleded be forever touched by His Noodly Appendage.
BEST. EXCHANGE. EVER!!!As growing discontent over cuts threatens the country's stability, we discuss Spain's way out of the crisis.
Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards have launched massive protests against the centre-right government's latest measures, following more than a week of demonstrations across the country.
The parliament has approved a package of $80bn of spending cuts and tax hikes which are likely to deepen the recessionin which the eurozone's fourth-largest economy is mired.
"Austerity is the only option, given that Spain does not have enough resources to fund the liabilities of the public sector and the bailouts of the banks, [but] it is not the way to further growth. Austerity is only going to retard economic growth." - Antonio Cabrales, a professor of economics
Under the bailout memorandum, 14 banking groups that make up about 90 per cent of Spain's banking system will be tested for their recapitalisation needs in a review due to be completed by the second half of September.
Madrid expects $36.6bn in a first tranche of money that will be available immediately for state-rescued banks that urgently need funds.
Spain's three biggest banks - Banco Santander, BBVA and Caixabank - are not expected to need extra capital.
According to an independent audit, the immediate problems were limited to four banks: Bankia, CatalunyaCaixa, NovaGalicia and Banco de Valencia, the last three of which have been nationalised.
Now there are signs of growing discontent at the economic pain being heaped on the Spanish public.
So, is austerity the answer to Spain’s economic woes? And will the Spanish people accept it?
Joining presenter Divya Gopalan to discuss these issues are guests: Susana Martin Belmonte, an economist and author of Nada esta Perdido (Nothing is Lost); Antonio Cabrales, a professor of economics at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and a contributor to the Spanish Nada es Gratis Blog; and Jesus Gallego-Garcia, the international coordinator of the General Union Of Workers' Public Services Federation.
"Spain has been a very responsible country and is still a responsible country. We are starting to be irresponsible, actually, in the way we are implementing austerity measures and the only thing we are getting into - is being a poorer country. The only thing that has been proven is that these austerity measures have no effect whatsoever in the credibility of the country." Jesus Gallego-Garcia, the international coordinator of the Public Services Federation
SPAIN'S BANKS:
Last month the Fitch rating agency downgraded Spain’s credit rating
Package of public sector cuts & tax rises was announced last week
Germany & Finland's parliaments voted in bailout for Spanish banks
New bailout offers up to 125bn euros to the country’s banks
This means, austerity measures will raise vat from 18 per cent to 21 per cent
Spanish economy is struggling with weak banks, rising debt & recession
Spain has the highest rate of unemployment in the eurozone at 24 per cent
More than 50 per cent of Spanish people under the age of 25 are unemployed
It is the fourth eurozone member to seek financial assistance
Source: Al Jazeera“Closer than anything we’ve seen to the definitive version of the film.” – George A. Romero.
You’ve probably seen Night of the Living Dead countless times on countless different formats from countless different companies, but you’ve never seen it like this before.
Under the supervision of George A. Romero, Gary Streiner, Russ Streiner, and John Russo, the Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation restored the seminal classic in 4K from the original camera negative prior to Romero’s passing, and Janus Films has acquired the restoration for theatrical exhibition.
Throughout October, beginning on Friday, October 13 at NY’s Film Forum, the restoration is hitting the road and stopping off in several cities across the United States.
Check out the trailer below, via EW!
“What we have now, for good or for bad, is exactly what I shot,” Romero said of the digital restoration just last year. “This is closer than anything we’ve seen to the definitive version of the film. It’s in the right format, 1.33:1, and that’s never been seen before either.”
To see the full listing of dates & locales, head over to the Janus Films website.The campus and halls of Ponyville High School were filled with a diverse body of students, with the occasional instructor around to be sure ponies stayed out of trouble. It was lunch hour, and Vinyl was at her locker grabbing books for her next class period. The hallway was deserted, so she hummed to herself as she fished through dog-eared books on intermediate magic theory, algebra, and musical composition. She didn't notice the light beige earth pony approaching until the mare was right beside her.
“Vinyl, we need to talk,” Bon Bon said. Vinyl jerked in surprise, then pulled her headphones off and let them slide down her neck.
“Sure, Bon Bon. Something up?”
Bon Bon opened her mouth, but cut herself off immediately. She tried again, but kept stumbling over her words as she tried to find the right way to tell Vinyl…
“Sweetie, I don’t think this is working. I’m breaking up with you.”
Vinyl blinked a few times in stunned silence. Then her nervous smile fell, and her whole body seemed to wilt.
“I don’t understand. I thought you liked me?” she said, her ears drooping.
“Vinyl…” Bon Bon said, unable to meet her eyes. “You’re a sweet mare, but compared to others I’ve gone out with, you just seem… different.”
“What? How?” How could Bon Bon see her as different?
“You don’t like going to the places I do. I wanted to take you to the spa and the local boutique, and you just weren’t interested.”
“But I did take you out on dates. We went all sorts of places!”
“I don’t think a fast food restaurant is somewhere I would take someone on a date, Vinyl,” Bon Bon sighed. “There was also that dress I bought you—which you never wore.”
“I just don’t wear dresses often, Bon Bon. It’s not my thing.” Vinyl caught herself. “B-but I could give it a try. We could do it today, right after school.” She forced herself to smile, knowing in the pit of her stomach that it was useless, but still hoping all the same.
Bon Bon looked back up at Vinyl, knowing she left a mare heartbroken. “Look, honeydrop, I’m sorry. I’m calling it off.”
There was a short pause, and Vinyl knew this really was the end for the two mares.
“I have to go.” And with that, Bon Bon walked down the hall and out of Vinyl’s life.
Vinyl stood there in silence, still not sure what had just happened. Where had she gone wrong? More importantly, why was she seen as different?
Vinyl's eyes fluttered open. With a groan, he rolled onto his side and tried to bury himself in the covers, but it was no use. Those nagging memories weren't letting him go back to sleep, and he finally gave up with a sigh, looking over at his bedside clock. 7:00 AM. Still too early, but with further sleep out of the question, he got out of bed to try to at least get the thoughts out of his mind.
Walking into the bathroom, he stepped into the shower and turned on the water. He let the stream of hot water soak into his coat and mane, and steam quickly filled up the bathroom.
A familiar figure walked in, her outline and colors blurred by the foggy glass. Octavia opened the door to the shower stall.
“Mind if I join?” she said, looking at Vinyl with a smile. Her gaze traveled over his drenched mane and coat, glistening with water from the shower.
“Not at all,” he replied, smiling back and moving over to give Octavia space. The shower had more than enough room for them both. Octavia stepped in with a purr, sensually licking the base of Vinyl's neck—and immediately gagging. "I... did not realize you had already soaped there," she explained when Vinyl turned around.
"Aww, poor baby," Vinyl crooned. "Here, my lips are clean..."
While the bad memories were still nagging at the back of his mind, he knew Octavia still loved him for who he was, and that was all he needed. Yesterday, things had gone better than expected, and he hoped today would be just as good.
With morning hygiene out of the way, Octavia stood by the stove, letting pans heat on the stove in preparation for breakfast. Vinyl sat at the kitchen table, opening the folder he’d received from Derpy last night.
“Are you going to call that clinic today?” Octavia asked, walking over to the fridge.
“I think so. It’s the only way we can move forward with my transition, right?”
Octavia nodded as she grabbed a carton of eggs from the fridge and walked back over to the stove. “Let me make you breakfast before you go anywhere, at least. I can’t have you living off of bagels every morning.” She opened the eggs and cracked a few into one of the pans to fry.
“Thanks.” Vinyl pulled a number out of his folder. “I’m going to make that call real quick.”
“All right.”
Vinyl got up from the table, trotted over to the phone, and dialed. After a few rings, someone picked up on the other end.
“Downtown Manehattan Clinic. How may I help you?”
“Hello, I want to make an appointment.”
"Okay, sir, let me just check our openings..." Vinyl tapped his hoof as he heard papers rustling on the other end. "I've got 10 AM open today with Doctor Aid, if you can hurry. Otherwise it'll have to be later in the week."
“10AM sounds great.”
“What can I put this appointment down for?”
“Um…” Vinyl knew exactly what he wanted, but at the same time he couldn’t form the words, so he tried the first thing that came to mind. “Consultation?”
“Can I get a name, please?”
“Vinyl.”
“Okay, we’ll see you soon, Vinyl. Thank you for calling.”
Hanging up the phone, Vinyl let out a sigh of relief and sat back down at the table. Octavia placed a plate of eggs and veggies in front of him before sitting down with a plate of her own.
“Got an appointment?” she asked as she dug into her eggs, eating quickly so they wouldn’t get any colder.
“Yeah. It’s at ten, so I’ll have to leave soon.” Vinyl levitated his fork over to cut off a piece of egg, and took a bite.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Octavia said, giving him a worried glance over the morning newspaper she had idly read over while waiting for him to join her at the table.
“I think I will be fine. I’ll just visit the clinic, sign some forms, and they get me on what I need, right? Easy squeezy,” Vinyl said, putting on his jacket and making sure he had what he needed.
“Let’s hope so.” Octavia masked her discomfort with a smile. While she knew she should be happy for him, she couldn’t help but feel things were starting to move too quickly for her.
Vinyl levitated his plate and shoveled its remaining contents into his mouth. Before heading out for his appointment, he walked back to the kitchen and gave Octavia a kiss. She playfully made a face at the lingering taste of his food, a gesture that reminded them both of earlier, easier times, and he chuckled.
“I’ll be back soon, hon.”
“Good luck.”
Vinyl left the apartment building and walked down the streets of Manehattan, listening to another mixtape on his cassette player to cut out the noise of the city.
Since yesterday afternoon, he had tried his hardest to hold off for Octavia’s sake, but his nerves wouldn’t take any more. He finally had to cave in, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes to withdraw one. He felt a bit guilty lighting up, since he promised her he would quit, but no matter how much he wanted to stop, his cravings demanded another.
After a few blocks, Vinyl reached the clinic. On the outside, it was a pretty average brick building with a large glass window and a wooden door. A sign over the entrance read “DOWNTOWN MANEHATTAN CLINIC” in large block letters.
Taking his headphones off, he crushed out his cigarette on the sidewalk, then turned the knob on the door. It had a bit of resistance to it, clearly showing the age of the clinic, it opened up to a small waiting room. Like other doctor’s offices he had been to in the past, it was very plain and quiet, a welcome change to the chaos outside that was Manehattan.
Vinyl walked up to the check-in window at the back of the waiting room, passing several ponies waiting for their appointments. Vinyl tapped the glass window with his hoof, and it immediately slid open.
“Name and appointment,” the mare behind it said, her voice unpleasantly nasal.
“Vinyl Scratch for Doctor Aid at 10AM,” Vinyl said as the receptionist looked over her notes.
“Did you come in for anything specific?”
“Just this.” He passed the forms he’d received from Derpy and filled out last night across the counter. The receptionist took them and looked over them, occasionally taking quick glances at him as she put them into a folder. Vinyl took a step back, uncertain of how he was supposed to feel. That look she kept giving him almost seemed critical.
“The Doctor will be out for you shortly, then,” she finally said, closing the window in his face.
“Thanks?” Vinyl turned around and took the nearest seat that was not occupied.
“Vinyl Scratch,” a nasal voice called. Vinyl had been waiting for an hour while other ponies had come, been called, and gone, and he eagerly got up to approach the pale blue earth pony nurse.
“This way, please,” she said and he followed her to a scale.
“We will need to do a quick check-up. Please stand here.” She pointed to the scale and he stepped onto it, watching while the nurse adjusted the counterweights.
The nurse hmmed to herself, scribbling on her notepad.
"Sit there, please." Vinyl complied and she wrapped a band around |
And I’m sorry, but the last time I checked, the only gay people I saw hanging around there were across the street cheering. They were not the ones getting slugged or having stones thrown at them. It’s just aggravating. And hurtful! For all the girls who are no longer here who can’t say anything, this movie just acts like they didn’t exist.”
8. “Those sculptures are supposedly there to commemorate the Stonewall riots, but there isn’t a trace of the actual riots in them,” they said in their email interview.
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“They’re a slap across the face to the Black and Latina trans women who got whacked with batons and shoved into police vans, and still had the guts to continue to lead the fight for LGBTQ liberation.”
The duo also made it clear this was intended to be an act of “rectification”, not vandalism. “We painted them because Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major, Storme DeLarverie and all the other Black and Brown people who led the movement deserve credit for their courage and strength.”Pharmacist Giving Customer Prescription (Photo: Getty Images/Fuse )
Re: "Pharmacists aren't doctors" (Letters, Nov. 17)
I couldn't understand the degree of malice that the letter writer directed at his pharmacist for merely wanting to double-check a script for his son.
I'm not a pharmacist, but part of their job is to ensure proper medication to their customers.
LETTER: Better for pharmacist to err on side of caution
I'm glad when my pharmacist verifies a medicine with my doctor so that all of the professionals are in agreement when it comes to my health.
The writer went on to say, "Since when did you get your doctorate?" Since he appears to be misinformed, when an individual graduates from pharmacy school, they do so with a professional degree called a doctor of pharmacy (Pharm.D), which is four years of schooling above and beyond their undergraduate degrees. So, technically, they do have a doctorate, just not a M.D.
LETTER: Thankful for alert pharmacists
I will continue to use pharmacists and trust their opinions (along with my family doctor and medical specialist) to better my health.
CHRISTOPHER TAULANE
Westmont
Read or Share this story: http://on.cpsj.com/1uOzCJM“The Plus Sign,” New Era, Oct. 1972, 4
Many years ago while serving in the United States Infantry in the South Pacific, my outfit was making a dry run on a seemingly deserted beach in the Admiralty Islands.
When my particular unit went ashore and scattered around on patrol, we came by chance upon a small native village. I will never forget one of the most interesting sights I have ever seen. All of the natives who appeared on the scene had dyed, reddish-orange hair, and every man, woman, and child—in fact, every living creature that I could see: dogs, animals of all sorts—wore a string of large green beads to the end of which were fastened three tiny shells. We learned upon inquiry from a Baptist minister who had labored amongst these natives that these beaded ornaments were used to ward off the bad results of an “evil eye” and bring good luck to the person or animal that wore it.
In this strange little village so far removed from our own culture it was believed that bad luck, sometimes even death, would follow if a mere glance from the evil eye of an enemy fell upon a person or animal. Hence, practically all of the animals and people wore such a string of beads as I have mentioned.
At the time it recalled to my memory the days when some of us as kids carried good luck charms or a rabbit’s foot in our pockets. Or, some of us back on the farm were perhaps superstitious enough to hang horseshoes on the barn door or use a hundred and one other symbols to keep off the evil eye of failure or accident. I remember so well the common superstition of all ball players never to step across another player’s mitt while it lay on the ground.
Well, I would like to give you a new one in this article, one that is guaranteed to help you throughout your entire life, every month, every day, every hour, protecting you from the bad luck episodes of your life. It is guaranteed to protect your health, make you more likable in your association with people and more successful in your job. It will insure greater success in your daily work and bring you home to your dwelling place every evening with a sense of “Well done thou good and faithful servant.”
Right now as you sit on your bed or on the couch, at a table, in the car or on a bus, or as you walk around in your home reading, picture in your mind a horizontal line crossed by a vertical line. Do you see the picture? I ask you to note that it is not a cross but a plus sign. It is the sign that protected the life of Colonel Charles Lindberg on his perilous journey across the sea after he had taken the extra pains to shut himself up in a small sedan and sit at the wheel without rest or sleep for forty-eight hours in order to study the effect upon himself of confinement, vibration, and motor lullaby; the sign that brought popularity and wealth to all the great athletes, musicians, scientists, novelists, and business executives of this great country, who after many efforts finally succeeded.
Scientists have said that the average person uses only about 1/100 of the capacity that God has given him. 1 + 1 = 2, and 5 + 5 = 10—but you will note that it takes the plus sign to do the trick. An extra hope for those of us who are discouraged, who sometimes get down in the dumps, a little added patience and determination when all seems lost may turn the advancing army of decay and start the forward march that leads to victory and abounding triumph as a person in life, as a leader, as a student, or whatever the calling.
And if there is one single person, man, woman, or young person, who is discouraged as he reads this article because of failure, seemingly on his part, to attain his ideals or some special goal, and who is just about ready to give up because of continued loss and discouragement, let him or her remember, as Elbert Hubbard has told us, that the line between failure and success is so fine that often a single extra effort is all that is needed to bring victory out of apparent defeat. History tells us that George Washington lost nine consecutive battles, but by adding the tenth, he won the war and the liberty of our country. Woolworth made a failure of his first three stores, but the plus sign pulled the trick. Henry Ford was once asked, “What would you do if you lost everything you had?” “Give me ten years,” he said, “and I would build it all back again.”
We might well ask, Why do I have so many problems? Why is life always such a struggle? I seem to have more bad days than good days. The plan of salvation as given by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was intended to build our spiritual strength and character through trials and hardships. It’s the sweet reward of adversity.
As a youngster of eighteen, a pretty young model found her dreams shattered by an automobile accident that confined her to a wheelchair with partially paralyzed legs. Because of the accident, she learned to play the piano.
Because of what the accident had done to her budding career, she learned to develop a sense of humor and to find that there is a funny viewpoint to almost any subject. And, in time, her legs regained their strength, and she became an actress gifted with a sense of humor that made her one of the outstanding comediennes of our day. You have seen her in motion pictures but particularly on television, and you have heard her on the radio, and you know that Lucille Ball was not stopped by adversity. On the contrary, it was the plus sign that made her grow in stature.
Randolph Eyre tells the story about the town of Enterprise, Alabama, which has raised a monument in honor of the boll weevil. You may know that this dreaded insect pest of the cotton country once threatened to ruin this important crop. You would naturally wonder why anyone would want to erect a monument to a pest. Then you discover that it is because the inroads of the boll weevil resulted in the planting of other crops—and that the sweet potato and the peanut, in particular, have been of vast importance to the South.
The diversification of crops made the South versatile. Everything did not hinge on cotton—and rise or fall with it. This meant a more stable and prosperous economy. In other words, an enemy did the South a good turn. The bad break became a good one. The bad luck turned to good luck. Hardships, trials, tribulations have their place in the great plan of life.
And so I say, whatever the battle in which we are engaged—and no doubt all of us have some difficulties to face—better than all the beads, seashells and buckeyes, horseshoes, or other modern charms is the armor on which is painted with our own life’s blood the plus sign, meaning with each crushed hope, another hope and stronger faith, with each fall in the road, another trial.
Someone has said: “I am never licked until I give up.” And the author of one of our sacred books tells us that to him who overcometh—it doesn’t matter where he started in life’s race—to him who overcometh shall be given the crown of life. It is the plus sign, the sign that points always forward and upward and not backward, the sign that recognizes defeat only as an opportunity for further effort in the future. By this sign we shall conquer!Back when they were popular, flight sims needed some pretty hefty hardware to get them running. But I can't remember any of them ever having "120 dedicated graphics cards" under the "required" section on the side of the box.
But the HD World does. A custom F-16 fighter simulator, it runs off 120 dual core PCs with 120 $400 graphics cards inside them, all chained together.
All that processing power gets you 10,000 "entities" on screen at once, realistic explosion and destruction effects and "20-40 visual acuity", which is apparently as close to photo-realism as current projector technology can manage in a situation like this.
Oh, and it all comes wrapped in a 180-degree screen, along with a fully authentic replica of an F-16 cockpit.
If it didn't cost millions and millions of dollars, I'd already have one on order. You can check out a clip of the sim in action below, courtesy of the Star Telegram.
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Ultra-HD Military F-16 Flight Simulator Runs on 120 PC Graphic Cards [Gizmodo]Salcombe Gin School is a unique Gin making experience based in the seaside town of Salcombe, offering you the chance to take part in a new and exciting chapter of Salcombe Gin. Under the guidance of one of Salcombe Gin’s distillers, learn about the art of distillation and what it takes to produce a well-balanced and harmonious gin (that also tastes delicious!) After learning the in’s and out’s of gin-making, you can take charge and create your very own 70cl bottle of Gin to take home. We tried out the school and here’s what we thought…
Salcombe Gin School – A master in helping you make your very own gin Salcombe Gin School: Our Experience
Having recently travelled from Brighton to stay in the beautiful South Sands Hotel in Salcombe, we decided we wanted to explore the area to find the hidden treasures of this gorgeous seaside town. It was then we came across the Salcombe Gin and their wonderful Gin making school. Salcombe Gin are new players in the Gin market, (they launched in July 2016) but they have quickly taken the market by storm through the exceptional quality and determination to make a gin which not only tastes great but looks great through their luxury branding. Just recently they have been given the gold award in the internationally renowned World Drinks Awards as well as winning two awards for World’s Best Gin in the Technical Excellence and Premium Design subcategories this March.
The Gin School is the newest development to the flourishing brand, launching in March this year and becoming the first ever gin school in the Southwest of England. The school runs three days a week on a Wednesday (14:00-17:00), Friday (14:00-17:00) and Saturday which has two sessions of 09:30 – 12:30 or 14:00 – 17:00. They promise to offer the ultimate experience for both trade and consumer fans of this popular spirit. We attended the Friday’s session at 14:00 where we were greeted by production manager Jason Nickels, who is in charge of the distilling process and shared his expertise throughout our time at the Salcombe Gin School. He took us through to the first room and revealed their newly installed state of the art, 450- litre copper still “provident” – The King or Queen of all distilleries. Here he explained the distilling process in front of the mechanical masterpiece and explains that this can produce up to 600 bottles of Salcombe’s finest gin per batch. After around an hour of learning and us intensely questioning Jason about the process, we were taken down the stairs to the building next door which was where the excitement of making our own gin came to life.
Walking into the room was like walking into a science lesson back at secondary school. 10-mini copper “provident’s” spread out along tall work stations joined together to make a U shape around the tutor. Our workstation consisted of a worksheet, measuring jug, mixing bowls, scales and a heater for the mini-still. Having ordered a Gin and Tonic to accompany the session, Jason got us all together and explained the process of making our own gin. He explained that the mini-stills contain a neutral spirit which will blend together with the botanicals that we later on selected to make a unique gin for us to bottle up and take home. We were then informed that gin can contain anything from 4-47 botanicals and handed out a worksheet of over 100 botanicals for us to choose from.
We started to look through the lists of botanicals to decide the sort of Gin we would like to create. The worksheet included notes to guide us on the quantities needed and the must haves in gin – juniper berries are a must (around 25g per a 75cl bottle) Other ingredients are recommended depending on the blend that you are aiming for. We aimed to create a unique and delicious gin that could be mixed nicely with a tonic; with this in mind we went over to the libary of ingredients which were kept in Jars situated in shelves to the side of the room and collected the ingredients which would be infused to make our gin. We started by adding the juniper berries followed by dried elderflower, cucumber, rose and vanilla. Jason came over to make sure that our mix was heading in the right direction and advised that we added a hint of chilli to enhance the after effect.
We tipped all of our ingredients into the still, placed the lid on top and heated at the heat setting number 4 for the distilling process to commence. This process can take around 30 minutes for the gin to slowly drip into your jug ready for the next step. Whilst this is taking place, you can place your finger under the drip tasting the flavours and how they change drastically throughout the process. This was also the perfect time for us to order another ‘Salcombe and tonic’ and see how the other participants distilling was going and see how different their creations were to ours.
Once the process was complete, we added pure water to cut the gin, reducing the strength from around 79 per cent to the recommended strength of 43 or 44 percent – Ours came in at exactly 43.9 percent when tested. We bottled the gin into a 70cl bottle (Leaving enough spare for them to mix our gin at the bar), attached the personalised label which we created and placed in their exclusive Gin school wooden presentation box.There is still a sizable portion of our society who cannot grasp the reality of weather altering devices and technologies which have made us all unsure about which weather is real, and which ones are not.
This poses a big problem for those who understand how these weather devices are being used, but want to inform the public about the impending danger of the draconian laws that have been legislated based on the false pretext of global warming.
Surely, Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth movie and his green energy companies continue making money for the guy, but when the lie became impossible enough to sustain, they have begun using the more generic term, i.e. climate change.
Kilimanjaro Still Has Snow
One of the first glaring claims Gore makes is about Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. He claims Africa’s tallest peak will be snow-free “within the decade.” Gore shows slides of Kilimanjaro’s peak in the 1970s versus today to conclude the snow is disappearing.
Well, it’s been a decade and, yes, there’s still snow on Kilimanjaro year-round. It doesn’t take a scientist to figure this out. One can just look at recent photos posted on the travel website TripAdvisor.com.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/03/an-inconvenient-review-after-10-years-al-gores-film-is-still-alarmingly-inaccurate/
Climate does change, it’s been that way since the birth of our solar system, but the phrase is now synonymous to abnormal weather patterns, flash flooding, forest wildfires, and to some extent, even earthquakes, all of which could be the handiwork of highly covert government entities trying to justify their subsequent invasive policies.
All of these calamitous events can affect the economic productivity and greatly hamper the development of the targeted regions on the planet. Indeed, weather weapons are a very effective tool for geopolitical coercion.
The nations possessing these weather weapons agreed that they won’t be used in wars and geopolitical conflicts. But who can ever refuse the power to play like the mythical gods of thunder and lightning?
We are not only talking here about “cloud seeding” technologies like Wikipedia would like us to limit our understanding about weather warfare:
Weather warfare is the use of weather modification techniques such as cloud seeding for military purposes.
Prior to the Geneva Convention, the United States used weather warfare in the Vietnam War. Under the auspices of the Air Weather Service, the United States’ Operation Popeye used cloud seeding over the Ho Chi Minh trail, increasing rainfall by an estimated thirty percent during 1967 and 1968. It was hoped that the increased rainfall would reduce the rate of infiltration down the trail.[1]
With much less success, the United States also dropped salt on the airbase during the siege of Khe Sanh in an attempt to reduce the fog that hindered air operations.[citation needed]
A research paper produced for the United States Air Force written in 1996 speculates about the future use of nanotechnology to produce “artificial weather”, clouds of microscopic computer particles all communicating with each other to form an intelligent fog that could be used for various purposes. “Artificial weather technologies do not currently exist…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_warfare
The above phrase, “Artificial weather technologies do not currently exist…” is in disagreement to the statement made by the US Air Force during a budget hearing for HAARP, like so:
HAARP, or High Altitude Auroral Research Program, is said to be an experimental electromagnetic wave propagator which could deliver radio signals in any desired frequencies with a twist of a button, to strike at any target. But as that US congressional hearing suggest, the Air Force is already using a more advanced version, they are now willing to abandon the existing HAARP site in Alaska.
There are, of course, radar systems mounted on mobile platforms which could emit high powered EM signals, and can be positioned in any of the 1,000 US military bases, for steering “weather disturbance” to any triangulated terrestrial and extraterrestrial targets.
The other side of this all-in-one ultrahigh powered radio broadcast technology is to foster positive disposition, fry the electronics of an incoming ICBM, or MiRVs simultaneously, and render their thermonuclear/chemical warhead inert, and deliver controlled rainfall on arid deserts of Africa so that food abundance is assured at last.
Yes, the most versatile weather weapon is staring right in plain sight and is using that same technology still being used in the wireless broadcast industry today. The only notable difference is that the weaponized version is using billion watts of sheer power which is very feasible just by transforming the transmission voltage from a few hundred volts into the range of hundreds of million volts which is what Tesla was actually playing with.
Consider three radar installations firing upward in a triangle configuration, all at the same time. Those three hot nodes will then experience high gas pressures, and as a result, their common center will then become the “low pressure area [LPA],” which will be news broadcasted by your weather channel as where the potential typhoon will come from. The fact that they can move the three points of attack will make the typhoon steerable to hit at any desired target.
For more in-depth study, the researcher can refer to the US Patent 4686605 by clicking on the image below:
But no, the United Nations, Inc., or any of its subsidiary corporate states, are not capable of providing these commonsensical solutions any time soon. It can only afford to pay lip service to those pressing problems, because the Old Men running the show can’t get over with their myopic appreciation of the power entrusted to them, which they use only to impress young women.
That same realization led one all-female activist group to advocate and offer free access to the clitoris so that men are less motivated to start any form of conflict, and let peace reign on the planet at last. But that’s another story for another time.
Considering that our body, like everything else in nature, is made up of EM waves propagating at certain frequencies in space, we can also be altered, or our bodily functions can be influence for any desired effect.
If at certain microwave frequencies, a radar system can cook the atmosphere to increase gas pressure, and change the weather, it can also be used to deliver modulated brain wave frequencies to stimulate docility, or hyperactivity to destroy an entire targeted population without firing a single bullet.
This is the reason why the authorities sought to limit, or eradicate, its use in actual conflict scenario.
Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
The States Parties to this Convention,
Guided by the interest of consolidating peace, and wishing to contribute to the cause of halting the arms race, and of bringing about general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, and of saving mankind from the danger of using new means of warfare,
Determined to continue negotiations with a view to achieving effective progress towards further measures in the field of disarmament,
Recognizing that scientific and technical advances may open new possibilities with respect to modification of the environment,
Recalling the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, adopted at Stockholm on 16 June 1972,
Realizing that the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes could improve the interrelationship of man and nature and contribute to the preservation and improvement of the environment for the benefit of present and future generations,
Recognizing, however, that military or any other hostile use of such techniques could have effects extremely harmful to human welfare,
Desiring to prohibit effectively military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques in order to eliminate the dangers to mankind from such use, and affirming their willingness to work towards the achievement of this objective,
Desiring also to contribute to the strengthening of trust among nations and to the further improvement of the international situation in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Have agreed as follows:
Article I
Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to assist, encourage or induce any State, group of States or international organization to engage in activities contrary to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this article.
Article II
As used in article 1, the term “environmental modification techniques” refers to any technique for changing – through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.
Article III
The provisions of this Convention shall not hinder the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes and shall be without prejudice to the generally recognized principles and applicable rules of international law concerning such use. The States Parties to this Convention undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of scientific and technological information on the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes. States Parties in a position to do so shall contribute, alone or together with other States or international organizations, to international economic and scientific co-operation in the preservation, improvement and peaceful utilization of the environment, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.
Article IV
Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to take any measures it considers necessary in accordance with its constitutional processes to prohibit and prevent any activity in violation of the provisions of the Convention anywhere under its jurisdiction or control. Blah, blah,blah.
In witness whereof, the undersigned, being duly authorized thereto, have signed this Convention
Done at Geneva, on the 18 day of May 1977.
http://www.un-documents.net/enmod.htm
The reality on the ground is far from being straightforward, i.e. countries possessing weather weaponry may not be actively firing at each other, but that doesn’t mean that the United States government, for example, is not using the same capability against its own people, or its smaller nation allies, you know, to keep them in line.
The chemical based geoengineering, for instance, is being extended to spray harmful chemicals instead of merely “cloud seeding”.
Historical Perspectives
It was Dr. Nikola Tesla who tried to give us wireless power so that global prosperity can be achieved by providing free and unlimited access to energy, for the benefit of all.
He constructed a “magnifying transmitter” which could deliver both power and data wirelessly to far off distances. In the process, he realized the vast potential of his device and the dangers it may pose when the technology falls into the wrong hands.
On April 28, 1997 U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen made the following statement:
“Others [terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations…It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our [counterterrorism] efforts.”
In February 1998, the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy held public hearings in Brussels on the U.S based weather warfare facility developed under the HAARP program. The Committee’s “Motion for Resolution” submitted to the European Parliament:
“Considers HAARP… by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body…; [the Committee] regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration… to give evidence to the public hearing …into the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP program.” (European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy, Brussels, doc. no. A4-0005/99, 14 January 1999).
The weapons referred to by Secretary Cohen are longitudinal EM wave interferometers (LWIs). Longitudinal EM waves easily travel through the ocean and earth with very little loss. In a distant interference zone, there appears real EM energy again, of the kind we have in our textbooks. However, the energy arises from spacetime itself in the interference zone, as proven by M.W. Evans, P.K. Anastasovski, T.E. Bearden et al., “On Whittaker’s Representation of the Electromagnetic Entity in Vacuo: The Production of Transverse Fields and Energy by Scalar Interferometry,” Journal of New Energy, 4(3), Winter 1999, p. 76-78. (That entire issue of JNE contains some 60 papers by the Alpha Foundation’s Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS), dealing with the kind of higher symmetry electrodynamics needed to understand such weapons).
Though tested in prototype in the 1950s, the first strategic LWIs were deployed in Russia in April 1963, and were used to kill the U.S.S. Thresher nuclear attack submarine, underwater off the East coast of the United States, in April 1963. The signatures of the kill are 100% decisive. One day later, the same weapon placed an enormous electromagnetic burst (explosion) deep underwater, 100 miles north of Puerto Rico. From the surface of the ocean there arose a giant cone of water, rising a half mile into the air, turning into a mushroom, and falling back into the sea. This was the second test of the new Russian strategic LWIs, under KGB control. By this test and the fact that the West did not even recognize what killed the Thresher, Khrushchev managed to stay in power another two years or so, after his Cuban Crisis fiasco where he lost face in front of the entire world.
World-wide weather engineering started in earnest by the Russians on July 4, 1976 — as a quirky sense of humor and “bicentennial gift” to the United States.
The weapons have been used to shoot down aircraft, etc. worldwide also, mostly as tests, and have also destroyed ICBMs shortly after launch.
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/022501.htm
Both the scientific and political priesthoods are being used by the plutocrats at the highest totem pole of our society to impose upon humanity a world of endless scarcity in all aspects of our existence. They justify this policy by saying that if everything is free and easily accessible, people get lazy and just play around. What’s wrong with that?
We are the only species in the entire solar system that consented to making life very difficult after we have discovered ways and means to make it easier.
“When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).
… The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it…”
http://yournewswire.com/top-scientist-resigns-admitting-global-warming-is-a-big-scam/
In February 1998, the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy held public hearings in Brussels on the U.S based weather warfare facility developed under the HAARP program. The Committee’s “Motion for Resolution” submitted to the European Parliament:
“Considers HAARP… by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body…; [the Committee] regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration… to give evidence to the public hearing …into the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP program.” (European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy, Brussels, doc. no. A4-0005/99, 14 January 1999).
The Committee’s request to draw up a “Green Paper” on “the environmental impacts of military activities”, however, was casually dismissed on the grounds that the European Commission lacked the required jurisdiction to delve into “the links between environment and defense”. Brussels was anxious to avoid a showdown with Washington. (see European Report, 3 February 1999).
The possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military and intelligence agenda, while tacitly acknowledged, has never been considered relevant. Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter, and environmentalists are strung on global warming and the Kyoto protocol.
Ironically, the Pentagon, while recognizing its ability to modify the World’s climate for military use, has joined the global warming consensus. In a major study (pdf), the Pentagon has analyzed in detail the implications of various global warming scenarios.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/environmental-warfare-and-climate-change/1336
Power is never given, or handed down in a silver platter. It must be taken away from those who are incapable of using it wisely for the good and benefit of all lifeforms everywhere.
In lieu of these deplorables, we must put in management positions the visionaries, engineers and technologists, so that only the progressive use of science and technology is given the light of day.
This is the revolution worth fighting for.
Aside from false philanthropy, fiat monetary scam and bloodsoaked petrodollar, another significant source of funds for the Nazionist Khazarian Mafia is the “healthcare” industry which registered a whopping $3.09 trillion in 2014, and is projected to soar to $3.57 trillion in 2017, in the US alone. We believe that this is just a conservative figure.
We can all help the revolution by avoiding all Khazarian pharmaceutical drugs, defeat any viral attack and scaremongering, like the Zika virus, easily by knowing how to build our own comprehensive antiviral system. Find more about how we can kill three birds with one stone, right here.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption People had been urged to delay their visit to the Tower of London until after the half-term school holiday
Huge crowds have been to see the Tower of London poppy garden despite warnings to stay away until after half-term and to avoid a Tube station closure.
Hundreds of people lined the perimeter of the tower's moat on Saturday to catch a glimpse of the Blood Swept Lands And Seas of Red exhibition.
Each poppy commemorates a British and colonial death during World War One.
People were also warned to expect delays because of the closure of Tower Hill station for engineering works.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Artist Paul Cummins: "It's not really my project any more - it's everybody's"
The Tower of London said Saturday was one of the busiest days to date but staff were coping with the crowds.
Tower Hill station had to be shut a number of times on Friday because of the number of people visiting the poppy garden.
The first of the 888,246 ceramic poppies was planted in the Tower's dry moat in July, with the final one due to be installed on Armistice Day.
'Caught the imagination'
Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon said the decision to close Tower Hill tube on Saturday and Sunday was "an appalling decision".
"The stunning Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red display has caught the imagination of literally hundreds of thousands of people who desperately want to see this display before it comes to an end," she said.
"In other areas Transport for London do a great deal in recognising Remembrance Sunday and supporting the poppy appeal, but in this instance their actions are simply wrong."
At the scene
Nick Beake, BBC London news reporter
Image copyright AFP Image caption Thousands of people also visited the poppy art installation on Friday
It's extremely busy, a bit like after a football match. There are crowds of people, five and six deep, all around the perimeter of the Tower of London viewing the poppies.
The City of London is a lot busier than normal with spectators steadily making their way from Bank and Aldgate because of the closure of Tower Hill.
I spoke to a group of pensioners who had travelled from Kent. They had heard the message to stay away but told me the coach trip had been booked a long time ago.
Although it's very busy there is a low friendly murmur here rather than the usual crowd noise, as people reflect on the meaning of the installation as well as taking photos and selfies.
Phil Hufton, London Underground's chief operating officer, said Tower Hill station had been closed for "vital engineering work".
He said travellers had been warned about the disruption and advised to use Aldgate, Aldgate East and Tower Gateway stations.
The Tower of London has urged people to delay their trip to the installation until after the half-term and to visit before 10.00 GMT or later in the day to avoid the busiest times.The term nothing burger — spelled closed, as nothing |
the cancellation. And when Kardashian and West reunited in New York amid a battalion of security guards, that too was mocked as overkill.
Truth be told, The Daily Beast’s original report on the heist, which I did not write, contained a paragraph at the end that reflected this instinct to discuss events like this with a bit of cruel rhetoric. Even when any ill-will or cruelty isn’t intentional, the impulse has become intrinsic.
“For those familiar with Kardashian and her attention-seeking antics, the incident carries with it a hint of cruel irony,” the kicker reads. “Her decision to seek more discreet lodging away from the spotlight seems to have come back to bite her.” Is it a fair observation? Arguably. Is it tinged with shaming and victim blame? Yes.
Meanwhile internet voice of reason Chrissy Teigen, who is also a close friend of Kardashian and West’s, posted a series of tweets last night as the news and its ensuing mockery unfolded, attempting to shame those making light of the crime while also providing insight into what it’s like to be a celebrity attempting to appease fans while also being aware of how quickly your humanity can be devalued by them.
The takeaway lesson of her tweets: “Please do not think that I think celebrities are special snowflakes. I just miss empathy, in general, for everyone.” More of that, please.Good morning, (Sub)Dredditors, and (Sub)Dredditor friends!
Yesterday evening I was able to listen to a bit of the Podside Podcast, a welcome respite from the commotion of the D.C. metro system.
During the discussion, the topic of how Dust mercenaries would actually travel around New Eden came up, and it’s really got me thinking on how CCP plans to implement this system. I am not a game designer myself, so I don’t have any notion that whatever I may suggest is a good idea at all, but as a player of the game I have come up with a few ideas I would like to see put into it.
Much has been said about the idea of the “War Barge,” that it would be a Dust corps base of operations, and where they staged from. Honestly, I can kind of see this being the equivalent of a null sec station. Stations are where pilots stage out of, and it’s an alliance (or large corp) asset that requires many people working together to actually create. I suppose the big difference here is that the war barges are supposed to be mobile.
The thing about that is, how on earth will it be implemented? These war barges are going to be hopping around our systems, in space. Who will be the pilot? How will it move? What about those on the war barge? If it’s attacked, they can do nothing but sit, watch, and then die in a bubble along with all the stuff they keep on the war barge (which, if it’s like a station, could be a significant amount of assets).
The war barge should also be piloted by Dust mercs, it just makes sense. The barges are their babies, like the stations are ours. But does the PS3 even have the capabilities to have a ship flying around in an Eve client? I really have no idea, but it sounds like such a monumental task, I just can’t foresee us having actual control of our Dust barges any time real soon. It may be a thing that can only be handled on the new PS4, and seeing as how I just bought a PS3 for Dust, I don’t know how long it will be before I really want to throw down on that new PS4 (plus, it’s not coming out until later this year at the earliest). I imagine something like the war barge may have to wait until Dust has fully moved to the PS4, meaning the PS3 users are going to have to account for less than 1% of all total Dust mercs.
Who knows how long that’s going to take.
So I’ve come up with some ideas for moving Dust mercs around, specifically for null sec operations, that won’t require a war barge, but still gives us a sense of place and distance that is currently lacking in the Dust build. This idea also hinges on the other idea I had that the districts we’re fighting over in low and null have to be persistent. Given the opportunity (through CRUs or other means), you should be able to spawn on any district, at any time no matter what the situation is (as long as the number of defenders haven’t capped, so, going by current games of 16 vs 16, if there are 16 corp members spawned on a district, you wouldn’t be able to spawn there). Maps can’t be like they are now, where they are only activated when a fight is going on. There’s just no way we’re going to be able to get a sense of place if that’s the only way to spawn on a map.
Assuming planetary districts are persistent areas we can interact with and build on whether there is a fight going on or not, I’ve got some ideas for foot troop movement that I hope aren’t too terribly difficult to implement.
I know a lot has been said about keeping both Eve and Dust as separate games, playable on their own without having to rely very heavily on each other, but I think we need to be honest with ourselves about this. If we really want true consequences for our actions in interfering with each other between games, at least in null sec, I think the two games should have some strong connections. If two alliances go to war with each other, and one alliance chooses to use Dust Bunnies, and the other does not, the alliance who chose to use mercenaries should win every time (without some truly miraculous events, either stupid mistakes or ingenious tactics).
So, in order to have real troop movement, we need two things, both of which are already currently working already in both Eve and Dust. The first thing we need is a piece of equipment that will allow your mercs to spawn where you want them to. Right now, we call these pieces of equipment CRUs. There is also another piece of equipment that allows spawning and is mobile called the MCC, which currently is what our skirmish games revolve around.
The second thing we need is a delivery system, which is also already in the game. Eve pilots have been delivering hot molten death to their enemies all month!
The system I’m envisioning utilizes both of these things, and can provide two different kinds of invasions.
The first kind of invasion is more focused on smaller corps, who favor hit and run tactics. What you would do, is buy a bunch of CRUs and place them into the cargo hold of your favorite covert ops ship (any ship, really, but let’s think tactically here). Yesterday, I did some quick calculations (I was an English major, so they’re probably wrong) and came up with the idea that a CRU is, in reality, about 12 cubic meters. My blockade runner, The Centurion Pigeon 3, can fit 3,750 cubic meters of cargo when it’s fit for null sec travel. That means I could put 312 CRUs in it’s cargo hold.
That’s probably too much. So the volume of CRUs would have to be inflated to balance how many CRUs a cargo hold can carry.
So now I’ve got a cargo hold full of CRUs in the Centurion Pigeon, let’s say 15 of them are in there. Doing what a blockade runner does best, I’m able to infiltrate past enemy gate camps and deep into their territory. We’ve chosen a tactically advantageous system to invade, and The Centurion Pigeon 3 is hiding cloaked up in said system, which is deserted. And then begins the invasion.
If I have 15 CRUs, that’s at least 15 districts I can warp to and then drop the CRUs from orbit. I can place one in each district, or I can put 2 or 3 on a district to make sure my foot troops will be able to spawn and attack the district, with the idea of taking it over. Let’s say that, while there are no enemy spaceships in the system, the evil spais in TEST have relayed the intel back to enemy alliance command that Dreddit plans an foot invasion in a system, so they’ve got their own mercs (maybe hired?) already there and waiting. When the CRUs are dropped from orbit, they can see them hurtling down from the sky (like they do now), to give them an idea as to where the CRUs landed (remember, if you don’t control the CRU, it doesn’t show up on your map).
Now, another quick caveat. No more red zones. At least not in null districts. We’ve all zoomed out to see how big these maps actually are, and I imagine these maps are supposed to represent an entire district. If you get to the edge of the map, you should still have the option of going further, but what happens is you would load the next map that represents the planetary district adjacent to the one you were in. It’d be kind of like loading a new zone, for those of you who ever played Everquest (oh my God… that was so long ago…). If there is no district adjacent in that direction, then I’m fine with an invisible wall.
So the invasion is on, and we’ve decided on a particular planet in this system that needs conquering (or, perhaps this kind of invasion would not allow for the capturing of enemy buildings and resources, just their destruction, and in order to capture it, you’d need your MCC, which I’ll get to in a moment). Because the drops are random (hey, shooting from orbit is difficult, we’re lucky to hit the right district!), we want to drop 3 CRUs in each district, just in case the defenders are able to get to one or two of them and hack them, just as they currently work. However, as soon as the friendly CRUs are online, our army of already ready mercs sees the option to spawn there from their merc quarters (this would need some kind of interface), and can then join the battle instantly. Assuming I’m able to drop all 15 CRUs across, say, 5 districts, we’ve now got 80 Subdredditors causing havoc on the planet below. Sounds like fun.
But CRU’s are weak, and easily hacked to transfer ownership to the other team. That’s why this kind of invasion should be used more to disrupt the industry and day to day workings of your enemy alliance. Chances are, if the defenders are smart, their whole strategy revolves around getting to those CRUs and hacking them. If there are no more friendly CRUs in the district, that part of the invasion is over, and the defenders have won (for today…).
Now, how about a full blown Sov war? Instead of a stealthy covert ops deploying CRUs behind enemy lines, now we’ve got a whole fleet of 500 battleships, battle cruisers, and all sorts of other fun ships one finds in a giant fleet. We’re truly at war now, and war requires taking of the enemy systems and resources.
Enter, the MCC. I am not sure exactly how big the MCC is, in comparison to Eve ships (ugh, no sites put the axis info up?), but the delivery system would be similar to the CRUs, except it would requiring being fit to a specialized ship. I’m not sure which ships this would best be suited for (Blockade Runner? =D), but I’m sure it would require a bit of discussion.
I’m sure everyone remembers that really awesome cinematic trailer from last year’s fan fest, that also happens to be the intro movie that plays every time we start up the game. Remember when the Amarr ship was being shot at by a bunch of rifters, then it drops off this kind of… drop ship into the atmosphere where 6 heavies come flying out to activate their inertia dampeners and looks super badass?
I imagine the MCC delivery system to be really similar to that.
Now! The MCC is a whole different story from the war barge. The war barge needs to interact directly with Eve ships while it is in control by Dust folks. That’s a difficult thing.
MCCs, on the other hand, shouldn’t. Like CRUs, while in space they would be at the mercy of the pilot carrying them, but once deployed on planet, then it would be awesome if someone in a command dropsuit were able to control the movement of the MCC, where it drops cover fire (because it should have some weapons to help out its invasion force), and what command centers it docks with in order to take control of the district.
Because the MCC cannot be hacked, like a CRU, and is much more difficult to destroy, this is the piece of equipment you bring when you expect to be taking control of the planet.
So there you have it. This was what I was kicking around in my head for the last few days. And, if you just scrolled to the bottom because you didn’t feel like reading all the words I bled for you, you’re a horrible person.
But here’s the TL;DR.
TL;DR: MCCs and SRUs should be Eve assets that Eve pilots can place on planetary districts, and it is these items that Dust Bunnies spawn from in order to move from place to place in greater New Eden.
Until next time, happy hunting everyone!
– JRD
AdvertisementsThe following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source.
Notice: Over the past year, Caixin Online has repeatedly violated news and propaganda discipline and published reports with problematic orientations whose republication elsewhere has had a seriously negative influence. After some deliberation, it has been decided that Caixin Online’s inclusion on the “List of News Work Units Approved for Online Republication” is suspended for two months from October 11, during which time other websites may not repost its content. (October 11, 2016) [Chinese]
A source told RFI’s Chinese service on Tuesday that the immediate trigger for the ban may have been recent coverage, now deleted, of lawyers’ opposition to new regulations from the Ministry of Justice. The rules would reinforce Party control over law firms, requiring them not to “indulge or condone” a wide range of activities by their staff. As Chinese Human Rights Defenders notes, these include inciting people to “harm public security [by] conducting sit-ins, holding banners or placards, shouting slogans, expressing solidarity […], or looking on”; “generating pressure through public opinion [by] forming groups, organizing joint signature campaigns, issuing open letters, gathering online in chat groups, or expressing solidarity”; “denying the nature of state-determined evil cults”; and “using the Internet or media to express dissatisfaction with the Party or the government.”
This would enable extrajudicial punishment for many of the activities for which detainees in last year’s “Black Friday” crackdown have been criminally prosecuted. As Caixin noted in one of its deleted articles, some 168 Chinese lawyers have written to the State Council complaining that the regulations violate the Constitution, several other laws, and the public interest, and urging their repeal. That petition would itself be forbidden by the new rules, which are due to take effect next month.
RFI noted that the suspension will cut off an important revenue stream for Caixin. The temporary ban follows recent measures to exercise 24/7 control over the direction of news sites’ content, and prevent them from conducting independent reporting or publishing unverified news from social media. Elsewhere, state media have been ordered to “bear the Party’s surname,” while the Central Propaganda Department and State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television faced criticism this summer for failing to supervise the media with sufficient vigor. Despite such alleged laxity and occasional displays of defiance, even traditionally independent media organizations have largely been forced onto the “correct road.” Meanwhile, foreign journalists also face increasing pressure.
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. Some instructions are issued by local authorities or to specific sectors, and may not apply universally across China. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source. See CDT’s collection of Directives from the Ministry of Truth since 2011.Money is always political. This is obvious enough when we argue about Federal Reserve policy in the United States, or who should next chair the interest rate-setting body. But for over 1,000 years, we have argued about the nature of our monetary systems and shifted between different ways of making payments. Seen in this historical context, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are just the latest in a long line of challenges to prevailing technology—and to current political arrangements.
The dominant design of today’s monetary systems is based on a western European tradition that can be traced back to the silver denarius of Emperor Charlemagne and before to the organization of the Roman Empire. This design bases the amount and nature of money in the economy on an interaction between government policy and what private individuals want to hold. Continual political pressure and repeated technological opportunity have produced many changes to that basic model over the years. Bitcoin’s rise may result in another round of that process.
Enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies is based, in part, on entirely reasonable frustration with our existing arrangements. People on the left who distrust the power accumulated by global megabanks in recent decades have united with people on the right who see the government as overreaching. But history suggests that trying to build a viable national and international payments system completely outside the control of governments will not be easy.
First, money is valuable only to the extent that it can be converted into goods and services. And at the moment of conversion, governments will have a lot to say about the matter, such as whether you have paid tax and whether the transaction is legal.
Second, it is very hard to come up with a technology that will completely hide transactions from governments. The movement of goods, people, or information can all be tracked, as the Silk Road case has shown.
Third, there will be a political reaction led by powerful banking interests. They will point out any illegality within the Bitcoin system and lobby for restrictive regulations.
Fighting on this ground will be difficult. It would be much more sensible for the Bitcoin community and its allies to launch a proactive political strategy. They might focus on the fact that illegal payments are currently made around the world using $100 bills and that there is a need to lower transaction costs for people in countries with a weak rule of law and great risk of theft. It could be argued that operating Bitcoin in a more transparent fashion will not destabilize the credit system or undermine the ability of small banks to make a reasonable profit.
The monetary system of the United States and the world has changed many times and will without question do so again. At the end of the nineteenth century, for example, there was a broad push to reform the U.S. monetary and credit system. Ideas that were initially dismissed as “populism,” such as moving away from a narrowly defined gold standard, had, within a generation, become mainstream.
New technology can definitely offer better ways to organize transactions. But simply assuming that the state can be bypassed is unlikely to work. Bitcoin needs a political strategy, and it must evolve to address legitimate criticisms.
Simon Johnson is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and was formerly chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.Over 8,700 birds and other animals have been seized – and 4,000+ people arrested – in what appears to be a large-scale crackdown on the black market Latin American bird trade. The arrests and seizures were conducted between April and June of this year, as part of INTERPOL’s “Operation Cage.”
Among the animals seized were not only parrots commonly bought in the U.S., but fish, turtles, mammals, and elephant ivory. Also confiscated were guns, ammunition, and trapping equipment.
Operation Cage was launched in order to combat the multi-billion-dollar illegal pet trade, focusing in particular on the trans-border trade of captive bred and wild birds in Latin America, which is increasingly backed by large organized crime networks.
The black market for exotic birds has made a very negative impact on native bird populations in Central and South America, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The Union notes that about 100 of the world’s 350 parrot species are now threatened with extinction, for two major reasons: habitat loss, and unlawful capture as part of the illegal pet trade.
“Operation Cage once again clearly demonstrates the global scale of the problem of the illegal trade in birds and other wildlife,” said David Higgins, manager of INTERPOL’s Environmental Crime Program.
“The criminals invoved in this illicit trade have no concern for the welfare of these birds and mammals, or that many of the species being trafficked are endangered. The only concern they have is for the profit they make.”
Though many people who purchase exotic birds as pets – particularly in the U.S. – are unaware of the often-illegal process through which the animals were obtained, the exotic bird trade has recently come into the spotlight.
Last month, actor Jesse Eisenberg worked with the Humane Society to raise awareness about the problem, remarking, “The demand for these intelligent, complex creatures is decimating the wild parrot species. If an animal’s natural home is in the wild, chances are that’s where it belongs.”
The Humane Society, meanwhile, is also working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of Operation Cyberwild, which targeted unlawful animal trafficking conducted over the Internet. By making online purchases of illegal animal items, investigators were able to locate and charge a dozen sellers with wildlife crimes.
“Most Americans would be shocked at the sheer volume of illegal wildlife items readily available online,” said Jennifer Fearing, California senior state director for the Humane Society. “This crackdown sends a strong message to would-be traffickers that the wanton exploitation of wildlife won’t be tolerated.”
Speaking more specifically on the Latin America problem, American Bird Conservancy president Dr. John Fenwick said, “The capture and illicit trade of birds has particularly impacted threatened birds because their rarity yields higher demand and higher black market prices for the trappers and traders. In addition to the impact of collecting on wild populations, the illegal trade causes tremendous suffering to individual birds, with many dying during transportation.”
Operation Cage involved interventions and raids at sites including airports, postal services, markets, pet stores, and taxidermists across Central and South America.
As the general public seems to become increasingly aware of the illegal pet trade, initiatives like Operation Cage and Operation Cyberwild are still gathering data which will be utilized for further investigations and interventions.
Photo: Birds recovered as part of Operation Cage. Ecowatch/INTERPOLLike all galaxies, our Milky Way is home to a strange substance called dark matter. Dark matter is invisible, betraying its presence only through its gravitational pull. Without dark matter holding them together, our galaxy's speedy stars would fly off in all directions. The nature of dark matter is a mystery -- a mystery that a new study has only deepened.
"After completing this study, we know less about dark matter than we did before," said lead author Matt Walker, a Hubble Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The standard cosmological model describes a universe dominated by dark energy and dark matter. Most astronomers assume that dark matter consists of "cold" (i.e. slow-moving) exotic particles that clump together gravitationally. Over time these dark matter clumps grow and attract normal matter, forming the galaxies we see today.
Cosmologists use powerful computers to simulate this process. Their simulations show that dark matter should be densely packed in the centers of galaxies. Instead, new measurements of two dwarf galaxies show that they contain a smooth distribution of dark matter. This suggests that the standard cosmological model may be wrong.
"Our measurements contradict a basic prediction about the structure of cold dark matter in dwarf galaxies. Unless or until theorists can modify that prediction, cold dark matter is inconsistent with our observational data," Walker stated.
Dwarf galaxies are composed of up to 99 percent dark matter and only one percent normal matter like stars. This disparity makes dwarf galaxies ideal targets for astronomers seeking to understand dark matter.
Walker and his co-author Jorge Peñarrubia (University of Cambridge, UK) analyzed the dark matter distribution in two Milky Way neighbors: the Fornax and Sculptor dwarf galaxies. These galaxies hold one million to 10 million stars, compared to about 400 billion in our galaxy. The team measured the locations, speeds and basic chemical compositions of 1500 to 2500 stars.
"Stars in a dwarf galaxy swarm like bees in a beehive instead of moving in nice, circular orbits like a spiral galaxy," explained Peñarrubia. "That makes it much more challenging to determine the distribution of dark matter."
Their data showed that in both cases, the dark matter is distributed uniformly over a relatively large region, several hundred light-years across. This contradicts the prediction that the density of dark matter should increase sharply toward the centers of these galaxies.
"If a dwarf galaxy were a peach, the standard cosmological model says we should find a dark matter 'pit' at the center. Instead, the first two dwarf galaxies we studied are like pitless peaches," said Peñarrubia.
Some have suggested that interactions between normal and dark matter could spread out the dark matter, but current simulations don't indicate that this happens in dwarf galaxies. The new measurements imply that either normal matter affects dark matter more than expected, or dark matter isn't "cold." The team hopes to determine which is true by studying more dwarf galaxies, particularly galaxies with an even higher percentage of dark matter.
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Anyone who read 1984 in high school should know that the target of propaganda can turn on a dime. But we tend to forget this lesson whenever the media’s real-life Big Bros crank out their version of “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia,” as they’ve being doing of late. Ad Policy
It’s worth quickly revisiting Orwell. “On the sixth day of Hate Week,” he wrote,
when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces—at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally. There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place…. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.
We’ve recently gone through a Hate Week or two ourselves. Only months ago, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the last POW in Afghanistan, had been valorized by the right. Senators McCain, Ayotte and Inhofe, Sarah Palin and Allen West and right-wing websites wanted Bergdahl freed at all costs, and blamed Obama for leaving him behind.
Then, of course, Obama did free Bergdahl. You can argue that the deal struck was mishandled, but there’s no excuse—none—for the rightwing pillorying of Bergdahl into a one-man Eastasia. With no evidence and “no admission that any change had taken place,” they’ve recast him, variously, as a deserter, a traitor, a jihadist or, as Fox News reporter James Rosen bizarrely put it, “a kind of modern-day Lee Harvey Oswald.” Death threats were made against his parents; his hometown of Hailey, Idaho, canceled a celebration of his return for fears of public safety. Fox News’s Kimberly Guilfoyle declared that he was “lucky” US forces didn’t find him earlier because “he would have come home either in a body bag or come home and gone straight to jail.”
Bergdahl is back now in the United States, being treated at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, and God help him when, weeks or months or years from now, he meets the media. (This cartoon puts it succinctly.)
Then, faster than you can switch a long beard from signifying good ol’, homo-hatin’ Duck Dynasty boys to signifying that you look like a Muslim (as Bill O’Reilly said of Bergdahl’s father)—quicker than that, you can make a pair of right-wing cop killers cease to exist.
The same Fox News that usually torches not only cop killers but lawyers who defend them and singers who rap about them had almost nothing to say about Jerad and Amanda Miller, the couple who executed two police officers as they were eating at a Las Vegas pizzeria. The Millers had attended rallies at the Cliven Bundy ranch and thus hated law enforcement in the right way, in the way Fox had helped to foment. As Eric Boehlert wrote last week:
Primetime hosts Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity both ignored the shocking cop-killer story [the day after the killings], while Megyn Kelly devoted four sentences to it. (By contrast, the story covered extensively during CNN and MSNBC’s primetime.) Fox talkers on Monday were still far more interested in debating the prisoner swap of Bowe Bergdahl than they were examining the political ambush in Las Vegas…. In the 36 hours after the shooting, Fox News tread lightly around the Las Vegas story, producing regular news updates about the crime spree. But Fox provided almost no commentary, no context, and certainly no collective blame for the executions. And that’s how Fox News deals with right-wing domestic terrorism in America, when it even bothers to acknowledge the killings and the crimes…. on Fox the perpetrators are always portrayed as lone gunmen (and women) who do not represent any cultural or political movement.
This sort of media-manufactured amnesia goes beyond a mere “flip-flop.” In a well-oiled propaganda machine, who’s lone and who’s representative, who’s a hero and who’s a heel, even good and evil themselves, are interchangeable. Anything can be instantly reframed as circumstances dictate.
As we’re already hearing from some quarters: “We have always been right to go to war in Iraq.”No doubt some parents (or more likely, people who aren't parents) will find this mystifying. How can I entrust my child to a school that does not accord with my own religious and spiritual beliefs? How can I expose my boy to an ideology that I believe is largely nonsense? What, in short, is wrong with me?
In response I would say, first, that while I'm not on board with all of Waldorf philosophy, I am absolutely on board with parts of it -- and those, are I think, the most important parts. I would rather have my nine-year-old learn about gnomes, by a long shot, than spend his school days preparing for a multiple-choice test designed by some distant bureaucrat. I love that recess and flopping about in the mud in all weather and movement (that's Waldorf for "gym") are considered not discardable extras, but central parts of learning. And I really love that his gym teacher is not encouraging him -- as my public school gym teacher encouraged me -- to pick on the kids in the class who were weaker, or, in one case, on the kid who had to wear braces on his legs.
And there are plenty of other examples. I love the arts education -- my son, in third grade, can really and truly draw in a way that I still can't, because no one cared to teach me. I love that he knows how to knit. I love that his school took him on a camping trip where he learned to tap maple trees and went ice fishing. I love that when he gets sick, he cries because he can't go to school. I love that, if he is ever having any problem in class or with other students, I call his teacher, and the teacher listens carefully -- and then she fixes it.
Thus, on the one hand, I have a bright, kind, loving, cultured, energetic, active child who adores school and his classmate and his teachers. On the other hand, he sort of thinks gnomes exist. To me, that seems like a good bargain.
Part of the reason it seems like a good bargain is that I'm okay, in general, with my son learning things, or thinking things, that I don't think myself. After all, surely part of the point of education -- or for that matter, the point of leaving the house -- is to find out about things you wouldn't necessarily find out about at home. That can mean gnomes. It can mean ice fishing. It can mean knitting. It can even mean discovering that there are adults who will bully the weak if they can -- though, obviously, while that knowledge may be valuable, there are other reasons for wanting to put your child beyond the reach of such people as quickly as you can.
I don't think I'm unique or anything; there are a lot of parents who are perfectly happy to have their kids learn from people who are not exactly like them. The Jewish Community Center camp my son went too, where they taught Hebrew prayers and had Sabbath celebrations, was filled with African-American kids -- some of whom may have been Jewish themselves, but many of whom surely weren't. And not all students in Catholic schools are Catholic by a long shot.In this Nov. 13, 2012 file photo, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, left, performs a mock swearing in for Rep. David Curson, D-Mich., accompanied by his wife Sharon Curson, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Driving from Michigan in his Ford F150 pickup truck, Curson arrived in Washington a week ago. He set up an office last Sunday, was sworn in on Tuesday and by Friday had logged his first votes and given his first floor speech _ one that stretched a bit past the one-minute he'd been allotted. The 64-year-old Democrat has no time to waste. In six weeks, he'll be gone. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Driving from Michigan in his Ford F150 pickup truck, David Curson arrived in Washington a week ago. He set up an office last Sunday, was sworn in as a congressman on Tuesday and by Friday had logged his first votes and given his first floor speech — one that stretched a bit past the one minute he'd been allotted.
The 64-year-old Democrat has no time to waste. In six weeks, he'll be gone.
In Congress' packed lame-duck session, Curson is a curiosity.
He was one of four members of the House sworn in this past week to fill a partial term, but he's the only one who didn't win a full, two-year term to go with the temporary gig. In January, he'll drive his truck home and be replaced by Republican Rep.-elect Kerry Bentivolio, whom Curson beat out for the partial term.
Curson did not run for a full term, only opting to run in the special election after other Democrats took a pass.
The seat was left vacant when Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican, quit Congress during the summer after he failed to qualify for the ballot because of questions about petition signatures.
Curson, a burly, bearded ex-Marine and United Autoworkers union representative says he didn't even realize for sure that he'd won until midafternoon the day after the election.
"It kind of stunned everybody, but immediately the phone just came off the hook," he said. Party leaders called offering "all the help they could to get me off the ground and running."
Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., have lent Curson staff to help him with the brief learning curve he has. In just days, he assembled a nearly full staff, including his own chief of staff and communications director.
One aide, Curson says, is "guiding me around" to ensure he doesn't get lost in the labyrinth of hallways in the Capitol, gets to votes on time and generally knows where he should be.
Curson, who worked on the federal auto bailout on the UAW's behalf, said he knows he's arrived in Washington at an important time. He's keen to play whatever role he can as Congress seeks to navigate the fiscal cliff and a slew of other thorny, year-end issues.
"A lot of different issues that have been lying stagnant are going to come into play," he said, adding that he'll be pushing for compromise.
So far, he says, it's been a frenetic, enjoyable experience.
"I expected to be treated as the naive guy who doesn't know how all this works, you know, I've never held a public office before," he said, noting he got to stand on the floor with one of his political heroes, Dingell. "But that's not how it's been. I'm truly impressed by the forum."
Impressed enough to consider a run for a full term?
"At this point, no," he said, adding, however, "I might catch the bug."
___
Online:
Curson's website: http://curson.house.gov/office/washington-dcF1 Live London was honoured with a hat-trick of titles in The Drum UK Event Awards 2017, including the Grand Prix, the Large Event of the Year - and the Sports Event of the Year.
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Mason. Each of these degrees has its own ceremony and are together known as the “Blue Lodge.”[38] As the initiate makes promises he shakes hands or performs other physical movements to signify his agreement.
If you think about it, there are a number of ways in our culture to represent making promises or covenants including signing our name on paper, shaking hands with another person, raising our right hand to the square, being immersed in water, eating bread and water or wine, or even the American TV cowboy custom of spitting on your hand and then shaking hands. All of these are tokens of the promises we are making.
Through time, God has also used various methods, or signs, to represent the making of covenants. In Genesis 17:11, talking about circumcision it says, “And it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.” In Genesis 9: 12, God talks about the rainbow and says, “This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you.” In Exodus 12: 13 when the blood is put on the door posts, God says, “And the blood shall be to you for a token.” In the Book of Mormon, when Captain Moroni asks for people to follow God in Alma 46:21 the people rent their garments “in token, or as a covenant, that they would not forsake the Lord their God.”
So a token is a physical action that God asks us to do as we make promises. Remember, we make tokens of promises every day as we sign our names to important documents—even documents that may seem trivial, such as the pieces of paper in your checkbook. Signing our name is a physical action to represent the promises we are making. In 2 Kings, Naaman was asked to wash himself seven times in the river Jordan to be cured of his leprosy. We all know that the water in the river Jordan did not cure his leprosy, but rather it was Naaman’s willingness to humble himself before God that paved the way for God to cure him.
Whatever the physical action is that we do, the important thing is the covenant or promise we make and not how we symbolize that promise. It is important to note however, that the Lord has mandated to us certain ways to represent certain covenants just as he mandated to Naaman to wash seven times in the river. So we should not discount the divine source for those tokens.
There are other optional degrees in Masonry which are organized into two groups, the York Rite and the Scottish Rite. One of the ceremonies in the York Rite is called the Royal Arch Degree, and it has been singled out as a possible source for the Temple because of its similarities. The Royal Arch ceremony involves priestly robes and passage through a veil into a holy of holies. But, before we make too much of these similarities, we need to remember that Joseph Smith was a third degree Blue Lodge Master Mason and, as far as we know, never participated in or received the Royal Arch degree. There were a few members in Nauvoo who were members of the Royal Arch, such as Newel K. Whitney,[39] but we have no record of Joseph Smith taking those additional steps. Additionally, the similarities of having priestly attire, a temple veil, and the holy of holies are clearly referenced in the Bible.
Both Masons in their lodge, and the Mormons in their temple endowment, use aprons, but the aprons are different and have very different meanings and very different purposes. The green LDS apron can be traced to Genesis 3:7: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” The Masonic white lambskin apron refers to aprons worn by stone Masons in quarries and represents to the Masons the honor of a pure life.
Early saints believed that both Freemasonry and the temple endowment came from ancient temple rituals. Hugh Nibley, Stephen Ricks, Matthew Brown, and Jeffrey Bradshaw have done work showing ties between what is done in modern temples and ancient temples[40]. As for the ancient origin of masonry, Greg Kearney simply states that many symbols within masonry predate Freemasonry.[41] Our modern temples match the theme of ancient temples symbolically moving man from his fallen state back into the presence of God. While this is not the purpose of Masonic rituals, it is possible that some aspects of the Masonic rites were fashioned after some ancient temple themes. There is still much disagreement on the source of Masonic rituals and whether they are ancient or relatively modern. Many historians today believe the rituals were created in the seventeenth century, but, there is clearly a biblical influence. One would expect that influence as early masons were devout practicing Christians surround by a devoutly Christian culture.
Let me summarize using a question and answer format.
Q. Did Joseph simply copy the temple ceremony from the masons?
A. No. There is too much in the temple that isn’t related to what goes on in masonry.
Q. Are there elements in the endowment ceremony that are found in masonry?
A.Yes. There are a few but they have been completely repurposed. Certainly the temple ceremony contains some of the phrases, wording, and symbols that exist within masonry. But, these things, both masonic and biblical, were part of the world Joseph Smith lived in. Just as we use movie language in our speaking, it is not surprising to have some masonic language in the world of Joseph Smith.
Q. Does freemasonry go back to the time of King Solomon, or is a modern creation?
A. We don’t know and we have no way of knowing. While members of the Church like the idea of masonry from the ancient temple, and it is what early church members believed and taught, current thought leans toward a more modern origin of freemasonry. Never-the-less, even if there was a more modern origin, masonry includes biblical temple themes and ancient symbols.
Q. Did Joseph Smith copy those similar elements from modern freemasonry, or do they stem from Solomon’s temple and other ancient temples?
A. We don’t know, and we have no way of knowing.
Q. Did Joseph Smith simply believe something was ancient that was really modern and copy that into a fake temple ceremony?
A. No, even if you stripped out all of the elements that overlap with masonry, the temple ceremony is surprisingly in alignment with ancient temples.
The Lord wanted to give us a gift or endowment. He directed Joseph Smith to create a ceremony where we would make covenants with God and receive promised blessings. The teachings, covenants, and promises within that temple ceremony do not come from masonry.
Even if we were to take the position that Joseph Smith took the revealed covenants and designed a ceremony himself to remind us of those covenants on a regular basis, Joseph Smith would still be a prophet acting within his calling. We take the sacrament each week to symbolically reenact the last supper while we make covenants. In the temple, we are symbolically reminded of our purpose in life and how we should follow God. I know that theme comes from God and is ancient in origin.
In conclusion, Masonry focuses on man’s relationship to man while the temple endowment focuses on man’s relationship to God. While there may be some passing similarities between some Masonic rituals and the temple ritual of the endowment, the teachings, the covenants, and the purposes are completely different.
Did Joseph Smith use some words and symbols from Masonry to create the temple ceremony? Probably, but only a very small amount that he repurposed for a different meaning.
Did the Masons use words and symbols from Solomon’s temple to create their masonic ceremonies?
Or were they purely seventeenth century creations? I don’t think anybody knows that answer for sure. But, it really doesn’t matter. Because the claim Joseph Smith borrowed the endowment ceremony from masonry, whether created in the seventeenth century or not, is clearly false.
While there are a few similarities, the entire purpose and intent is different. Instead of believing that Joseph Smith copied the ceremony from the Masons, it makes much more sense to say that the Joseph Smith received the promises and covenants of the Temple from God and from the scriptures. But he also adapted and repurposed some things he was exposed to in Freemasonry to assist in that temple ceremony. Whether those few repurposed masonic elements are of ancient or modern origin, I will leave up to you.
I have personally witnessed the influence and miracles of God within the walls of the temple and the power that keeping the covenants that we make there has had in my life. The temple creates a sacred space for us to worship God. As we participate in temple ordinances we set ourselves on the path to return to Him blessing our own lives and the lives of our families.
Q&A
Q1: Does D&C 95:8 Kirtland 1833 “…build a house in the which house I design to endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high.” Does this verse not show that the temple ceremony is from the Lord?
A1: I believe the temple ceremony is from the Lord. I believe that. How much? How much came from the culture, Joseph Smith, or from Masonry or whatever I don’t know, but as far if you were to ask me does the temple ceremony come from the Lord I’d say, “Yes.” Is it designed exactly like the Lord put it there? I don’t know. I don’t know that. It could be like the brother of Jared in lighting the boat. I’m not sure and so I don’t have to take a position on that either way. But as far as temple ceremony endowment, is it from God? Absolutely it is.
Q2: Did Masonry play a role in the Kirtland bank collapse?
A2: That’s a great question. I think you should ask that of Elizabeth Kuehn.
Q3: Do we know Freemasonry being accepted by Joseph Smith Jr. contributed to W.W. Phelps’ apostasy from the early church?
A3: I don’t believe it did. Is it possible? It’s hard for us in hindsight to read the minds of people, but I think W.W. Phelps and all of the Masons within the church stayed faithful. Brigham Young tried to reestablish Masonry when he moved here to Utah. He contacted the Mexican Grand Lodge first and they turned him down, because of plural marriage that did not fall within the standards of Masonry. At least I believe that’s the reason they did. And then he also claimed he sent a letter to another Grand Lodge and but there’s no record of that Grand Lodge ever receiving that letter. I don’t know why. So he tried to continue Masonry even after they moved to Utah.
Q4: Do we know how high in Freemasonry Joseph Smith rose in its ranks?
A4: Well he was a Master Mason in the Blue Lodge, which is the…it’s not one of the optional rites, but it’s being a Master Mason. I know we have at least one Master Mason in our crowd here. [Speaking to a member of the audience] Yes, would you say that’s the highest?
[Member of the audience] Every degree above the third degree is still a Master Mason.
[Scott] Ok.
[Member of the audience] Although [in] the independent body, [in] both the York Rite, of which I am member, and the Scottish Rite, you are still a Master Mason even if you work your way through all of those degrees.
[Scott] Right.
[Member of the audience] I don’t believe York Rite or Scottish Rite were available in Illinois at the time Joseph… [indistinguishable]
[Scott] And I don’t either, Yes.
[Scott] Right. There is York Rite and Scottish Rite. People argue was it available/was it not available? I see no evidence it was available. Could it have been? If somebody says, “Here it was.” Then I’d say like, “Ok, maybe it was.” But we have no record of that. We have no record Joseph Smith was involved with it.
Q5: Do you think that Masonry was the energy behind the Crusades to fight Islam?
A5: That’s one of the theories, but I don’t know.
Q6: Are you aware of an ancient Chinese creation myth where the creative beings used the compass and the square as creative tools, predating Solomon?
A6: That’s over my head. You’ll have to ask somebody who’s more familiar with that. That’s interesting.
Q7: You mention the Masonic ceremonies have elements that are similar to the temple. Wouldn’t it be correct to say that some of the ritual actions involved in the two ceremonies are identical?
A7: Yes. That would be correct to say that some of the ritual actions involved in the two ceremonies are identical. But, again, they’re repurposed, so they have different meaning. It’s like if you sign a contract for your car or you sign a job contract, [in] both cases you’re signing a contract, but they’re different things. One’s for a car, one’s for a job. So they’re just different things. There’s a few actions.
Footnotes
[1] Kearney, Greg https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2005/the-message-and-the-messenger-latter-day-saints-and-freemasonry, accessed 7/7/2017.
[2] http://www.masonicsourcebook.com/stonemasons_operative_masons.htm, accessed 7/31/2017
[3] http://www.grandlodgescotland.com/masonic-subjects/masonic-articles/381-operative-and-speculative-masonry-the-guilds-and-livery-companies Accessed 7/7/2017. There exists numerous other sources on the start of the Grand Lodge.
[4] Robinson, John J. (1990-10-25). Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry. M. Evans & Company. Kindle Edition. p. 175
[5] http://www.ugle.org.uk/what-is-Freemasonry Accessed 4/26/2015
[6] Jacob, Margaret C, The Origins of Freemasonry, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007 p. 72
[7] Jacob, Margaret C, The Origins of Freemasonry, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007 p. 15
[8] J. Smith, Jr., Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 19 December 1841, Book first published 1938 p. 329.
[9] Benimeli, Josè A Ferrer, “Freemasonry and the Catholic Church”, Handbook of Freemasonry, Brill 2014 p. 151.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Robinson, John J. (1990-10-25). Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry. M. Evans & Company. Kindle Edition. P. 183.
[13] Bodgan, Henrik and Jan Snoek, Handbook of Freemasonry, Brill 2014 p. 26.
[14] Many Latter-day Saints can relate to the idea of a splinter group whose behavior tarnishes the main group even though they threw them out or excommunicated them.
[15] Introvigene, Massimo “Freemasonry and the New Religious Movements”, Handbook of Freemasonry, Brill 2014 p. 312.
[16] Bodgan, Henrik and Jan Snoek, Handbook of Freemasonry, Brill 2014 p. 28, 214-215.
[17] https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007058 accessed 7/31/17 and https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/a-hoax-of-hate-the-protocols-of-the-learned-elders-of-zion accessed 7/31/17.
[18] Jacob, Margaret, The Origins of Freemasonry, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 7.
[19] Jacob, Margaret, The Origins of Freemasonry, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 8.
[20] Bessel, Paul M. The Anti-Masonic Party, http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/Masons/Essays/anti-Masonic.html, accessed July 11, 2017.
[21] http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/william-wines-phelps, accessed July 11, 2017.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Lucinda Morgan Harris is the person whom Elizabeth Marsh, wife of Thomas B. Marsh, allegedly got into a dispute with over a pint of milk strippings. While it has been claimed there was no support for the milk strippings story, a second look at historical documents has found references that lend support for the event. The event is admittedly complicated. http://juvenileinstructor.org/thomas-b-marshs-reconciliation-with-george-w-harris/
[24]Woodruff, Wilford, journal quoted in “Journal of Mormon History Vol. 18, No. 2, 1992,” at:http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/mormonhistory/vol18/iss2/1.
[25] https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/selections-2006-religious-education-student-symposium/masonic-martyrdom-freemason Accessed July 7, 2017.
[26] “The Golden Bible”. 1831 The Geauga Gazette. Painseville, Ohio, March 15, 1831:1.
[27] https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/secret-combinations?lang=eng
[28] https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1997/10/standing-for-truth-and-right?lang=eng
[29] Lucius N. Scovil[le], Letter to the Editor dated February 2, 1884 as quoted in Homer, Michael W Joseph’s Temples, University of Utah Press, 2014 p. 205.
[30] L. John Nuttall, Diary, February 7 1877, Special Collections, Lee Library.
[31] Godfrey, Kenneth W http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Freemasonry_and_the_Temple accessed July 5, 2017.
[32] Brigham Young tried to start a lodge in Utah after he got there, but was unable to get a charter. Later, non-Mormons started the lodge and refused to admit Mormons. This violated Masonic rules, but persisted anyway for many years.
[33] Mrs. T. B. H. Fanny” Stenhouse, “Tell it All”: The story of a Life’s Experience in Mormonism. Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington & Co., 1874 p. 354.
[34] Conversation with Greg Kearny on July 5, 2017.
[35] Introvigene, Massimo Freemasonry and the New Religious Movements, Handbook of Freemasonry, Brill 2014 p. 312.
[36] Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 9:311. [13 July 1862]
[37] Introvigene, Massimo Freemasonry and the New Religious Movements, Handbook of Freemasonry, Brill 2014
[38] The blue lodge is a sort of short hand so named for the color of the covers of the ritual code books. The term blue lodge refers to lodges working the three degrees.
[39] Mackey, Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, 1:327. And “Masonic,” Norwalk (Ohio) Reporter and Huron Advertiser, February 9, 1828.
[40] See http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/jeffrey-m-bradshaw-on-what-did-joseph-smith-know-about-temple-ordinances-by-1836/ and the books Temple Themes in the Book of Moses, by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Hugh Nibley Temple and the Cosmos, by Hugh Nibley, and Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons, by Matt Brown.
[41] Conversation with Greg Kearney on July 5, 2017.Tickets for Tuesday night's Canucks game against the Winnipeg Jets were selling for as little as $30 last night outside Rogers Arena as fans appear to be losing interest in the lacklustre team.
Vancouver Canucks defenseman Alexander Edler (23) puts Winnipeg Jets center Bryan Little (18) into the boards during the second period of NHL action in Vancouver, B.C. Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
The official prices for seats range from $62 to $209, but a quick search of Craigslist also turned up dozens of ads promising great seats well below face value, some as low as $25 each.
Some sellers were even offering to deliver them, if you will just take the tickets off their hands.
"It hasn't been this bad since the Keenan days... and even a bit lower," said ticket broker Kingsley Bailey, referring to Mike Keenan, who coached the team during two losing seasons in 1997/98 and 1998/99.
Hot tickets no more
It used to be fans would pay hundreds of dollars for even a nose-bleed seat at the Canucks' home games. Some even flew to Phoenix or San Jose to get a great seat at one of the team's away games.
The team even boasted about its sellout streak of close to 500 games.
But that run of sellouts ended earlier this year, when after a strong start, the team's performance faded.
As the goals dried up, so has the fan support, with ticket prices dropping to levels not seen in years.
The team has tried to improve this season by hiring a new coach, GM and former team captain Trevor Linden as the new president.
Bailey says seasons ticket holders have endured too many price increases by management that didn't seem to care about the fans.
"[They] were not good to their season ticket base..[you] can only give it to season ticket holders so long," he said.B.C. could legalize marijuana on its own without federal approval, believes a former prosecutor that helped legalize pot south of the border in 2012.
Marijuana falls under federal jurisdiction in Canada, but with some creativity local politicians can push from the bottom up for change, says Tonia Winchester the former deputy campaign director for Yes on I-502.
"I think it's possible for something like that to happen in B.C. But I think it will take a lot of creativity and courage on the local level to really stand-up and say our communities are ready for something different and I think B.C. is really poised to do that," she said.
Winchester is speaking at the Union of B.C. Municipalities annual general meeting on the role cities need to play when it comes to legalizing pot and the lessons they can take away from Washington state.
Tonia Winchester the former deputy campaign director for Yes on I-502 is in Vancouver to speak with the Union of B.C. Municipalities on legalization of marijuana in Washington. (Charlie Cho/CBC)
"I think it's challenging as a politician to step out and be pro-marijuana. Because people think if you are pro-marijuana, you are pro the use of marijuana. But what we are really talking about is what is the best policy for our community," she explained.
Regulating and taxing marijuana is about taking money out of the hands of cartels, freeing up law enforcement to work on other matters and investing in drug treatment and education, she said.
"I think really B.C. and the politicians here are poised to have that same conversation. What can we do that is better for communities than putting more people behind bars," she said.
To hear the full interview listen to the audio labelled Marijuana legalization talk at the UBCM AGM with the CBC's Rick Cluff on The Early Edition.What do these phrases mean to you? “Circuit board”, “gearbox”, “dynamo and battery”? If your answer is “digital camera” then you are either cheating or you already know about the BigShot, a kit camera designed to let kids learn about digicams by building one.
The BigShot, still in testing, is a super-simple digicam from the Computer Vision Lab at Columbia University. It comes in parts, ready to be assembled (by kids, but I can’t wait to get my hands on one), and teaches you along the way how these things work. It’s not quite the transparent view you get from making an old analog camera, where you can see how everything works, but it’s as close as you can get from a machine that uses circuit boards.
The feature set itself is interesting enough. The BigShot is powered by a single AA battery, or by spinning a crank (4-6 rotations will provide enough power for one shot). The flash is made up of LEDs, and there is no removable memory card — instead you just hook up the camera to a computer via USB.
The lens arrangement is the best part, though. An array of options is laid out on a dial, which is rotated into position, much like the elements on a microscope. Matched pairs sit opposite each other on the circle, so you look through one (there is nor screen on the back) and take a picture through it’s partner. Lens choices are “normal” (a 43º field of view), “panoramic”, which appears to act likE an anamorphic lens, squishing the scene horizontally to be stretched back out in the accompanying BigShot software, and “Stereo Prism”, which splits an image into stereo pairs, again for processing later.
One oddity, caused by the lack of a screen, is that you can only delete the last photo you took: this is done by turning the control dial to the trashcan icon and pressing the shutter. We actually like this setup: along with the limited (and unspecified) amount of on-board memory and the lack of an image review function is that you will shoot like you did with film — every frame is precious and everything comes as a surprise when you finally get to see the photos.
As a non mass market educational aid, it’s sure to be too expensive. But perhaps, if sold as a toy, or advertised as a low-tech camera, kind of a digital Lomo, it could take off. I’m all over this, and if it comes in at under $100 I’ll be grabbing one for myself and my nephew, who doesn’t have enough geek influences in his life.
Project page [BigShot via Make]Many of the best weird fiction writers (and creators in most other media) have been profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos H.P. Lovecraft created eight decades ago. Lovecraft’s themes of cosmic indifference, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history – written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread – are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. A few years ago, New Cthulhu : The Recent Weird presented some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction from the first decade of the twenty-first century. Now, New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird brings you more eldritch tales and even fresher fiction inspired by Lovecraft.
CONTENTS:
The Same Deep Waters As You • Brian Hodge
Mysterium Tremendum • Laird Barron
The Transition of Elizabeth Haskings • Caitlín R. Kiernan
Bloom • John Langan
At Home With Azathoth • John Shirley
The Litany of Earth • Ruthanna Emrys
Necrotic Cove • Lois Gresh
On Ice • Simon Strantzas
The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward • Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
All My Love, A Fishhook • Helen Marshall
The Doom That Came to Devil Reef • Don Webb
Momma Durtt • Michael Shea
They Smell of Thunder • W.H. Pugmire
The Song of Sighs • Angela Slatter
Fishwife • Carrie Vaughn
In the House of the Hummingbirds • Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Who Looks Back? • Kyla Ward
Equoid • Charles Stross
The Boy Who Followed Lovecraft • Marc LaidlawThe University of Michigan solar car team will make a pit stop in its home town Monday as part of an overnight stop during the American Solar Challenge.
Photo from the U-M solar car website.
The 16 solar cars participating in the 1,650-mile race will overnight outside Michigan Stadium in the permit-parking lot SC36 at Main Street and Keech Avenue. The U-M car is expected to arrive around noon and depart Tuesday morning.
It will be the first time the race has stopped in Ann Arbor.
Quantum, the U-M car, was in first place Sunday morning after starting the day with stormy weather in Erie, Pa., according to an update posted on the team’s website. The race began Saturday in Rochester, N.Y.
The 1,650-mile American Solar Challenge traverses eight states in as many days, finishing in St. Paul, Minn.
U-M’s Quantum solar car is 16 feet long and five feet wide, weighs 320 pounds, is made of carbon fiber monocoque and is equipped with silicon photovoltaic cells, a lithium-ion battery and an in-hub, brushless electric DC motor. The car has a maximum power output of 12.3 horsepower. It has been clocked traveling as fast as 105 mph.
U-M is defending champion in the race. The team has won the American Solar Challenge four years running and seven times overall. The team took third place in last fall’s World Solar Challenge in Australia.
Read more about the solar car team here.Windows XP will be officially retired on April 8, 2014 and Microsoft warns everybody that this aging operating system will no longer be secure, as the platform won’t get security updates and patches as of this date.
Tim Rains, director of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, recently warned that Windows XP computers would become vulnerable forever without these patches, so users clearly need to move to a modern platform as soon as possible.
“What is the risk of continuing to run Windows XP after its end of support date? One risk is that attackers will have the advantage over defenders who choose to run Windows XP because attackers will likely have more information about vulnerabilities in Windows XP than defenders,” Rains explains.
“The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities and test Windows XP to see if it shares those vulnerabilities. If it does, attackers will attempt to develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP,” he states.
Truth is, there is no doubt that Windows XP will indeed become a vulnerable platform, as hackers will attempt to exploit new vulnerabilities and security flaws found on computers still running this particular OS version.
Which gets us to today’s question: should users who want to migrate from Windows XP move to Windows 8.1 or pick the more affordable Ubuntu platform?
It pretty much depends on every single user and organization that wants to abandon Windows XP.
Windows 8.1
Microsoft hopes that Windows 8.1 will be the next destination for the majority or users, but such a choice also depends on a number of factors.
First of all, Windows 8.1 is based on the core modern operating system called Windows 8, which means that it’s the first successor of the platform that caused so much confusion among beginners.
Windows 8.1 does come with a Start button, but unlike Windows XP, this doesn’t launch a Start Menu and only gets users to the touch-friendly Start screen. That’s actually one of the main setbacks of the operating system, and Microsoft hopes to cope with that in a future release by bringing back the Start Menu.
As several organizations and analysts across the world confirmed, users moving to Windows 8.1 could indeed need some training or at least assistance as they discover the new operating system, mostly because Microsoft has changed so many things about the traditional Windows in the new version.
As a result, many choose to move to Windows 7, which is the obvious choice given the fact that it’s more user-friendly, but it’s not exactly what Microsoft hoped to get once Windows XP is retired.
Then, there are the overall costs of moving to Windows 8.1. While Windows XP could easily run on older configurations, as it doesn’t require advanced hardware, Windows 8.1 clearly needs some computer upgrades, so chances are that a Windows XP user won’t be able to run the new OS version on the same system.
Here are the system requirements for Windows XP:
• Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
• At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
• At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
• CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
• Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
• Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution
• Sound card
• Speakers or headphones
And here are those of Windows 8.1:
• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver
As you can see, Windows 8.1 clearly needs an upgraded system and, in case you want to make the most of the OS, you might also need additional hardware, such as a touchscreen unit and 64-bit processors for some built-in features. A brand new Windows 8.1 computer costs at least several hundreds of dollars, obviously in an entry-level configuration.
For example, the Asus VivoBook, which comes with an 11.6-inch screen, a 1.5 GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and Windows 8 is available online for $279.99 (€205), while more advanced devices are obviously even more expensive.
At the same time, a Windows 8.1 license comes with a price of $119 (€90) for the core version of the operating system and $199.99 (€150) for the professional package.
Ubuntu
Even though its market share has only improved slightly in the last couple of years, Ubuntu is now considered a great alternative for Windows XP, pretty much because many users are disappointed with the latest operating system released by the Redmond-based tech giant.
Probably the number one advantage of Ubuntu is the open source license, which basically means that everyone can use it free of charge and modify it without paying for a license. At the same time, Ubuntu serves as the foundation for many other Linux distributions out there, which makes it quite an essential platform for many users.
Some people choose to stay away from Ubuntu pretty much because they are afraid of the Linux environment, as many believe that it’s not at all user-friendly and you need to spend quite a lot of time figuring it out.
This statement however is only partially true. Ubuntu has improved its user-friendly side quite a lot lately, so now you get an eye-candy standard look and the essential tools, such as a word processor and image editor, included in the standard package. In addition, you have a built-in app store that makes installation a lot easier, so you no longer need the terminal to download and install new software packages.
Of course, there are many other improvements in Ubuntu, but another thing that’s really worth mentioning is the way it copes with older hardware. Here are the official system requirements for Ubuntu 13.10:
• 700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
• 512 MB RAM (system memory)
• 5 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
• VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution
• Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
Additionally, depending on the Linux distribution you choose, system requirements can be even lower. These are the system requirements for Lubuntu, another distribution based on Ubuntu:
• Pentium II or Celeron system
• 128 MB of RAM
• 5 GB of hard-drive space
Closing words
There is no doubt that your next operating system depends on many factors, but before dumping Windows completely and moving to Linux, don’t forget that it’s very important to get around the platform very fast and find apps without spending too much time for this.
Ubuntu is indeed backed by a growing community that has answers for almost every question and, in addition, comes with infinite customization options, but there’s no doubt that you need some time to get used to it before doing anything else.
Setting up hardware and finding apps that do the same thing as those of Windows could be troublesome, not to mention that some Windows programs are missing completely from Ubuntu.
On the other hand, if you decide to go for Windows 8.1, additional investments are absolutely necessary. It all starts with the license and ends with the hardware itself, as your existing XP machine cannot cope with the system requirements of Windows 8.1.
Overall, it’s all a matter of choice and budget, but consider your options carefully, as migrating from Windows to an alternative platform is a critical decision for any user and organization out there.Did you know that earlier this year, the Navy announced it was changing its centuries-old rating system for sailors, because gendered titles like “yeoman” were supposedly sexist? I couldn’t reach ISIS for comment, but I suspect they were giggling like schoolgirls at the priorities of America’s Armed Forces.
Luckily for us all, common sense and the fortitude of America’s sailors has trumped social justice. The Navy is scrapping the plan. This surely is another win for President-elect Trump a month before he takes the office. He just can’t stop winning!
In a country where the military is tasked with fighting climate change, it isn’t shocking to learn that political correctness was more important to the Navy than projecting America’s force across the world’s oceans in the defense of freedom. I was sure we’d soon hear about intensive 6AM microaggression training sessions for new recruits.
According to the PC mindset of the social justice warrior, which has now penetrated the Pentagon, women are shaking and crying at the thought of having a horrific rating of “legalman” or “airman.” Those of us who respect women believe that brave young lasses called to serve their country in the Navy are not such delicate flowers that they can’t handle the Navy’s version of |
we used Express to render the same Backbone Views that we render on the client? That question is what prompted me on my own path towards application stack unity, so I’ve been very eager to learn more about Rendr.
Rendr took Tim Branyen’s initial idea and made it a reality. It’s important to note that Airbnb’s experiments here weren’t an excuse for architecture aeronautics; rather, they were expressly concerned with solving the “time to content” problem, which is to say, the rendering delay that Twitter famously faced. And by unifying client and server code, Rendr not only makes developers’ lives easier, it solves that time to content problem.
Rendr has a number of features and design approaches that I very much like:
it’s described as “a library, not a framework”
it doesn’t create a server side DOM
it doesn’t try to collapse backend data access into the client tier, as some other frameworks have done
it utilizes existing, familiar code (Express and Backbone)
it keeps the rendered DOM on first load and attaches client objects to it, rather than instantiating client views and replacing the DOM with the results of those client views.
This last item is particularly important: rendering a page on the server, sending it to the client, and then recreating the DOM on the client can lead to odd rendering issues, interactivity problems, and problems with event listeners. But dynamically instantiating client objects and attaching them to an already-rendered DOM is not a trivial problem, and I commend Spike Brehm and the rest of the Airbnb team for taking the time to get this right.
You should definitely take the time to explore Rendr’s codebase. If it existed when I first set out to solve this same set of problems last year, then I probably would’ve abandoned my own quest and just used this library. But the key point of differentiation with the approach I took from Rendr’s design is modularity. Is it possible to achieve application stack unity, while using objects and code that can be implemented with any number of frameworks in any number of ways?
Stay tuned.There is a good piece by the dreaded Bjorn Lomborg inside the back cover of the Fin today. Coal will lift Africa out of poverty. (I think it is poverty, had to photograph the piece in sections and missed some of the byline). It is a discussion of the role of renewables versus king coal for the downtrodden of the earth. The greens must be very proud of their African brethren who obtain no less than 80% of their energy from renewable, mostly wood and also animal dung and crop residues. Pity about deforestation and lethal indoor air pollution.
Westerners use 11,000 kW-hours per person per annum while the number in the sub-Sahara is 137, enough to run your household refrigerator for 4 months. 600 million have no electricity at all.
The International Energy Agency says by 2040 solar in the sub-Sahara will provide 14 kW h per person per annum, almost sustaining a 2-watt LED globe. So it will charge mobile phones and virtually nothing else. That is an extreme form of energy poverty and there is no way to overcome it without using fossil fuels, nuclear power and some hydro where possible.
The IEA has a scenario for the “African Century” which calls for $US 450 billion invested in energy, mostly fossil fuels, replacing the deadly renewables, giving power to 250 million more people and providing 2 billion with an increase in GDP of 30% or almost $US 1000 per person per year.
Of course there is a downside from the green point of view. All that extra carbon and air pollution as well! Those of us who have got over the war on CO2 will not be concerned about the carbon. He cites the estimated cost of the standard “old fashioned” air pollution at $30 billion, which is trivial compared with the overall investment and the benefits.Ottawa, ON, Oct. 26, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP) says it is delivering fairness and choice – then it must look at including propane in its plans.
The Canadian Propane Association (CPA) is expecting that Ontario’s LTEP includes propane as part of its plans for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and providing low cost energy to consumers. The CPA calls on both provincial and municipal government officials to work with the propane industry to harness low-emission propane as an affordable, clean energy solution.
“We’re disappointed that currently Ontario has not included propane. The LTEP must translate into choice for consumers,” says Nathalie St-Pierre, CPA President and CEO. “We feel that to-date, rural and remote communities have been ignored and the Ontario government must include programs that can respond to their needs. Choice for consumers includes energy solutions that can immediately provide emission reductions and offer low cost fuels: propane is a safe and reliable solution than can reduce emissions immediately. It is a readily affordable, low cost alternative with no infrastructure or government funding required.”
It is essential that propane is a part of energy planning discussions. The propane industry provides compelling energy solutions for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. “A large percentage of homeowners still use oil. Every 1000 homes that upgrade appliances and convert from heating oil to propane will have the equivalent annual greenhouse gas reduction impact equivalent to removing 661 cars from the road,” says St-Pierre.
For many non-urban Ontario residents, propane is the energy option that best meets their economic and environmental needs.
Propane can play a significant role in moving Indigenous and remote communities off traditional fuels like diesel and heating oil. Using propane, they would experience cleaner air and less noise pollution; fewer blackouts and supply issues, and no fuel spills. Once other renewable sources become available, propane can be a back-up energy source to ensure reliability.
While the LTEP touches on the expansion of natural gas service, via taxpayer-funded infrastructure spending, the CPA renews its call for any such funding to be energy neutral. St-Pierre says that “the best energy funding model would allow consumers and municipalities to choose the energy solution that works best for them. Since nobody knows exactly what energy markets will look like in 40 years’ time, policy makers must ask themselves: Does it make sense to invest many millions in infrastructure that has an uncertain future and risks stranded assets? As we move to a low-carbon economy, investment in propane makes sense.”
Propane is a ready-to-go solution for some of the major energy and environmental challenges facing Ontario. With wise policy direction and limited additional spending, propane can be a gamechanger and provide significant advancements for households and automotive fleet operators through reduced emissions, lower costs, and improved efficiency.
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About the Canadian Propane Association
With over 400 members, the Canadian Propane Association is the national association for a growing, multi-billion-dollar industry that impacts the livelihood of tens of thousands of Canadians. The CPA develops and produces industry training materials, offers emergency response assistance plans to its members and provides advocacy services for the propane industry.
Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f5a62bb4-d0da-404e-b6c1-44a3968693a7
Tammy Hirsch Canadian Propane Association 587-777-3917 tammyhirsch@propane.caIntroduction
African weddings are a family affair and involve the combining of two lives, two families, and sometimes even two communities! There are many different wedding traditions in the African continent and no two are exactly alike. However, in all the communities the bride plays a very special role and is treated with respect because she is a link between the unborn and the ancestors. A bride might eventually bear a very powerful child, so she is treated with respect. In some areas of East Africa the grooms family would even move to the brides village and set up a whole new house there.
There are many steps that take place before marriage starting at a very young age where training takes place in how to be a suitable partner. Girls will many times go to circumcision schools where women teach them what is involved in marriage, and in some ethnic groups even learn secret codes and languages so that they can communicate with other married women. In the Wolof tribe there is even a time where the elders of the village gather with the bride and give advice and gifts.
Weddings can be very elaborate, involving feasting and dancing for days within a community, they can be very simple, or they can even be performed in huge marriage ceremonies involving many different couples.
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia the Karo people enhance a young brides beauty by tattooing her abdomen with different symbols.
Amhara people: most marriages are negotiated by the two families, with a civil ceremony sealing the contract. A priest may be present. Divorce is allowed and must also be negotiated. There is also a "temporary marriage," by oral contract before witnesses. The woman is paid housekeeper's wages, and is not eligible for inheritance, but children of the marriage are legally recognized and qualify for inheritance. Priests may marry but not eligible for divorce or remarriage.
Kenya
The Massai people of Kenya grow up with children of their own age and normally form relationships with these people. However, in marriage women are given to a man they do not know who is much older then themselves. The bride packs all her belongings and is dressed in her finest jewelry. At the marriage ceremony the father of the bride spits on the brides head and breasts as a blessing and then she leaves with her husband walking to her new home she never looks back fearing that she will turn to stone. This can be a very sad experience for the bride, who is 13-16 years old and may walk a long way to get to her new house. In order to ward off bad luck sometimes the women of the grooms family will even insult the bride.
The Swahili of Kenya bathe brides in sandalwood oils and tatoo henna designs on her limbs. A women elder, or somo, gives instructions to the bride on how to please her husband. Sometimes the somo will even hide under the bed in case there are any problems!
In another area of Kenya the main feature of the wedding is the kupamba, which happens the night after the wedding, it is basically a display of the bride. It is very popular because it is a party just for the women, and when they enter the party they are able to take off their large veils and show off elaborate hairstyles and dresses. The party can almost become a competition because it is believed that if a women has a good husband he will get her beautiful jewelry and clothes.
For the Samburu tribe marriage is a unique series of elaborate ritual. Great importance is given to the preparation of gifts by the bridegroom (two goatskins, two copper earrings, a container for milk, a sheep) and of gifts for the ceremony. The marriage is concluded when a bull enters a hut guarded by the bride's mother, and is killed.
Namibia
The Himba people of Namibia kidnap a bride before the ceremony and dress her in a leather marriage headdress. After the ceremony she is brought into the house where the family tells her what her responsibilities will be as the wife and then anoint her with butterfat from cows. This shows that she has been accepted into the family.
Niger
The Wodabee of Niger court their cousins for marriage. The male cousins wear powerful amulets which are supposed to heighten their attractiveness to the girl. If there are two cousins who desire the same girl the girl chooses the one she wishes and the other man is welcomed into the home of the couple, and if consent is given by the bride he may even share her bed!
SudanPolice lights (Photo11: Alex_Schmidt//iStockphoto)
MONROEVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Three people were hospitalized Sunday with gunshot wounds after a 17-year-old male opened fire on a man at a Pittsburgh-area mall, police said, striking his intended target as well as two bystanders.
The Monroeville Mall went on lockdown Saturday evening after the shooting. The gunman managed to escape but police say they were able to identify him by matching surveillance video with images on social media.
The suspect, who The Associated Press is not identifying because he is a juvenile, was arrested at a home in Brackenridge about 3:15 a.m. Sunday. He was being held at the Allegheny County Jail pending arraignment on charges as an adult of aggravated assault, attempted homicide and recklessly endangering other people.
Gunfire erupted inside the Macy's at about 7:30 p.m., sending panicked shoppers running. Police went store to store to evacuate the mall, which closed for the night.
Police Chief Douglas Cole said two men and a woman were shot, including the man who was targeted. He said the two men were in critical condition, while the woman was in stable condition.
"This was not random," Cole told reporters. "We have evidence that leads to that." He declined to elaborate.
In late December, hundreds of teenagers gathered at the mall and several fights broke out. The fights caused local officials and mall administration to agree on a plan to increase security there.
Pennsylvania native and ex-NFL quarterback Terrelle Pryor tweeted Saturday that he was at the mall, a short drive east of Pittsburgh, when the shooting occurred.
"Damn was just in monroeville mall and just saw 2 ppl get shot," he tweeted. "They are letting guns go in there."
Shoppers described chaos as shots rang out.
"All of the sudden we heard people screaming," Athena Coffey of Churchill told KDKA-TV, "and the next thing you see is a bunch of people, teenagers, scared to death, just exodus en masse in a way you could not believe. I grabbed my children, husband, we started screaming 'go, go, go!'"
Yvette Jackson of North Braddock was attending a birthday party at Giggles and Smiles, a fitness and fun center for children.
"We saw a lot of running, a lot of chaos," she told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. She said she and other patrons were locked in the store for about 45 minutes until police came and let them out.
Four on-duty police officers have been stationed in the mall on Friday and Saturday evenings at the mall's request, Monroeville Mayor Gregory Erosenko said.
"I would have thought that having four officers there would have deterred any incident like we saw (Saturday)," he told the newspaper.
Weapons are banned at the mall, whose code of conduct specifically prohibits "Carrying or displaying weapons of any kind except those carried by certified law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties."
The mall, which is owned and managed by CBL & Associates Properties Inc., of Chattanooga, Tennessee, has 1.1 million square feet of shopping space. It says on its website it features more than 125 stores and eateries, anchored by JCPenney, Macy's and Barnes & Noble.
No one answered the phone at CBL offices after business hours Saturday. A mall security officer reached by telephone said he couldn't talk.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1DQwGOMSaskatoon Police are requesting public assistance in locating a 51-year-old man.
Andrew Hrbachek, 51, was last seen at approximately 6:00 p.m., July 12, 2016, near 25th Street East and Ontario Avenue. Police and family are concerned as Mr. Hrbachek may be in a vulnerable state.
He is described as Caucasian, 5'10" in height, 160 lbs with a medium build, green eyes and short grey hair that is balding in the back. He is also known to wear glasses. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a blue shirt and black running shoes. He also may be wearing a hat, colour unknown.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Andrew Hrbachek is asked to contact Saskatoon Police at 306-975-8300 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
(Occurrence Number: 16-68651)
ATTACHMENT:
(Click to view full size)Tick's tax plan freezes out Northern Nevada Republicans and their 'don't tax me mentality'
News - December 27, 2017 - by Ray Hagar
By Ray Hagar
Nevada Newsmakers
State Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas and a candidate for the Clark County Commission in 2018, said he wants to enact a one-percent sales tax increase in Clark County to bring in $400 million annually to the Clark County School District.
He said on Nevada Newsmakers that he's got a legislative plan to do it by cutting out Northern Nevada's "don't tax me" Republicans from the process.
"We just need to cut ourselves loose from Northern Nevada and their 'don't tax me, don't tax me' mentality and deal with reality," Segerblom said this week. "We have huge problems that need huge solutions and we have people who are willing to pay to fix it."
Segerblom said his plan would first need approval from the Nevada Legislature and has a way bypass the two-thirds vote requirement in both houses for any tax increase.
Segerblom's bill could pass by a simple majority if the bill does not raise taxes but allows the Clark Commission to do so, he said.
A similar bill was passed in 2013, allowing the Washoe County Commission to decide on a proposed Washoe-County-only tax increase to help with school construction and maintenance.
"I've gotten an opinion from LCB (Legislative Counsel Bureau) Legal that says the Legislature, by majority vote, can approve or authorize the Clark County Commission to impose a sales tax," Segerblom said. "And then the Clark County Commission, by a majority vote, can enact a sales tax. And that is the only way, in my opinion, that we are ever going to get a bit of money. It would stay here in Clark County and it would go to our needs."
Since Clark County lawmakers make up more than 70 percent of all State Senate and Assembly members, Northern Nevada legislators would not be needed pass the tax bill.
"The fact is that the biggest problem I see in Nevada in terms of the Legislature and my life in politics, is that we have this new two-thirds requirement which means that basically, Northern Nevada has a stranglehold for anything we do to raise taxes," Segerblom said.
When Nevada Newsmakers host Sam Shad countered that Northern Nevada is not anti-tax if there is a specific need for a new tax, Segerblom shot back:
"You go down to Carson City and you find me one Republican senator or an assembly person (from Northern Nevada) who will vote for a tax increase," Segerblom said.
"They (Northern Nevada Republicans) all have been on your program. And you can ask every one: 'Do you support raising taxes for schools? Would you support raising property taxes? Will you support business taxes? Do you support any other tax?
"And the answer -- other than 2015 when Republicans were going crazy -- is no," Segerblom added. "We just can't live with that."
The 2015 Legislature, with GOP majorities in both houses, passed the largest tax increase in Nevada history -- about $1.4 billion -- after urging, deal-making and arm-twisting by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.
"The great thing is that Clark County has the majority of the legislators," Segerblom said. "So with a majority vote and the governor's signature, of course, we can enact a tax so we can start that process."
Segerblom praise the education students can get in Clark County, noting that he and his children attended Clark County district schools.
"My mother was a school teacher (in Clark County)," Segerblom said. "My kids are a product of the school system."
Yet the Clark system is stacked against students in poverty, he said.
"If you go to the really poor areas, especially in Clark County, you will find that the newest teachers teach there, they have the biggest classrooms and they have the least resources," Segerblom said. "And they teach the people with the most needs because a lot of them are English-language-learners. Some have all kinds of family issues."When I challenged him about the 'hottest year on record,' a New York Times reporter explained that his readers are too dumb to understand numbers.
I recently wrote about the wretched reporting on the claim that 2016 was the “hottest year on record,” using as my main example a New York Times article by Justin Gillis that gave his readers none of the relevant numbers they could use to evaluate that claim. None of them. If you search for the actual numbers, you will eventually find that the effect they are claiming, the actual amount by which this year was hotter than previous years, is smaller than the margin of error in the data.
Shortly afterward, I got a revealing response from Gillis. I’ll fill in all the details for you, because the whole thing is an important case study in why you can’t trust mainstream reporting on global warming. But let’s just cut to the chase. When I asked him why he didn’t include the basic numbers we need to understand his story, he gave me this reply:
So if I understand this correctly, a reporter from the New York Times is telling me that his readers are too dumb to understand numbers.
I don’t believe this for a minute, and not just because I’ve lived through 30 years of New York Times readers telling me how terribly intelligent and sophisticated they are. The newspaper actually does have an educated audience, and more to the point, if its readers lack knowledge on a subject, the reporters are there to analyze the issues and explain them. That’s supposed to be their job.
But this exchange with Gillis started with him telling us that he doesn’t think it’s his job. As far as he’s concerned, the data is somebody else’s department. He points out that there was also an “infographic” associated with the article—prepared by and credited to somebody else—and that if we cared to peruse that, we could “positively drown yourself in numbers.”
Take a look for yourself.
In this infographic, we get a plot of monthly temperatures, with each dot representing a different month, going all the way back to 1880. Only six months out of the entire 137-year history are individually labeled, only two of them since 1990—February and March of 2016, which represent the tail end of a strong El Nino, a naturally occurring, temporary warm cycle. From that graph, could you actually reconstruct any meaningful data? Could you reconstruct averages for one year versus another, even approximately?
Don’t get out your ruler, it’s a rhetorical question.
The other graphic is even more useless for our purposes. It represents monthly temperatures as spirals emanating out from the center of a circle and overlapping on top of each other, making it even harder for anyone to separate out one year from another or discern the exact amount of difference between them. So appealing to these graphs to say “Here are my numbers” is no help whatsoever.
And where are the error bars? It is common for scientists to represent the range of error in their measurements by presenting a measurement not just as a single point, but as a bar covering an entire range. Not just “1.04 degrees,” but “somewhere between 0.94 and 1.14 degrees.” Every scientific measurement has a limit to its precision, based on the instruments and methods that are used. For a long time, temperature measurements were collected, not by some super-precise digital apparatus, but by having human beings walk up to a thermometer and visually read off the temperature from it and write it down. The size of the thermometer, the limits of human eyesight, and differences between individuals—one person might be more scrupulously precise than another—all mean that you have to make allowance for an inherent inaccuracy in the measurements.
Yet in that first New York Times graph, the monthly temperatures are represented by tiny little circles that represent a range of perhaps a few hundredths of a degree—much, much less than the actual margin of error in the data. This conveys a sense of false precision.
A graph is not the same thing as data. It is a picture of data. It’s easy to draw that picture in a way that is impossible for the reader to translate back to actual numbers, or in a way that is misleading. For example, by adjusting the scale on the graph, it’s easy to make small differences look big. You can make hundredths of a degree, which are statistically meaningless in this case, look like they really mean something.
Pushed a little on this, Gillis conceded that “there is no one number” for last year’s average global temperature, because it “depends on which of the five datasets you care to inspect,” and he went on to point to other complications. So because there are a lot of numbers that he could have presented, he decided to give us none?
This is, pretty obviously, a dodge. His original article did not tell us that the numbers are complicated and that they vary depending on who is collecting the measurements. His original article simply hyperventilated about how amazingly hot it is. All the complications are just his fallback position when challenged.
I agree that the data is complicated. If you really want to dig into it, you have to look at things like this.
But you, John Q. Public, should not have to wade through all of that. As I put it in my exchange with Gillis: “There’s a lot of data, and it’s complex? If only there were people whose job is to explain data to the public.” Those people are called “science journalists.” Or would be if there were any.
So let me take a moment to do Gillis’s job for him and present and explain a little of the data to you.
In my previous article, I already pointed to the one set of data that was actually reported more or less properly, with straightforward numbers and a margin of error. The numbers from the British Met Office (Meteorological Office) were reported on the same day as Gillis’s article and showed a difference in average temperature between 2015 and 2016 of 0.01C and margin of error of 0.10C, ten times larger. So the accurate headline is not “2016 Breaks Record for Hottest Year Ever,” but “Last Year’s Temperatures Indistinguishable from Previous Year.” It is crushingly boring, but truthful.
Gillis’s report was supposedly about two different sets of numbers produced by NASA and NOAA. If you hack through this lovely table, you find that the difference between the two years in NASA’s GISS Surface Temperature Analysis is 0.12C. It’s slightly more (0.18C) if you use the “meterological year” that follows the seasons and goes from December to November. But that’s not what most articles were reporting, so let’s stick with the regular calendar year. If you dig through this FAQ—isn’t this fun?—you find that NASA claims a margin of error for recent measurements of plus or minus 0.05C and for older measurements plus or minus 0.10C. That’s a bit dubious, as I’ll explain in a bit, but NASA admits, in nicely passive bureaucratese, that “accurate error estimates are hard to obtain.” So there’s some margin of error in their margin of error.
The data from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is less dramatic. Last year surpassed 2015 by only 0.04C. I couldn’t find a clear labeling of the margin of error for this number, but a description from 2014 gives it as plus or minus 0.09C. It’s certainly hard to imagine that any of these numbers are remotely accurate enough to make 0.04C a significant difference.
Oh, and since we’re drawing from all these different sets of numbers, we might as well throw in measurements of temperatures higher in the atmosphere taken by weather satellites. For the satellite data, a set known as UAH (after the University of Alabama in Huntsville) shows no particular warming trend for a very long time.
Roy Spencer reports that the difference in satellite measurements between 2016 and 1998—the year of the last big El Nino warm cycle—is only 0.02C, within a 0.10C margin of error. Another satellite data set, RSS, confirms this result.
The comparison to 1998 is particularly important, because if the headline is that this year is not significantly hotter than temps 19 years ago, that take a lot of wind out of the “climate change” hysteria. It means we’re not seeing the runaway takeoff in global temperatures that the global warming theory predicted. As Judith Curry has been pointing out, recent temperatures are actually at or below the bottom range for all of the global warming predictions. That is the relevant context for this story, the failure of the data to match the theory, not some infinitesimal difference between this year and last.
Moreover, there is good reason to think that the margin of error in this temperature data is much larger than claimed. NASA and NOAA frequently “adjust” the temperature data to make up for changes in the way it is gathered. Somehow, when this happens, the data always adjusts to fit the theory, but the theory never adjusts to fit the data. The size of these adjustments is often larger that one tenth of one degree. But as Richard Lindzen puts it, “If you can adjust temperatures to two tenths of a degree, it means it wasn’t certain to two tenths of a degree.” So the margins of error are probably a good deal larger than advertised.
Gillis is right. There are a lot of different sets of data, and the issue is complex. So why didn’t he explain any of that complexity to readers of the New York Times? Because complexity leaves room for doubt, and on this issue, doubt cannot be permitted.
Complexity leaves room for doubt, and on this issue, doubt cannot be permitted.
Speaking of which, you’ll notice that I just quoted Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, and Judith Curry. Who are these people, just some crazy bloggers? Enemies of science? Dr. Spencer is a former NASA climatologist and now a principal research scientist at UAH. Dr. Lindzen is emeritus Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT, and Judith Curry was, until her retirement just a few weeks ago, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
A science journalist interested in an accurate, balanced assessment of the temperature data might talk to and quote people like this. The New York Times and other big mainstream media organizations long ago adopted an explicit policy of blacklisting these dissidents.
So if these media reports don’t provide data and explain the numbers, if they don’t give us a range of interpretations from different scientists, what do they do instead? Or to put the question differently, what exactly is Justin Gillis’s job?
It’s stuff like GISS head Gavin Schmidt telling us that “this year was ridiculously off the chart,” or NOAA’s Deke Arndt telling us “We’re punching at the ceiling every year now, that is the real indicator that we’re undergoing big changes.” Even the text for the infographic sidebar is full of this sort of thing, such as Penn State’s Michael Mann assuring us “We expect records to continue to be broken as global warming proceeds.” And, “One could argue that about 75 percent of the warmth was due to human impact.”
In short, a New York Times reporter’s job is to repeat the talking points of government agencies and transcribe quotations from partisans for one side of the scientific and political debate. Gillis refers to this as “a 1970s journalism model,” as if that’s supposed to reassure us, but there’s another name for it. It’s “press-release journalism”—journalism that consists, not of questioning or investigation or skepticism, but of restating partisan press releases. It’s the lowest, laziest form of journalism.
Notice the result for the reader. All we get are broad statements telling us what overall conclusions we are supposed to draw about global warming, with no attempt to present or explain the actual data so we can judge the issue for ourselves. Now we can really understand the full meaning of Gillis’s assertion that his readers are too dumb to understand numbers.
This translates to: we think you’re all a bunch of idiots, and it’s our function to tell you what to think.
That, unfortunately, is all you’re likely to get these days on the subject of global warming from the mainstream media.
Follow Robert on Twitter.Under the Radar Blog Archives Select Date… January, 2019 December, 2018 November, 2018 October, 2018 September, 2018 August, 2018 July, 2018 June, 2018 May, 2018 April, 2018 March, 2018 February, 2018
Robert Mueller's office confirmed Tuesday evening that former fraud and corruption prosecutor has agreed to join the special counsel staff. | Saul Loeb/Getty Images Wife of new Mueller prosecutor just bailed as judge in 2 Trump cases
A federal judge who is the wife of a lawyer joining special counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation recently recused herself from a pair of lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump's business dealings with foreign governments.
Mueller's office confirmed Tuesday evening that former fraud and corruption prosecutor Greg Andres has agreed to join the special counsel staff.
The development offers an explanation for the previously unanswered question of why U.S. District Court Judge Ronnie Abrams, who married Andres in 2001, suddenly recused herself last month from the emoluments lawsuits. One of the cases was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) in Washington and the other was brought by White Plains, N.Y. attorney William Weinstein.
On July 11, Abrams — an Obama appointee — recused from the suits without any explanation or warning to the parties. A person familiar with the situation said Abrams had recused, but the public court docket showed only that the cases were both reassigned that day to Judge George Daniels, a Clinton appointee.
Recusals are not unusual, although they most often occur at the outset of a case. The CREW suit was filed in January. Weinstein's case was brought in February.
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Andres, the 16th attorney known to have joined Mueller's squad, is a specialist in fraud and foreign corruption cases. He became a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, in 1999, eventually rising to be head of the criminal section in that office. From 2010 to 2012, he served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division at the Justice Department's headquarters in Washington.
After leaving the federal government, Andres joined the Davis Polk law firm in New York, where he has often worked on cases involving executives from banks and hedge funds. His hiring for the Mueller team was first reported by Reuters.
A CREW spokeman declined to comment on the recusal.
Weinstein said he was unsure why Abrams stepped aside. “I have no idea or knowledge at all," he said Wednesday.
Other suits about Trump's income from foreign sources are also pending in federal courts in Washington, D.C., Greenbelt, Maryland, and West Palm Beach, Florida.Taking seriously rumours that a tracking chip was installed in currency notes after demonetisation, three robbers in Delhi allegedly stole lakhs of rupees from a bank only in coins to avoid getting detected.
The three friends, contractual employees at a Delhi Transport Corporation bus depot where the bank is located, told the police they had planned to sneak away with the coins because they believed notes could be tracked down.
The men were arrested on Tuesday evening, 12 hours after they robbed Syndicate Bank’s branch in north Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar.
Police found coins of Rs 5 and Rs 10 amounting to Rs 2.3 lakh stolen from the bank in 46 polythene bags.
“They said stealing banknotes, especially the Rs 2,000 notes, was not their plan at all as they believed that notes could be tracked through chips or GPS after demonetisation. So, they decided to steal all the coins instead,” a police official said.
They also thought coins would be easier to use as shops and money exchangers might accept them without suspicion.
The three men were cleaners and storekeepers at the depot, which they joined a month ago. They told the police they planned the robbery after watching crime thrillers and heist films.
They entered the bank from a window. They had cut the window grille with equipment available at the depot. A bank employee noticed the window when he came to work that morning. That’s when the bank staff realised there had been a break-in and all Rs 5 and Rs 10 coins were missing.
When police began probing the case, they had two clues. “While breaking into the bank, they had ended up breaking two blades of a hacksaw they used to cut the window grille. The two broken blades and a plier left behind at the spot made us suspect it could be the handiwork of electricians,” said a senior police officer.
The officer said that the recoveries made the police suspect that people working at the DTC bus depot adjacent to the bank could be involved.
CCTV footage made the cops’ job easier. Though they were masked, one of them had an ‘R’ tattooed on his left wrist. Police began questioning the workers at the bus depot and looked for the tattoo.
The cops zeroed in on Rahul, a 21-year-old bus cleaner, who had a similar tattoo on his wrist. He led them to his two accomplices, Rahul and Anuj. All of them belong to Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh.
The arrested men led the police to the stolen coins which they had hidden on the roof of an abandoned building nearby, said police.
“They were unable to carry all the packets containing the heavy coins. So, they hid most of the coins under an empty white sack and carried along only five packets which contained roughly Rs 10,000,” the officer said, adding much of the Rs 10,000 was used by the suspects to buy ganja and smack.
A DTC spokesperson told HT that the accused were not employees of the corporation. “They were hired by the manufacturer responsible for maintaining our buses. However, we are planning to issue a letter of caution to all depots to create deterrence and prevent such incidents,” a DTC spokesperson said.
First Published: Aug 24, 2017 15:03 IST@USATODAY/Twitter
Firearm aficionados criticized a video posted on Wednesday by |
by any other shape would still taste as healthy.
There is currently only one doll for sale – it is on eBay, and bidding is presently at £225.00 (about $300 U.S.).
"At FareShare, we are always happy to give surplus wonky veg a home – it’s the taste, not the shape that counts," said Daniel Nicholls, Corporate Development Officer at FareShare, on their website.
"We are very grateful that the proceeds from this unique Wonky Mr Potato Head auction will enable us to help those charities feed more people, and we’d encourage people to bid big," Nicholls said. "Every £1 we raise will mean we can provide enough food to make four meals for vulnerable and hungry men, women and children here in the UK."
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.Our good friend Isaac Newton once explained that an object in motion will stay in motion until something makes it change its speed or route. We’re paraphrasing here, but the idea is clear; objects don’t just shift directions without something happening to them -- without something moving them this way or that, stopping them in their tracks or giving them a little added momentum.
But don’t tell that to the Montreal Canadiens, who were robbed of a goal in their game Tuesday night when a puck veered out of its surefire path towards the net, making a U-turn in the middle of the crease.
The goal looks good here:
Twitter
And it's still, you know, following the laws of physics here:
Twitter
But then it goes wonky:
Twitter
And then even wonkier:
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Explain that with them apples, Newton!
Also on HuffPost:Image copyright Facebook: Safyre Schenectady's Super Survivor Image caption Arson survivor Safyre Terry has asked for Christmas cards to fill her tree.
Unlike many children at Christmas, eight-year-old Safyre Terry only wanted one thing: to fill her tree with Christmas cards.
Safyre survived an arson attack two years ago that killed her father, sister and two brothers. She suffers from severe burns covering 75% of her body and lost her right hand and foot as a result of the injuries. She now lives with her aunt, Liz Dolder, along with Dolder's husband and their own set of 8-year-old twins.
To celebrate the holidays, Dolder bought her niece a Christmas tree stand to hold cards. After posting a picture online to celebrate, the family have been inundated with cards and a crowdfunding account has raised over $220,000 (£145,000) for future medical costs.
"I've cried so many happy tears, I think I'm going into dehydration," Dolder told BBC Trending.
When they received her first holiday card, they posted on Facebook underneath a picture of Safyre and her card tree.
"Safyre is thrilled we got our first Christmas card. Thank you Aunt Lonnie. Safyre is excited to fill up the card tree. Sending out lots of holiday cheer," wrote Dolder.
Image copyright Facebook: Safyre Schenectady's Super Survivor Image caption Christmas cards started pouring in after this picture of Safyre was posted on Facebook.
Safyre was excited to fill up the tree, but her aunt warned her to be realistic. "We don't sugar coat anything in our house. The world is going to end up being honest with her, so I warned her we won't get that many cards, but we'll get a few," Dolder told the BBC.
Local resident Kevin Clark shared the picture writing, "I wonder how many of my friends would take the time to write and send Safyre a Merry Christmas card that she can hang on her card tree."
Clark met the family during a fundraiser held by his motorcycle club earlier this year.
Clark's post has been shared over 32,000 times since sharing the picture, and Safyre's family have now received over 300 cards
The attention drew people to an older crowdfunding page that had been set up in September to support Safyre's medical costs, with current donations far surpassing the original $15,000 goal.
Cards have been sent from across the US, with people asking how they can send additional cards from as far as Uganda, Mexico and Poland.
Before the post went viral, Dolder was concerned about how their family would afford the year ahead. Her husband lost his job in August, and last year's holes in the walls are covered with Christmas decorations since renovations are too costly. Medical coverage was proving expensive, and they risked losing the house to foreclosure.
Dolder says that they will use the money to find a stable home for their family and to set up a trust for Safyre's education.
"She's my reason. I knew that when she was saved from the fire. The world is so filled with hate. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that she'd bring the world together over Christmas cards."
Cards can be sent to Safyre, PO Box 6126, Schenectady, NY, 12306.
Blog by Olivia Lace-Evans
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Join the conversation on this and other stories here.
Next story:#StayMadAbby: How black graduates responded to a key Supreme Court case
Image copyright AP Image caption Abigail Fisher, pictured here outside the US Supreme Court, sued over race-based policies after she was denied admission to the University of Texas
"I earned this."That was just one response written by black college students and graduates to a key case heard by the US Supreme Court this week. The messages are tagged with with the hashtag #StayMadAbby - and the case will determine whether American universities can continue to take race into account when deciding which students to accept.READ MORE
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.DIGG THIS
The George W. Bush administration responded to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon with an assault on U.S. civil liberty that Bush justified in the name of the war on terror. The government assured us that the draconian measures apply only to terrorists. The word terrorist, however, was not defined. The government claimed the discretionary power to decide who is a terrorist without having to present evidence or charges in a court of law.
Frankly, the Bush administration’s policy evades any notion of procedural due process of law. Administration assurances that harsh treatment is reserved only for terrorists is meaningless when the threshold process for determining who is and who is not a terrorist depends on executive discretion that is not subject to review. Substantive rights are useless without the procedural rights to enforce them.
Terrorist legislation and executive assertions created a basis upon which federal authorities claimed they were free to suspend suspects’ civil liberties in order to defend Americans from terrorism. Only after civil liberties groups and federal courts challenged some of the unconstitutional laws and procedures did realization spread that the Bush administration’s assault on the Bill of Rights is a greater threat to Americans than are terrorists.
The alacrity with which Congress accepted the initial assault from the administration is frightening. In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act passed by a vote of 98 to 1 in the Senate and by 357 to 66 in the House. The act was already written and waiting on the shelf before the 9/11 attack. Indeed, the FBI and Department of Justice have tried for years to introduce PATRIOT Act provisions into the law. That act was introduced immediately after the attacks, and few members of Congress read its contents prior to passing it.
Federal courts declared some provisions of the legislation to be unconstitutional. Vague language criminalizing expert advice or assistance as material support for terrorism was thrown out, as were gag orders and National Security Letters used to obtain private information without judicial oversight. Despite challenges from the American Civil Liberties Union and resolutions passed in 8 states and 396 cities and counties condemning the act for its attack on civil liberties, Congress reauthorized the act in March 2006, making most of it permanent and sending a clear signal that the war on terror takes precedence over civil liberty.
The PATRIOT Act’s infringements of civil liberty are serious, but they pale by comparison to the Bush administration’s assertion of executive power to set aside habeas corpus protection for both citizens and noncitizens declared by the executive branch to be enemy combatants. The Bush administration claimed and exercised the power to hold indefinitely anyone so designated without access to legal representation. In other words, the Bush administration claimed the discretionary and unaccountable power to imprison whomever it wished.
In keeping with its self-declared powers, the Bush administration quickly rounded up hundreds of detainees whom it claimed — without evidence — to be enemy combatants. Four detainees, Rasul, Hamdi, Padilla, and Hamdan, consisting of a British citizen, two American citizens, and an Afghan, respectively, challenged the administration in federal court cases that reached the Supreme Court.
In Rasul v. Bush the Supreme Court ruled in June 2004 that, contrary to Bush administration assertions, the courts have jurisdiction over Guantnamo and that detainees must be allowed to challenge their detention.
Also in June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that Hamdi, an American citizen, was deprived of due process and had the right to challenge his detention. However, the ruling was far from a clean sweep for civil liberty. Both noted civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate (Reason, January 2005) and John Yoo, a Department of Justice apologist for the new tyranny, agree that the Supreme Court decision left flexibility and room for the government to maneuver and prevail in the end.
In December 2003, an appellate court ruled that U.S. citizen Jos Padilla could not be denied habeas corpus protection. To forestall another Supreme Court ruling against the Bush administration, the administration withdrew Padilla’s status as enemy combatant and filed criminal charges that bore no relationship to the administration’s original assertions that Padilla was plotting to explode a dirty bomb in an American city. As Harvey Silverglate has documented (Boston Phoenix, September 16, 2005), the Padilla case is also an extraordinary story of forum shopping (picking a court where judges are friendly to its case) by the Department of Justice.
Forced by the federal judiciary to release José Padilla from years of illegal detention or to put him on trial, the Bush administration had to scramble to put together some kind of charges. The best that the Bush administration could do was to charge Padilla not with any terrorist acts, but with wanting to be a terrorist — a terrorist-wannabe to use the words of Andrew Cohen (WashingtonPost.com, August 16, 2007).
By the time Padilla went to trial, he had been demonized for years in the media as an enemy combatant who intended to set off a radioactive bomb. Peter Whoriskey (Washington Post, August 17, 2007) described the Padilla Jury as a patriotic jury that appeared in court with one row of jurors dressed in red, one in white, and one in blue. It was a jury primed to be psychologically and emotionally manipulated by federal prosecutors. No member of this jury was going to return home to accusations of letting off the dirty bomber.
Evidence, of which there was little, if any, played no role in the case. The chief FBI agent, James T. Kavanaugh, testified in court that the intercepted telephone conversations were innocuous and contained no references to terrorism or Islamic extremism, but the jury wasn’t listening. The judge allowed prosecutors to show the jury a ten-year-old video of Osama bin Laden that had no relevance to the case, but which served to arouse in jurors fear, anger, and disturbing memories of September 11, 2001. The jury convicted Padilla on all counts, despite the total absence of any evidence that he had ever committed a terrorist act or had agreed to commit such an act.
By convicting Padilla, the jury opened Pandora’s box and created a Benthamite precedent for imprisoning U.S. citizens on the suspicion that they might commit a terrorist act.
In July 2006, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruled that Bush’s military tribunals violate U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions.
Republicans, who tend to regard civil liberties as devices that coddle criminals and terrorists, turned to legislation in attempts to subvert the Supreme Court’s defense of the U.S. Constitution. In November 2005, the Senate Republicans passed an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act offered by Lindsay Graham of South Carolina authorizing the president to deny habeas corpus protection to Guantnamo detainees. The fact that it was known by this time that the vast majority of the detainees were hapless individuals who were captured by Afghan warlords and sold to the Americans, who were paying a bounty for terrorists, carried no weight with the Republican senators.
The Republicans replied to Hamdan v. Rumsfeld with the Military Commissions Act passed in September 2006 and signed by Bush in October. The act strips detainees of protections provided by the Geneva Conventions: No alien unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights. Other provisions of the act strip detainees of speedy trials and of protection against torture and self-incrimination. This heinous law has a breathtaking provision that retroactively protects torturers against prosecution for war crimes.
The act explicitly denies habeas corpus protection and access to federal courts to any alien detained by the U.S. government as an enemy combatant and any alien awaiting determination of his status. The act reads: No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the US who has been determined by the US to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
This act is as atrocious a piece of legislation as the world has ever seen. It permits people to be sentenced to death on the basis of hearsay, secret evidence, and on a confession extracted by torture. Indeed, detainees could be shot in the back of the head without undergoing the kangaroo tribunal and no one would ever know or be held legally responsible.
A number of legal experts have concluded that there is no assurance that the act cannot be applied to U.S. citizens. Although language in the act refers to alien unlawful enemy combatant, other language in the document does not limit the act’s applicability only to aliens. Legal scholars have warned that the legislation defines enemy combatant in such broad language that the act applies to any person whom the executive branch declares has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States. No evidence for the charge is necessary. By seizing the power to decide who is and who is not an enemy combatant, the executive branch has seized the power to decide who shall and who shall not be permitted the protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The Bush administration has resurrected the dungeons and torture chambers that Blackstone’s Rights of Englishmen banished from the English-speaking world.
It is too early to know how the act will be interpreted and applied to American citizens or whether it can be challenged and overturned on constitutional grounds, but forebodings are severe. What we can say is that the act is draconian and dangerous legislation that is completely unnecessary. If the U.S. government has enough correct information to designate a person truthfully to be an enemy combatant, the U.S. government has enough information to put the person on trial in open court with all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to defendants. The U.S. government only needs indefinite detention, torture, and secret evidence when it has no evidence. Every American should be concerned that John Yoo, one of the Justice Department authors of this totalitarian legislation, is now a law professor at the University of California. Liberty has no future in America if law schools provide legitimacy to those who would subvert the U.S. Constitution.
The Assault on the Constitution
We concluded the first edition of this book with a call for an intellectual rebirth, a revival of constitutionalism. Alas, far from a rebirth of constitutionalism, we are witnessing a rending that we would not have imagined. On January 17, 2007, the attorney general of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, declared in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas. The chairman of the committee, Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) was incredulous when Gonzales insisted that there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.
In June 2007, Dick Cheney astonished Americans with his claim that the Office of Vice President is independent of both the executive branch and Congress and is accountable to neither.
Americans should pay attention to the power that the Bush administration is claiming over them. If Americans are not protected by habeas corpus, the government can pick us up at its will and cast us into dungeons for the rest of our lives without ever giving any accountability of its action. If the Constitution does not grant habeas corpus protection, the administration is under no compulsion to provide indictments, evidence, and trial. The government can simply imprison at will.
The Bush administration is using every strategy to push aside the remains of the legal principles that shield the people from arbitrary government power. It is a short step from denying Americans’ constitutional right to a public trial by an impartial jury to denying every other constitutional right. Clearly, on the basis of an indefinite war against an indefinite terrorist enemy, the Bush regime is attempting to claim powers that are not limited by the Constitution, Congress, or the courts. It is a life-and-death matter for Americans to understand that the Bush administration is seeking to undermine all rights by shutting off the procedural avenues for enforcing rights.
Few Americans seem alarmed. Conservative attorneys, such as members of the Federalist Society who present themselves as defenders of original intent, are pushing for more power to be concentrated in the executive. One of the tools used to obtain this goal is Bush’s misuse of signing statements. Scholars, such as Phillip J. Cooper of Portland State University writing in the September 2005 issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly, warn that Bush uses signing statements not only as illegal line-item vetoes that evade congressional override but also as wide-ranging assertions of exclusive authority and court-like pronouncements that redefine legislative powers under the Constitution. They reveal a systematic effort to define presidential authority in terms of the broad conception of the prerogative both internationally and domestically under the unitary executive theory.
Signing statements deserve a closer look than they are receiving. There is no provision in the Constitution for signing statements. Courts often look to congressional debates and proceedings to ascertain legislative intent when a statute’s meaning is not obvious. The Bush administration is endeavoring to establish the judicial practice of also looking to the president’s signing statements in the same way, an absurd idea as the president does not enact legislation. President Bush’s use of signing statements signals the refusal of the executive branch to abide by the rule of law, a frightening prospect.
A growing number of thoughtful Americans believe, rightly or wrongly, that the war on terror is a hoax that is providing cover for what former President Nixon’s White House counsel, John W. Dean, says is an assault on American liberty by authoritarian conservatives. Time will tell whether Americans will continue to tolerate the neoconservatives’ wars and attacks on civil liberty.
The Case of Sami Al-Arian
The demise of the Rights of Englishmen, the unaccountability of police and prosecutors, the witch-hunt atmosphere created by the war on terror, the government’s need to find terrorist suspects in order to maintain the public’s alarm, and the sadistic and bigoted attitudes of many prison guards and even federal prosecutors and judges toward Muslims have resulted in the use of law for persecution. The case of Sami Al-Arian, who was a professor of computer science at the University of South Florida, is a pure example of the use of law as a weapon for persecution.
Most Americans know only the Israeli side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian side is rarely heard. Even prominent Americans, such as former president Jimmy Carter, who point out that there are two sides to the story, are subjected to demonization and name-calling. Sami Al-Arian was gaining success as a voice for a more even-handed Middle East policy. He spoke to intelligence personnel and military commanders at MacDill Air Force Central Command. He gave interviews. He even invited the FBI to attend meetings where he spoke.
This was too much for the Israeli Lobby, which has enjoyed a total monopoly on the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. The hysteria following 9/11 created the opportunity to destroy Sami Al-Arian. Alexander Cockburn (CounterPunch, March 3, 2007) reports that at the direct instigation of Attorney General Ashcroft trumped-up terrorism and conspiracy charges were leveled at Al-Arian.
The neoconservative media and right-wing talk radio went to work on Al-Arian. Pushed by Gov. Jeb Bush, the university fired him. He was arrested and deemed too dangerous for bail. He was held in solitary confinement for two and a half years while the federal government tried to manufacture some evidence against him. Wikipedia reports that Amnesty International said Al-Arian’s pre-trial conditions ‘appeared to be gratuitously punitive’ and stated ‘the restrictions imposed on Dr. Al-Arian appeared to go beyond what were necessary on security grounds and were inconsistent with international standards for humane treatment.’
The government failed to produce any evidence. The jury acquitted Al-Arian on all serious charges and voted 10—2 for acquittal on all other charges. The jury acquitted him despite U.S. District Court judge James Moody’s many biased rulings against Al-Arian.
Knowing that Al-Arian and his family could not stand the strain of solitary confinement for another two and a half years while a new case was prepared, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would retry him. His attorney urged him to make a plea in order to end the ordeal.
Al-Arian’s plea is innocuous and bears no relationship to the serious charges on which he was tried. According to Wikipedia, as part of the plea agreement the government acknowledged that Al-Arian’s activities were non-violent and that there were no victims to the charge in the plea agreement.
Under the plea agreement, Al-Arian’s sentence amounted essentially to time served, but he was double-crossed by Judge Moody, who according to Alexander Cockburn used inflamed language about Al-Arian having blood on his hands (a charge rejected by the jury) and handed down the maximum sentence.
The terrorist prosecutors had yet more in store for Al-Arian. In October 2006, federal prosecutor Gordon Kromberg, reportedly notorious as an Islamophobe, demanded, in violation of the plea agreement, that Al-Arian testify before a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, investigating an Islamic research center. According to Wikipedia, in a verbal agreement that appears in court transcripts, federal prosecutors agreed [as part of the plea agreement] that Al-Arian would not have to testify in Virginia.
Al-Arian’s lawyers saw Kromberg’s subpoena of their client as a setup, and Al-Arian refused to testify. On January 22, 2007, Al-Arian was brought before a federal judge on contempt charges. He described to the judge the extraordinary abuse he had suffered at the hands of federal prison officials. The guards and officers all felt free to abuse Al-Arian, because they had heard the lie on right-wing talk radio and from neoconservative media that he was a terrorist who hated Americans. The hostile judge sentenced Al-Arian to eighteen months more on a civil contempt charge for refusing to testify about a case that he knew nothing about.
Kromberg contrived to put Al-Arian in a situation in which truthful answers in court under oath could be turned into a perjury charge by offering the defendants reduced charges in exchange for their testimony that Al-Arian was involved with them in some alleged activity and lied under oath. Alternatively, Al-Arian would be cited for civil contempt for refusal to testify. The ease with which Kromberg violated the plea agreement and abused the prosecutorial power in full view of federal judges should give pause to every American.
When a university professor, who has done nothing but try to correct the one-sided story Americans are fed about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, can be treated in this way by the U.S. Department of Justice, civil liberty in the United States is in a precarious condition.
The ease with which Al-Arian was transformed into a terrorist should be a lesson to us all. People in charge of Homeland Security are no less inclined than police and prosecutors to make expansive interpretations of their mandate and what constitutes terrorism and suspect behavior. On May 28, 2007, the Associated Press reported that the Alabama Department of Homeland Security had included among terrorist groups listed on its Web site environmentalists, antiwar protesters, abortion opponents, and gay- and animal-rights advocates. It is an ancient practice of government to hype fear in order to gain arbitrary power that can be turned against anyone. Perhaps this expansive definition of terrorist explains the eighty thousand names on the government’s no-fly list.
Another problem with arbitrary and undefined power is that it ends up being exercised by people who tend to receive low marks for good judgment and intelligence. English film director Mike Figgis was held for five hours in an interrogation cell at Los Angeles International Airport because U.S. immigration officers are unfamiliar with the professional language of television show producers and lacked the common sense to avoid a misunderstanding. When asked the reason for his visit, Figgis said: I’m here to shoot a pilot. Shoot, of course, means to film, and pilot is the first episode of a new TV show. The people providing our security concluded that Figgis had voluntarily confessed to a plot to come to America in order to murder an airline pilot. Figgis survived his assumption that people in Los Angeles understood movie talk, but the desire of people empowered to thwart terrorism to use their power is great. Any excuse will do.
Sliding Toward Dictatorship
The assaults of the Bush regime on civil liberty, the Constitution, and the separation of powers are more determined and more successful than its military assaults on the Middle East, which provide the war time justification for the attack on civil liberty in the United States. The regime and its supporters are determined to raise the president to dictatorial powers, at least in times of war, the initiation of which is being turned into a presidential prerogative.
On May 9, 2007, President Bush signed the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. If in the president’s opinion a catastrophic emergency occurs, the directive places all governmental power in the hands of the president, effectively abolishing the checks and balances in the Constitution. Underlying this directive is the unitary executive doctrine, a theory pushed by the Federalist Society, an important source of law clerks, DOJ appointees, and judicial nominees for the Republican Party. The doctrine, supported by Supreme Court justices such as Samuel Alito, claims that the executive power of the president is completely separate and independent of the legislative and judicial powers and not subject to infringement by them. The manner in which this doctrine is being institutionalized is creating the additional claim that executive power is the supreme power. In effect, unitary executive theory is elevating the president to a dictator with the power to ignore or suspend laws.
The unitary executive doctrine is a direct attack on the constitutional separation of powers established by the Founding Fathers. One of the alleged advantages of the unitary executive is that the president can act more quickly and efficiently if he is not subject to interference from Congress and the judiciary. However, as Justice Louis Brandeis explained in 1926, the doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the convention of 1787 not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.
News reports that the Bush administration has contracted with Halliburton to build detention centers in the United States at a cost of $385 million revive memories of the World War II detention of Japanese American citizens. It has not been explained who are the intended detainees for the new detention centers. Do the American people want to trust with detention centers an executive branch, which claims the power to set aside habeas corpus, statutory law, due process, and the prohibition against torture?
Polls show that 36 percent of the American public and more than half of New Yorkers lack confidence in the 9/11 Commission Report. Despite a significant percentage of the public’s disbelief in the explanation of the event that took America to war in the Middle East, Congress and the media continue to tolerate the Bush administration’s aggressive rhetoric, which seeks to widen the war on terror from Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. The diligence with which Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives press for an attack on Iran, and the extreme position that the Bush administration has taken on executive power, raise the question whether the Bush administration has an agenda that takes precedence over America’s constitutional democracy.
Never in its history have the American people faced such danger to their constitutional protections as they face today from those in the government who hold the reins of power and from elements of the legal profession and the federal judiciary that support energy in the executive. An assertive executive backed by an aggressive U.S. Department of Justice and unobstructed by a supine Congress and an intimidated corporate media has demonstrated an ability to ignore statutory law and public opinion. The precedents that have been set during the opening years of the twenty-first century bode ill for the future of American liberty.
Excerpted from The Tyranny of Good Intentions by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton. Excerpted by permission of Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
The Best of Paul Craig RobertsThe vehicle attack that left a civil rights activist dead and 19 others injured on Saturday was the product of continuous incitement to violence across extreme rightwing echo chambers. After police announced the disbanding of the far-right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, the live stream chat room of the “alt-right” writer Baked Alaska was flooded with calls to kill Jews, black people and counter-protesters. And members of the anti-communist channel in the chat application Discord vowed to push back harder “until the enemy is completely defeated”.
Trump under fire for failure to condemn far right following Charlottesville death Read more
Shortly after the incident one user of the message board 4Chan wrote of the killer: “Whoever he is, he is a hero. I salute him.” Others expressed regret that the car had not been bigger, reflecting a climate of denial, justification and belittlement around the vehicle attack – mirrored in the White House’s muted response.
With thousands marching under the banner of “You will not replace us”, the event represented one of the largest gatherings of the US extreme right this century. Billed as a protest against the removal of the statue of the confederate general Robert E Lee, and in defence of freedom of speech, the rally attracted a broad church of groups from libertarians to white supremacists. Key figures from the alt-right, the far-right movement in the US, rubbed shoulders with militant constitutionalists, southern nationalists and neo-Nazis. Several branches of the Ku Klux Klan were in attendance, as well as delegations representing the white-supremacist Daily Stormer website and the notorious National Socialist Movement. The event was endorsed on the other side of the Atlantic by the Greek ultra-nationalists Golden Dawn and self-described German identitarians.
By hijacking topics such as the preservation of southern heritage, free speech, anti-left sentiments, and pro-white and anti-immigration attitudes, the organisers gained traction across this broad spectrum of extreme rightwing thinking. While the event was framed on /pol/ – 4chan’s “politically incorrect” message board – as a way to fight “a totalitarian communist crackdown” and “defend the right of southerners”, the Daily Stormer was rather more frank in promoting it as the starting point “to end Jewish influence in America”.
Quick guide What is the 'alt-right'? Show Hide Who coined the term 'alt-right'? The white supremacist Richard Spencer devised the term in 2010. He has described the movement as "identity politics for white Americans and for Europeans around the world". What does it stand for? The movement supports extreme rightwing ideologies, including white nationalism – used interchangeably with white supremacism – and antisemitism. It positions itself broadly against egalitarianism, democracy, universalism and multiculturalism. Some "alt-right" supporters have argued that their hardline, extremist positions are not truly meant, but are a way to disrupt conventional and accepted thinking. Memes, irony and ambiguity are sometimes used in an attempt to wrongfoot critics. How does the 'alt-right' relate to the Trump administration? The Trump administration includes figures who are associated with the "alt-right", including the former Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon, now the White House chief strategist. Many of Trump's policy positions have won favour with the movement.
This illustrates a dangerous convergence of ideology and goals from groups that have traditionally been fragmented and prone to internal conflict. “Infighting is part of every movement – but it doesn’t have to be,” the radical libertarian politician Augustus Invictus, who was announced as a speaker at the rally, posted on Facebook. A few days before the Charlottesville rally, an article explaining Why We Should UniteTheRight was circulated on Gab, the alt-right’s Twitter equivalent. “We’re in the earliest stages of a mass movement” wrote the alt-right blogger Hunter Wallace.
This coalition-building includes overtures to (relatively) less extreme groups, commonly labelled the “alt-light”. For example, several members of the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, the Proud Boys and reporters from media such as Infowars and Rebel Media expressed their sympathies with the marchers. Although spats still occur within the far-right ecosystems, this attempt to cross ideologies and borders to unite far-right factions represents a global trend: across Europe identitarian movements are strengthening ties, while groups such as Britain First and Scottish Dawn are collaborating with the Polish extreme right. By focusing on common ideological threads, and putting aside differences, the extreme right is actively trying to mobilise en masse.
Radicalising moderates is a key objective for groups at the heart of this movement. “We want to hit the average. We want normal people,” Andrew Anglin wrote in the Daily Stormer. Tactics vary, with several groups privileging the weaponisation of internet culture to reach the young. Some obsess over aesthetics in an apparent attempt to distance themselves from neo-Nazi insignia and imagery, to present a more approachable face to outsiders: the Ku Klux Klan urged members to dress casually, while for Anglin the priority is “to be hip” and sexy”. The rally certainly acted as a powerful publicity boost, with the Discord server increasing its membership by a thousand in the week leading up to it.
Inside the hate-filled echo chamber of racism and conspiracy theories Read more
Our analysis at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) suggests that attendance was motivated by a variety of grievances and ideological triggers. Examining Twitter traffic around the #UniteTheRight hashtag, we found that 31% of expressed grievances focused on race – with keywords such as “white genocide” and “anti-white” – and 27% on the left, with frequent denouncing of anti-fascists and communists. Then came frustration around freedom of speech (22%), southern heritage (13%) and the establishment (4%). However, all converged in the concern that the heritage, privilege and future of the white man is under threat. Let there be no doubt that this a white supremacist phenomenon.
The fact that the extreme right has been able to mobilise people from across its hitherto disparate ideological spectrum and galvanise thousands into promoting and attending should be a wake-up call. And this has happened as the Trump administration ends US government support for countering far-right extremism in order to focus exclusively on Islamist terrorism. All this should signal the need to take the danger posed by neo-Nazism and white supremacism – cloaked in broadly political, non-violent rhetoric – more seriously.
At ISD we will continue to closely follow the trends and trajectories of extreme rightwing groups and to push back against the normalisation of hateful ideologies. But this is incumbent upon all of us: we must all be vigilant and must all mobilise to prevent the polarisation that enables the rise of far-right extremism – which spawns terrorist attacks of the sort we saw on Saturday.
• Julie Ebner and Jacob Davey are researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue; Ebner’s book The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism is published by IB Tauris next monthArsène Wenger has predicted that Mesut Özil will be a contender for the Player of the Year award next season as he prepares to welcome back the midfielder for Arsenal's Premier League visit to Hull City on Sunday.
Özil has not played since he tore his hamstring in the Champions League second leg at Bayern Munich on 11 March and the club-record signing's first season in English football has been marked by highs and lows. Wenger, though, is convinced that the German will be both mentally and physically stronger for the experience and ready to show greater consistency over his second season.
"Mesut had a period where he was tired because he was not used to playing through the [English] season," Wenger said. "Before he got injured, he had a period where he was a bit jaded. But he is a fantastic player and I would put him on the list to be player of the season next season.
"The first season is the season in which you adapt and then you know what will happen and you go into it. I believe he will know better his partners, he will know better the league and the potential is absolutely fantastic. The improvement will be in goals, assists and his presence in the game."
Özil signed from Real Madrid on the final day of the summer transfer window and Wenger noted that, as such, he was denied "real preparation" with Arsenal in pre-season. There has also been no little culture shock, which has gone beyond English football's lack of a winter break.
"Mesut said in Spain that when Real Madrid are 2-0 up, what struck him was that teams give up," Wenger said. "They know that they will lose the game. And he |
SC 93, Box 5000, APO AE 09823, 9-011-90-312-468-6136. Asuncion, Paraguay: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 4740, APO AA 34036, 9-011-595-21-210-738. Athens, Greece: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Athens, PSC 108, Box 14, AA/RE/FPO APO AE 09842, 9-011-30-1-643-4328. Bangkok, Thailand: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Bangkok, APO AP 96546-0001, 9-011-662-205-4987. Beijing, China: DEA/Justice, American Embassy Beijing, PSC 461, Box 50, FPO AP 96521-0002, 9-011-8610-8529-6880. Belize, Country Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, PSC 120, Unit 7405, APO AA 34025, 9-011-501-233-3857. Berlin, Germany: DEA / Justice, Berlin Country Office, PSC 120, Box 3000, APO AE 09265, 9-011-49-30-8305-1460. Bern, Switzerland: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Department of State (Bern), Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-41-31-357-7367. Bogota, Columbia: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 5116, APO AA 34038, 9-011-571-315-2121. Brasilia, Brazil: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3500, APO AA 34030, 9-011-55-61-312-7498. Bridgetown, Barbados: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, CMR 1014, APO AA 34055, 9-1-246-437-6337. Brussels, Belgium: DEA / Justice, Brussels Country Office, PSC 82, Box 002, APO AE 09710, 9-011-32-2-508-2420. Buenos Aires, Argentina: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 4309, APO AA 34034, 9-011-5415-114949. Cairo, Egypt: DEA / Justice, Cairo Country Office, American Embassy, Unit 64900, Box 25, APO AE 09839-4900, 9-011-20-2-357-2461. Canberra, Australia: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Canberra, APO AP 96549, 9-011-61-2-6214-5903. Caracas, Venezuela: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 4962, APO AA 34037, 9-011-582-12-975-8910. Cartagena, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Consulate, Unit 5116, APO AA 34038, 9-011-575-655-1423. Chiang-Mai, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Consulate, Box C, APO AP 96546, 9-011-66-53-217-285. Chimore Post of Duty: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3913 (Chimore), APO AA 34032, 301-985-9399. Cochabamba, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3913 (Cochabamba), APO AA 34032, 9-011-591-428-8896. Copenhagen, Denmark: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Copenhagen, PSC 73, APO AE 09716, 9-011-45-35-42-26-80. Curacao, Netherlands Antilles: DEA / Justice, American Consulate, Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-5999-461-6985. Frankfurt, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Consulate General, PSC 115, Frankfurt / DEA, APO AE 09213, 9-011-49-69-7535-3770. Freeport, Resident Office: DEA Freeport-Airport, 22400 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33335, 1-242-352-5353. Guadalajara, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, Guadalajara Resident Office, P.O. Box 9001, Brownsville, TX 78520-0901, 9-011-523-825- 3064. Guatemala City, Guatemala: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3311, APO AA 34024, 9-011-502-331-4389. Guayaquil, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Quito, Unit 5350, APO AA, 34039, 9-011-593-42-327-862. The Hague, Netherlands: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 6707, Box 8, APO AE 09715, 9-011-31-70-310-9327. Hanoi, Vietnam: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Vietnam, Department of State, Attn: DEA / Justice, Washington, DC 20521 9-011-772-1500, ext. 2357 / 9. Hermosillo, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, Hermosillo Resident Office, P.O. Box 1689, Nogales, AZ 85628, 9-011-526-289-0220. Hong Kong: DEA / Justice, American Consulate General, PSC 461, Box 16, FPO AP 96521, 9-852-2521-4536. Istanbul: DEA / Justice, American Consulate General, PSC 97, Box 0002, APO AE 09327, 9-011-90-212-251-0160. [[Page 648]] Juarez, Resident Office: P.O. Box 10545, El Paso, TX 79995, 9-011-52- 656-611-1179. Kingston, Jamaica: Kingston Country Office, Department of State, 3210 Kingston Place, Washington, DC 20521, 9-1-876-929-4956. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Kuala Lumpur, APO AP 96535, 9-011-603-248-7951. Lagos, Nigeria: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Lagos, Department of State, Attn: DEA / Justice, 8300 Lagos Place, Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-234-1-261-9837. La Paz, Bolivia: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3913, APO AA 34032, 9-011-591-2-431481. Lima, Peru: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3810, APO AA 34031, 9- 011-511-434-3058. London, England: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, PSC 801, Box 08, FPO AE 09498, 9-011-441-71-403-8026. Lyon (INTERPOL): American Embassy Paris, DEA / Interpol, Lyon, PSC 116, APO AE 09777, 9-011-33-4-7244-7086. Madrid, Spain: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Madrid, PSC 61, Box 0014, APO AE 09642, 9-011-34-91-587-2280. Managua, Nicaragua: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Nicaragua, Unit 2701, Box 21, APO AA 34021, 9-011-505-268-2148. Manila, Philippines: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, PSC 500, Box 11, FPO AP 96515, 9-011-632-523-1219. Mazatlan, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, Mazatlan Resident Office, P.O. Box 9006, Brownsville, TX 78520, 9-011-52-69-82-1659. Merida: DEA / Justice, U.S. Consulate-Merida, P.O. Box 9003, Brownsville, TX 78520, 9-011-529-925-8013. Mexico City, Mexico: DEA / Justice, U.S. Embassy Mexico City, P.O. Box 9000-DEA, Brownsville, TX 78520, 9-011-52-55-5080-2600. Milan, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Consulate Milan, c/o American Embassy Rome, PSC 59, Box 60-M, APO AE 09624, 9-011-39-02- 655-5766. Monterrey, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, Monterrey Road, P.O. Box 9002, Brownsville, TX 78520-0902, 9-011-528-340-1299. Moscow, Russia: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Moscow, PSC 77, APO AE 09721, 9-011-7-095-956-8066. Nassau: Nassau Country Office, 3370 Nassau Place, Washington, DC 20521, 9-1-242-322-1700. New Delhi, India: DEA / Justice, New Delhi Country Office, Department of State, 9000 New Delhi Place, Attn: DEA / Justice, Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-91-11-419-0008. Nicosia, Cyprus: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, PSC 815, Box 1, FPO AE 09836, 9-011-357-2-777-086. Ottawa, Canada: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Ottawa, P.O. Box 13669, Ogdensburg, New York 13669, 9-1-613-238-5633. Panama City, Panama: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 0945, APO AA 34002, 9-011-507-225-9685. Paris, France: Justice, American Embassy Paris, PSC 116, Box D-401, APO AE 09777, 9-011-33-1-4312-7332. Peshawar: DEA / Justice, American Consulate General Peshawar, Unit 62217, APO AE 09812-2217, 9-011-92-521-840-424. Port-Au-Prince, Haiti: U.S. Department of State, DEA Port-au-Prince, 3400 Port-au-Prince Place, Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-509-223-8888. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: DEA / Justice, Port of Spain, Department of State, Port of Spain Country Office, 3410 Port of Spain Place, Washington, DC 20537, 9-1-868-628-8136. Pretoria, South Africa: DEA / Justice, Pretoria Country Office, Department of State, Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-27-12-362-5009. Quito, Ecuador: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 5338, APO AA 34039, 9-011-593-22-231-547. Rangoon, Burma: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Rangoon, Box B, APO AP 96546, 9-011-95-1-282055. Rome, Italy: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Rome, PSC 59, Box 22, APO AE 09624, 9-011-39-06-4674-2319. San Jose, Costa Rica: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 2506, APO AA 34020, 9-011-506-220-2433. San Salvador, El Salvador: American Embassy, Unit 3130, APO AA 34023, 9- 011-503-278-6005. Santa Cruz, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3913 (Santa Cruz), APO AA 34032, 9-011-591-3-32-7152. [[Page 649]] Santiago, Chile: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 4119, APO AA 34033, 9-011-591-3-345-1841. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 5514, APO AA 34041, 809-687-3754. Sao Paulo, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3502, AP0 AA 34030, 9-011-55-11-3062-6962. Seoul, Korea: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Seoul, Unit 15550, APO AP 96205, 9-011-82-2-397-4260. Singapore: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Singapore, PSC 470 DEA FPO 96507, 9-011-65-476-9021. Songkhla, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, APO AP 96546, 9-011-66-74-324-236. Tashkent: Uzbekistan Country Office, DEA / Justice, 7110 Tashkent Place, Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-998-71120-5450. Tegucigalpa, Honduras: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 2912, APO AA 34022, 9-011-504-236-6780. Tijuana, Resident Office: P.O. 439039, San Diego, CA 92143, 9-011-52- 664-622-7452. Tokyo, Japan: DEA / Justice, American Embassy Tokyo, Unit 45004, Box 224, APO AP 96337, 9-011-81-3-3224-5452. Trinidad, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy, Unit 3913 (Trinidad), TRO, APO AA 34032, 301-985-9368. Udorn, Resident Office: DEA / Justice, American Embassy (Udorn), Box UD, APO AP 96546, 9-011-66-42-247-636. Vancouver Resident Office: United States Consulate, DEA / Justice, Vancouver, P.O. Box 5002, Point Roberts, WA 98281. Vienna, Austria: American Embassy Vienna, Department of State, Attn: DEA / Justice, Washington, DC 20521, 9-011-43-1-514-2251. Vientiane, Laos: American Embassy Vientiane, Box V, APO AP 96546, 9-011- 856-2121. FEDERAL BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS, AND EXPLOSIVES (ATF) 650 Massachusetts Avenue, NW., 20226 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR Director.--Carl J. Truscott (202) 927-8700. Deputy Director.--Edgar A. Domenech, 927-8710. Chief of Staff.--Tina L. Street, 927-8309. OFFICE OF OMBUDSMAN Ombudsman.--Marianne Ketels, 927-3538. STRATEGIC PLANNING OFFICE Chief.--E. Wayne Miller, 927-7720. OFFICE OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Executive Assistant.--Anthony Torres, 927-8154. Deputy Executive Assistant.--Oliver C. Allen, Jr., 927-8263. OFFICE OF CHIEF COUNSEL Chief Counsel.--Stephen R. Rubenstein, 927-8224. Deputy Chief Counsel.--Melanie S. Stinnett, 927-8211. OFFICE OF ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS AND SERVICES Assistant Director.--Lewis P. Raden, 927-7940. Deputy Assistant Director.--Wally Nelson. [[Page 650]] Special Assistant.--Enrique Perez. 927-8489. Chief of Staff.--Mary Jo Hughes, 927-7940. Director of NIBIN Program.--Steve Pugmire, 927-5660. Chief, Division of: Arson and Explosives.--Joseph Riehl, 927-7930. FEA Services.--Audrey Stucko, 927-8300. Firearms Program.--John Spurgeon, 927-7770. National Tracing Center.--Charles Houser (304) 274-4100. Deputy Chief, Division of: Arson and Explosives.--Mark Siebert, 927-7930. Firearms Programs.--Nick Colucci, 927-7770. OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY/CIO Assistant Director / Chief Information Officer.--Gregg D. Bailey, 927- 8390. Deputy Assistant Director.--Linda Y. Cureton. OFFICE OF TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Assistant Director.--Mark Logan, 927-9380. Deputy Assistant Director.--Steve L. Mathis. OFFICE OF FIELD OPERATIONS Assistant Director.--Michael R. Bouchard, 927-7970. Deputy Assistant Director for-- Central.--Carson F. Carroll, 927-7980. East.--Hugo Barrera. West.--J. Dewey Webb. Industry Operations.--James A. Zamillo, Sr. OFFICE OF PUBLIC AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS Assistant Director.--W. Larry Ford, 927-8500. Executive Assistant for Legislative Affairs.--David Grothaus, 927- 8490. OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SECURITY OPERATIONS Assistant Director.--Richard E. Chase, 927-7800. Deputy Assistant Director.--Jeffrey Roehm. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT/CFO Assistant Director / Chief Financial Officer.--Marguerite Moccia, 927- 8400. Deputy Assistant Director.--Candace E. Moberly. OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE AND INFORMATION Assistant Director.--James E. McDermond, 927-6500. Deputy Assistant Director.--Virginia T. O'Brien, 927-6500. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION J. Edgar Hoover Building, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20535-0001, phone (202) 324-3000, http://www.*fbi*.gov Director.--Robert S. Mueller III, 324-3444. Deputy Director.--John S. Pistole, 324-3315. Chief of Staff.--Charles M. Steele, 324-3444. [[Page 651]] Executive Assistant Directors of: Administration.--Jonathan I. Solomon, 324-7101. Counterterrorism / Counterintelligence.--Gary M. Bald, 324-7045. Intelligence.--Maureen A. Baginski, 324-9213. Law Enforcement Services.--Grant D. Ashley, 324-4880. Assistant Director of Administrative Services Division.--Mark S. Bullock, 324-3514. Deputy Assistant Directors: Mary B. Hannagan, 324-5364; J.P. Weis, 324-3516. Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Division.--David Szady, 324-4614. Deputy Assistant Directors: Beverly Andress, 324-8912; Timothy D. Bereznay, 324-4883. Assistant Director of Counterterrorism Division.--Willie T. Hulon, 324-2770. Deputy Assistant Directors: Thomas J. Harrington (703) 280-5505; John E. Lewis, 324-7055; Donald N. Van Duyn, 324-2013. Assistant Director of Criminal Investigative Division.--Chris Swecker, 324-4260. Deputy Assistant Directors: James H. Burrus, Jr., 324-5740; Deborah Strebel Pierce, 324-4262. Assistant Director of Criminal Justice Information Services Division.--Thomas E. Bush III (304) 625-2700. Deputy Assistant Directors: Jerome M. Pender (304) 625-4400; Monte C. Strait (acting) (304) 625-2900. Assistant Director of Cyber Division.--Louis M. Reigel III, 324- 6615. Deputy Assistant Director.--Steven M. Martinez, 324-1380. Assistant Director of Finance Division.--Joseph L. Ford, 324-1345. Deputy Assistant Director.--Richard L. Haley, 324-4104. Assistant Director of Information Technology Operations Division.-- James A. Loudermilk II (acting), 324-4507. Deputy Assistant Director.--James A. Loudermilk II, 324-4840. Assistant Director of Inspection Division.--Charlene B. Thornton, 324-2901. Deputy Assistant Director.--Andrew R. Bland III, 324-2903. Assistant Director of Investigative Technology Division.--Kerry E. Haynes (703) 632-6100. Deputy Assistant Director.--Marcus C. Thomas. Assistant Director of Laboratory Division.--Dwight E. Adams (703) 632-7000. Deputy Assistant Directors: Joseph A. Di Zinno (703) 632-7003; Tod Alan Hildebrand (703) 632-7010. Chief Information Officer.--Zalmai Azmi, 324-6165. Assistant Director, Office of Congressional Affairs.--Eleni P. Kalisch, 324-5051. Equal Employment Opportunity Officer.--Veronica Venture, 324-4128. Assistant Equal Employment Opportunity Officers: Janis Famous, 324-8162; Maximo De Lancer, 324-4128. General Counsel.--Valerie Caproni, 324-6829. Deputy General Counsels.--John Curran, 324-8528; Anne M. Gulyassy, 324-5020; Patrick W. Kelley, 324-8067. Assistant Director, Office of Intelligence.--Kevin R. Brock, 324- 7605. Deputy Assistant Directors: Robert E. Casey, Jr., 324-0740; Janet C. Keys, 324-8287. Office of International Operations.--Thomas V. Fuentes, special agent in charge, 324-5292. Assistant Director, Office of Law Enforcement Coordination.--Louis F. Quijas, 324-7126. Office of the Ombudsman.--Sarah Zeigler, 324-2156. Assistant Director of: Professional Responsibility.--Candice M. Will, 324-8284, Public Affairs.--Cassandra M. Chandler, 324-5352. Assistant Director, Records Management Division.--William L. Hooton, 324-7141. Deputy Assistant Director.--Harold M. Hendershot, 324-7141. Executive Secretariat.--Marilyn Moore, 324-6565. Assistant Director, Security Division.--Charles S. Phalen, Jr., 324- 7112. Deputy Assistant Director.--Jeffrey Berkin, 324-2121. Assistant Director, Training Division.--James A. Trinka, 324-2506. FIELD DIVISIONS Albany: 200 McCarty Avenue, Albany, NY 12209 (518) 465-7551. Albuquerque: 415 Silver Avenue SW., Suite 300, Albuquerque, NM 87102 (505) 224-2000. Anchorage: 101 East Sixth Avenue, Anchorage, AK 99501 (907) 258-5322. Atlanta: 2635 Century Center Parkway, NE., Suite 400, Atlanta, GA 30345 (404) 679-9000. Baltimore: 7142 Ambassador Road, Baltimore, MD 21244 (410) 265-8080. [[Page 652]] Birmingham: 2121 Eighth Avenue North, Room 1400, Birmingham, AL 35203 (205) 326-6166. Boston: One Center Plaza, Suite 600, Boston, MA 02108 (617) 742-5533. Buffalo: One *FBI* Plaza, Buffalo, NY 14202 (716) 856-7800. Charlotte: Wachovia Building, 400 South Tryon Street, Suite 900, Charlotte, NC 28285 (704) 377-9200. Chicago: E.M. Dirksen Federal Office Building, 219 South Dearborn Street, Room 905, Chicago, IL 60604 (312) 431-1333. Cincinnati: Federal Office Building, 550 Main Street, Room 9000, Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513) 421-4310. Cleveland: 1501 Lakeside Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44114 (216) 522-1400. Columbia: 151 Westpark Boulevard, Columbia, SC 29210 (803) 551-4200. Dallas: J. Gordon Shanklin Building, One Justice Way, Dallas, TX 75220 (972) 559-5000. Denver: Federal Office Building, 1961 Stout Street, Room 1823, Denver, CO 80294 (303) 629-7171. Detroit: P.V. McNamara Federal Office Building, 477 Michigan Avenue, 26th Floor, Detroit, MI 48226 (313) 965-2323. El Paso: 660 South Mesa Hills Drive, Suite 3000, El Paso, TX 79912 (915) 832-5000. Honolulu: Kalanianaole Federal Office Building, 300 Ala Moana Boulevard, Room 4-230, Honolulu, HI 96850 (808) 566-4300. Houston: 2500 East T.C. Jester, Suite 200, Houston, TX 77008 (713) 693- 5000. Indianapolis: Federal Office Building, 575 North Pennsylvania Street, Room 679, Indianapolis, IN 46204 (371) 639-3301. Jackson: Federal Office Building, 100 West Capitol Street, Suite 1553, Jackson, MS 39269 (601) 948-5000. Jacksonville: 7820 Arlington Expressway, Suite 200, Jacksonville, FL 32211 (904) 721-1211. Kansas City: 1300 Summit, Kansas City, MO 64105 (816) 512-8200. Knoxville: John J. Duncan Federal Office Building, 710 Locust Street, Room 600, Knoxville, TN 37902 (423) 544-0751. Las Vegas: John Lawrence Bailey Building, 700 East Charleston Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV 89104 (702) 385-1281. Little Rock: #24 Shackleford West Boulevard, Little Rock, AR 72211 (501) 221-9100. Los Angeles: Federal Office Building, 11000 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1700, Los Angeles, CA 90024 (310) 477-6565. Louisville: 600 Martin Luther King, Jr. Place, Room 500, Louisville, KY 40202 (502) 583-2941. Memphis: Eagle Crest Building, 225 North Humphreys Boulevard, Suite 3000, Memphis, TN 38120 (901) 747-4300. Miami: 16320 Northwest Second Avenue, Miami, FL 33169 (305) 944-9101. Milwaukee: 330 East Kilbourn Avenue, Suite 600, Milwaukee, WI 53202 (414) 276-4684. Minneapolis: 111 Washington Avenue South, Suite 100, Minneapolis, MN 55401 (612) 376-3200. Mobile: 200 North Royal Street, Mobile, AL 36602 (334) 438-3674. New Haven: 600 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 777-6311. New Orleans: 2901 Leon C. Simon Boulevard, New Orleans, LA 70126 (504) 816-3122. New York: 26 Federal Plaza, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10278 (212) 384- 1000. Newark: Claremont Tower Building, 11 Centre Place, Newark, NJ 07102 (973) 792-3000. Norfolk: 150 Corporate Boulevard, Norfolk, VA 23502 (757) 455-0100. Oklahoma City: 3301 West Memorial, Oklahoma City, OK 73134 (405) 290- 7770. Omaha: 10755 Burt Street, Omaha, NE 68114 (402) 493-8688. Philadelphia: William J. Green, Jr., Federal Office Building, 600 Arch Street, Eighth Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106 (215) 418-4000. Phoenix: 201 East Indianola Avenue, Suite 400, Phoenix, AZ 85012 (602) 279-5511. Pittsburgh: Martha Dixon Building, 3311 East Carson Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203 (412) 432-4000. Portland: Crown Plaza Building, 1500 Southwest First Avenue, Suite 401, Portland, OR 97201 (503) 224-4181. Richmond: 1970 East Parham Road, Richmond, VA 23228 (804) 261-1044. Sacramento: 4500 Orange Grove Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95841 (916) 481- 9110. Salt Lake City: 257 Towers Building, 257 East 200 South, Suite 1200, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 (801) 579-1400. San Antonio: U.S. Post Office and Courthouse Building, 614 East Houston Street, Room 200, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 225-6741. San Diego: Federal Office Building, 9797 Aero Drive, San Diego, CA 92123 (858) 565-1255. San Francisco: 450 Golden Gate Avenue, 13th Floor, San Francisco, CA 64102 (415) 553-7400. [[Page 653]] San Juan: U.S. Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Room 526, Hato Rey, PR 00918 (787) 754-6000. Seattle: 1110 Third Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101 (206) 622-0460. Springfield: 400 West Monroe Street, Suite 400, Springfield, IL 62704 (217) 522-9675. St. Louis: 2222 Market Street, St. Louis, MO 63103 (314) 241-5357. Tampa: Federal Office Building, 500 Zack Street, Room 610, Tampa, FL 33602 (813) 273-4566. Washington Field Office: 601 Fourth Street NW., Washington, DC 20535 (202) 278-3400. FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS (BOP) 320 1st Street, NW., 20534 General Information Number (202) 307-3198 Director.--Harley G. Lappin, room 654, HOLC, 307-3250. Director, National Institute of Corrections.--Morris L. Thigpen, Sr., 7th floor, 500 FRST, 307-3106 (0). Assistant Director of: Administration.--Bruce K. Sasser, 9th floor, 500 FRST, 307-3123. Correctional Programs.--John M. Vanyur, Ph.D., room 554, HOLC, 307-3226. General Counsel.--Kathleen M. Kenney, room 958C, HOLC, 307-3062. Health Services.--MaryEllen Thomas, room 1054, HOLC, 307-3055. Human Resources Management.--W. Elaine Chapman (acting), room 454, HOLC, 307-3082. Industries, Education, and Vocational Training.--Steve Schwalb, 8th floor, 400 FRST, 305-3500. Information, Policy and Public Affairs.--Thomas R. Kane, Ph.D., room 641, HOLC, 514-6537. Regional Director for-- Mid-Atlantic.--K.M. White (301) 317-3100. North Central.--Michael K. Nalley (913) 621-3939. Northeast.--D. Scott Dodrill (215) 521-7300. South Central.--Ronald G. Thompson (214) 224-3389. Southeast.--R.E. Holt (678) 686-1200. Western.--Joseph E. Gunja (925) 803-4700. *Telephone* *Directory* Coordinator.--Jerry Vroegh, 307-3250. OFFICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS (OJP) 810 7th Street, NW., 20531 Assistant Attorney General.--Tracy A. Henke (acting), room 6400, 307- 5933. Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals: Lizette Benedi, room 6355; Cheri Nolan, room 6422. Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General.--Beth McGarry, room 6224. Manager, Equal Employment Opportunity.--Stacie Brockman, room 6109, 307-6013. BUREAU OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE Director.--Domingo S. Herraiz, room 4427, 353-2720. Deputy Directors of: Planning.--Hope D. Janke (acting), room 4429, 514-6094. Policy.--James H. Burch II, room 4207, 307-5910. Programs.--Eileen Garry, room 4345, 307-6226. Associate Deputy Directors of: Policy.--Elizabeth Griffith, room 4121, 307-6226; James Patrick McCreary, room 4124, 616-0532. Programs.--Timothy Wight, room 4428, 514-2190. BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS Director.--Lawrence A. Greenfeld, room 2413, 307-0765. Chiefs of: Corrections Statistics.--Allen Beck, room 2239, 616-3277. Criminal Statistics Improvement Program.--Gerard Ramker, room 2323, 307-0759. [[Page 654]] Law Enforcement, Adjudication, and Federal Statistics.--Steven K. Smith, room 2338, 616-3485. Law Enforcement and Pretrial Statistics.--Brian Reaves, room 2320, 616-3287. Planning, Management and Budget.--Maureen A. Henneberg, room 2402, 616-3282. Publication and Electronic Dissemination.--Marianne Zawitz, room 2249, 616-3499. Publication Development and Verification.--Tom Hester, room 2247, 616-3283. Victimization Statistics.--Michael Rand, room 2215, 616-3494. Senior Statistician, Research and Public Policy Issues.--Patrick A. Langan, room 2326, 616-3490. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE Director.--Sara V. Hart, room 7422, 307-2942. Chief of Staff.--Kirsten Baumgarten Rowe, room 7412, 305-7560. Assistant Directors of: Research and Evaluation.--Thomas Feucht (acting), room 7330, 307-2949. Science and Technology.--John Morgan, room 7234, 305-0995. Division Chiefs of: Communications.--Gerald Soucy, room 7118, 616-3808. Crime Control and Prevention Research.--Bryan Vila, room 7344, 307-2951. Evaluations.--Betty Chemers, room 7440, 307-3677. Investigative and Forensic Sciences.--Susan Narveson (acting), room 7123, 305-4884. Justice Systems Research.--Christopher Innes, room 7333, 307- 2955. Planning and Management.--Doug Horner, room 7423, 307-2942. Research and Technology Development.--Stanley Erickson, room 7131, 305-4686. Technology Assistance.--Marc Caplan, room 7224, 307-2956. Violence and Victimization Research.--Angela Moore Parmley, room 7355, 307-0145. OFFICE OF JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION Administrator.--J. Robert Flores, room 3345, TWC, 307-5911. Deputy Administrator for Policy.--William Woodruff, room 3347, TWC, 514-8053. Deputy Administrator for Programs.--Marilyn Roberts, room 3349, TWC, 616-9055. Associate Administrators of: Child Protection.--Ronald C. Laney, room 3135, TWC, 616-7323. Communications Policy Advisor.--Catherine Doyle, room 3319, TWC, 514-9208. Demonstrations Program Division.--Jeffrey Slowikowski, room 3141, TWC, 616-3646. State Relations and Assistance Division.--Gregory Thompson, room 3411, TWC, 616-3663. OFFICE FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME Director.--John W. Gillis, room 8322, 307-5983. Principal Deputy Director.--Carolyn A. Hightower, room 8328, 616- 3586. Deputy Director.--Dennis Greenhouse, room 8261, 616-9971. Directors of: Federal, State and Tribal Victim Program.--Cathy Sanders, room 8241, 616-3578. Program Development and Dissemination.--Joye Whatley, room 8338, 305-1715. State Compensation and Assistance.--Toni Thomas, room 8242, 616- 3579. Terrorism and International Victim Assistance Services.--Barbara Johnson, room 8340, 307-0012. Training and Information Dissemination.--Pamela Leupen, room 8323, 307-0711. COMMUNITY |
for any of his failures on the recalcitrance of other parties. He has no choice but to deliver on his promises. And he must start doing so, in earnest, now.
Photo: flickr/ Prime Minister of Canada
Like this article? Please chip in to keep stories like these coming.Updated 3:55 p.m.
The NCAA Board of Governors announced Monday night that it was pulling seven championship events from North Carolina, due to the state’s HB2 law.
In a press release, the NCAA Board emphasized that "NCAA championships and events must promote an inclusive atmosphere for all college athletes, coaches, administrators and fans. Current North Carolina state laws make it challenging to guarantee that host communities can help deliver on that commitment if NCAA events remained in the state."
"Fairness is about more than the opportunity to participate in college sports, or even compete for championships," NCAA President Mark Emmert said in the release. "We believe in providing a safe and respectful environment at our events and are committed to providing the best experience possible for college athletes, fans and everyone taking part in our championships."
HB2's aftermath continues
HB2 was passed in March by the Republican majority in a special, one-day session of the General Assembly, and Governor Pat McCrory signed it. The law requires people to use public restrooms that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificate. It also limits anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people.
Democratic state lawmakers on Tuesday called for a special session to repeal HB2. State Senator Terry Van Duyn of Buncombe County said the decision was another blow to the state's economy.
"The loss of jobs in the financial sector, the film industry, special events, and now North Carolina's pride and joy, college sports," Van Duyn said.
The call to repeal HB2 is largely symbolic, as Republican leaders have given no indication that they will consider it.
Events being moved out of NC
The 2016-17 events being moved out of North Carolina include the Division I Women’s Soccer Championship in Cary, and first and second round NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament games in Greensboro.
The Greensboro Coliseum last hosted NCAA men’s tournament games in 2012. Attendance was 19,000 per session and there were three sessions. The Greensboro Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates the economic impact of the NCAA announcement at $14.6 million.
McCrory condemned the NCAA's decision to pull championship events out of North Carolina due to HB2. The governor issued a statement saying the association failed to show respect for the judicial system as lawsuits against HB2 make their way through the courts.
"I strongly encourage all public and private institutions to both respect and allow our nation’s judicial system to proceed without economic threats or political retaliation toward the 22 states that are currently challenging government overreach," McCrory said. "Sadly, the NCAA, a multi-billion dollar, tax-exempt monopoly, failed to show this respect at the expense of our student athletes and hard-working men and women."
Others weigh in on the NCAA's decision
Other leaders around the state weighed in on the decision Tuesday. In a statement, North Carolina GOP Spokeswoman Kami Mueller said:
"This is so absurd it's almost comical. I genuinely look forward to the NCAA merging all men’s and women’s teams together as singular, unified, unisex teams. Under the NCAA's logic, colleges should make cheerleaders and football players share bathrooms, showers and hotel rooms. This decision is an assault to female athletes across the nation. If you are unwilling to have women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, how do you have a women's team? I wish the NCAA was this concerned about the women who were raped at Baylor. Perhaps the NCAA should stop with their political peacocking— and instead focus their energies on making sure our nation’s collegiate athletes are safe, both on and off the field.”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper’s campaign responded with its own statement on Monday night. Cooper for NC Spokesman Ford Porter said:
“It seems that almost every day, we learn of a new consequence of HB2. Hosting NCAA championship events has long been a point of pride for North Carolina. These tournaments pump money into our economy and give our communities and fans a chance to showcase our incredible tradition of college sports. Now, our ability to host these events at the highest level has been eliminated because of Governor McCrory and HB 2. Enough - We need to repeal this law and get our state back on track.”
UNC President Margaret Spellings offered her own reaction to the NCAA's announcement:
“We are surprised and disappointed by the NCAA’s decision and regret the impact it will have on North Carolina's student-athletes, coaches, athletic staffs, fans, and the North Carolina communities previously chosen to host these championship events. As reflected in long-standing University policy, UNC campuses do not discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, and we are fully committed to being open and welcoming to individuals of all backgrounds. We remain caught in the middle of a conflict between state law and federal guidance, and we welcome a speedy resolution of these issues by the court.”
Duke University Vice President and Director of Athletics Kevin White also released a statement on the NCAA's decision:
“We agree with the NCAA's decision. Our position has been clear on this matter, which is that this legislation is discriminatory, troubling and embarrassing. We deplore any efforts to deprive individuals, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, of legal protection and rights. We will always be committed to diversity and inclusion, and applaud any efforts to ensure that those values are protected and enacted at all times, and in all places in the state of North Carolina.”
Civitas President Francis De Luca described the decision from the NCAA as "shameful":
"It is clear they do not understand real discrimination. China, where true discrimination and human rights violations occur, is OK for games, but a state that is just trying to protect young girls and women is somehow off-limits. Between this and their choice to do nothing about schools graduating athletes who can't read, and to do nothing about the rape of females by athletes at Baylor, it is clear the NCAA is a bunch of hypocrites. It shows they're more interested in politics than academic and athletic excellence."
In his own statement, Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin praised the decision:
“The NCAA just sent a clear message to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and state lawmakers that it will not tolerate hateful laws targeting student athletes, fans, and employees. Every day that HB2 remains on the books, countless people across North Carolina are at risk of real harm. NCAA President Mark Emmert has shown tremendous leadership by taking a bold stand for equality in the face of discrimination. It’s long past time state lawmakers repealed this vile law, and if they don’t, the majority of voters opposed to HB2 will ensure they pay the price in November.”
In a TV ad airing across the state, McCrory defends HB2 and asks: "Are we really talking about this? Does the desire to be politically correct outweigh our children's privacy and safety? Not on my watch."
Earlier this summer, the NBA announced it was moving its All-Star Game out of Charlotte.
Will Michaels contributed to this report.Maybe there’s is a better way to predict how well a hitter is doing? Rather than glancing at his OBP and SLG and OPS or his wOBA and wRC+ and then mentally calibrating that number according to an inflated or deflated BABIP, maybe we can find a simple means of combining the key elements into a single formula.
Well, I believe I have stumbled onto just such a formula.
Th’other day, when I was trying to solve the mystery of the Tampa Bay Rays and their utterly broken run expectancy chart, I began ruminating about the relationship between walks, strikeouts, and an ability to create runs. You see, the Rays tend towards true outcomes: lotsa walks, lotsa strikeouts. So, for some strange reason — be it bad luck or bad hitter-type chemistry — the Rays seem to have an inability of reaching a standard run expectancy with the bases loaded.
Anyway, I began to investigate this trifle and produced an interesting comparison:
The greener area (less walks, more Ks) is obviously worse, just as the white area is obviously better. In between, however, is the tenuous white-greenish area of mixed results.
What particularly piqued my interest was not really a new finding of any sort, but merely the visual represent of the different means of success among MLB offenses.
For instance, the Rangers put a lot of balls in play. They walk very little and strike out very little, but are still a successful offense (116 wRC+ or 16% above average). Meanwhile, the Yankees and Red Sox have a lot less defensive dependence, taking bases on walks and striking out much more often. These teams have similar results, but lay on different points on the spectrum.
So I axed myself: “What does the relationship of plate discipline look like with respect to run scoring?”
Not a profound or unanswered question by any means, but a fun exercise. The relationship is neither surprising nor overwhelmingly strong:
What surprised me with this dandy little regression — and what made me wander down the rabbit hole — was the high R-squared and minuscule P values (not shown). I did not expect that the BB/K ratio would represent ~47% of the variation of wRC+. When I think of great hitters, I usually do not immediately think about their balance of walks and strikeouts.
I then pondered: “How deep does this relationship go? Could there be a defensive independent means of evaluating a hitter?”
If half of a team’s offensive variation comes from walks and strikeouts, then maybe homers could make up the rest of that variation? Well, a half dozen regressions later, I concluded two thangs:
1) Defensive independent events — walks, strikeouts, and homers — have a very strong correlation with park-adjusted run scoring (wRC+).
2) And BABIP fills any and all remaining gaps.
The beauty of BABIP is that it encapsulates basically the junk drawer of remaining elements. BABIP has luck, speed, and defensive dependence in it, so the resulting R-squared is basically infinity.
I took these two little, unsurprising yet key, facts and slung them at a decade’s worth of hitters. Then, I looked at the more recent era — let’s call it the Dying Ball Era please! — and produced this:
I call it Should Hit, as in: Yuniesky Betancourt should hit 80 wRC+ with a normal (career) BABIP. Of course, if you put in a players present BABIP instead of their career, then you should get something like above, where there’s a nearly one-to-one relationship.
The formula is simple, which is why I love it. Regressing K%, BB%, HR%, and BABIP on wRC+ (from 2009 through 2011), we get (approximately) this:
Should Hit = -60 + 277(BB%) + -184(K%) + 1133(HR%) + 465(BABIP or xBABIP)
Walks and strikeouts and home runs normalize way more quickly than BABIP, which can go crazy for whole seasons. Should Hit — or ShH (pronounced shh, as in shut up) for those who love acronyms* — allows us to use the three more stable (and more adjustable) elements of hitting to our advantage.
Not only do walk, strikeout, and homer rates stabilize quickly, they also have some of the highest variations through a player’s career as individuals are constantly changing their approach or dealing with pitchers adapting to them. Whereas BABIP is a slow swinging pendulum — constantly based around a consistent point, but never quite there — BB%, K%,and HR% are small needles quickly finding exact points which change slightly almost every season.
So, using Should Hit, I can predict how any player would perform given an array of BABIPs. Take this year’s anomaly, Casey Kotchman. After getting off-season surgery on his eyeballs, Kotchman has instantly gone from a worse-than-league-average hitter to a 134 wRC+ hitting machine. Most non-Rays fans (and myself) look at Kotchman’s crazy.360ish BABIP and say: “I know what comes next. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall, and a high BABIP before a nasty regression — or something like that.”
Anyway, given the peculiar Best Shape of My Life story preceding his resurgence, Kotchman has earned a slew of devotees committed to believing he will keep his pace up. If we put his numbers in Should Hit, we get this:
So, if we think Kotchman’s new vision can really sustain his ultra-high BABIP, then he can legitimately be a 120 to 130 wRC+ hitter. But, the truth is he’s not walking much and striking out more than usual. Should Hit does not like that and says, t’were his BABIP to revert to career norms, he’d be having maybe the second-worst season of his career.
Now, ShH is not an xBABIP tool. If you want an xBABIP calculator, then go here. For ShH, I prefer to just use a little common sense and career BABIPs, assuming a player has more than one season of data.
Because I luv crowd-sourcing, here’s a Google Doc with the Should Hit formula. Feel free to download or save a copy and play with it to your heart’s darkest desires.
For the Google Doc, just input the walk and strikeout rates of a player’s current season. Then add their present home run total (or career totals work well enough too) and the present (or career) plate appearances — this calculates the home run rate.
Then, input their present BABIP. You will notice the resulting wRC+ is not as high as it is in their present 2011 season. I believe this comes from a calibration issue due to the Dying Ball Era’s lowered expectations.
Modern “plus” metrics having lower standards right now because of the league-wide depression in offenses. Originally — as noted above — I used a whole decade of data to form Should Hit’s slopes. Unfortunately, the distance between 45-degrees and the regression narrowed each time I sliced off a season of the Steroid Era.
So, the present rendition has a bit of a calibration issue. All that means is you will want to put in their present BABIP first, then your predicted BABIP (or and xBABIP) for comparison’s sake. Or, you can just use my Should Hit (Advanced!) which adds this layer for you:
In closing:
1) Play around with Should Hit and ShHA! and let me know what you think.
2) Are there problems in my reasoning? Let me know. I’ve used what I hoped was the simplest reasonings and the simplest methods (linear regressions), but maybe it’s more complicated than it appears to me.
3) Let me know what you think about the external validity of this little tool. As I mentioned, the Steroid and Dying Ball Eras have thrown significant monkey wrenches into league averages, but I would like to think I avoided those problems. Also, has anyone else done something similar to ShH in the past? I imagine others more brilliant have long-explored defensive independent hitting already, but I could not recall of such a thing.
Finally, have fun!
*I do not like acronyms in sabermetrics. They make otherwise simple concepts seem complex and alien to the un-inundated. Initially, I wanted to avoid an acronym altogether, but in the name of reasonable spreadsheet column widths, I decided to go with ShH. And in the name of younger audiences, I decided against ess-hit (written “SHit”) for more obvious reasons. If you must, though, just think of it as expected weighted runs created plus, xwRC+ — which looks like a virus in your registry.Along the way the video sharing website became an internet phenomenon. The figures are astonishing. More than 200 million videos are watched every day on the site and 10 hours of new content posted on it every minute.
One commentator once remarked that it is so ubiquitous that "if it's not on YouTube, it's like it never happened".
For the uninitiated, YouTube, slogan Broadcast Yourself, is a sort of video vox populi. Its estimated 34 million registered users can "upload" their favourite video clips onto the site and thus broadcast them to the world.
Their "user generated content" is not just home movies but clips of their favourite TV shows, films, sporting events and music videos.
It is so successful that it is estimated the single site uses as much online memory space as the entire internet did in 2000. Its most popular clip, a music video by Avril Lavigne, received more than 90 million hits.
Inevitably such success has sparked a backlash. Programme makers and the music industry have complained about mass piracy and only this week MPs in Britain called for greater safeguards of the site and its "dark side".
With all this fuss it is hard to believe YouTube is still in its infancy.
Hurley and Chen, and another friend Jawad Karim, all colleagues at PayPal, the internet payment service, had the idea after getting frustrated when they tried to swap videoclips from a dinner party in February 2005.
At the dinner, hosted by Chen, a Taiwanese born computer science student from the University of Illinois, they spent most of the evening shooting videos and digital photos of each other.
The next day they easily uploaded the photos to the Web. But the videos? Not a chance.
The trio had stumbled across a gaping niche. And between them, they had the means to address it.
Chen and Karim, who subsequently left to continue studying, were exceptional computer programmers, and Hurley, a Fine Art graduate from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, had a gift for design to give a new website a compelling look.
Financed on their credit cards and based in a garage in San Francisco, the first YouTube video, an 18-second clip posted on April 23, 2005, featured Karim standing before elephants at a zoo.
"The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks," he said. "And that's cool. And that's pretty much all."
With that breakthrough, YouTube was born.
Days later, the three opened their website to the public. Word of mouth did the rest and YouTube grew at enormous speed.
The need to buy ever more powerful computer hardware soon outstripped the founders' credit cards and they sought backing from outside investors.
But they were determined to do it on their own terms and were adamant there would be no intrusive advertising on their site.
Ultimately it was a stroke of genius, immediately setting them apart from their fledgling competitors whose sites were dominated by sponsors, pop-up adverts and mini commercials.
Once when they imposed on users with a small text ad on the site they jokingly apologised, explaining they needed the cash to fix the office sink.
Users flocked to their website, considering it to be anti-establishment and independent.
The business now had 67 employees and was operating from a loft above a pizza shop in San Bruno, a city just outside San Francisco.
It was so successful that even internet giants such as MySpace and Google flailed in its wake, their own versions of video sharing failing to gain a foothold.
In August 2006, Google decided if you cannot beat them, buy them.
David Drummond, Google's top lawyer who directs the company's mergers activity, talked to Chen and Hurley about everything from an advertising partnership to an outright acquisition.
Hurley and Chen had said publicly YouTube should stay independent. But they lacked the computing and communication power to match their growth. Those needs fitted Google's strengths.
Between the YouTube owners, Chen was more eager to sell. "Chad kept saying, 'We're going to take this as far as we can take it.' Steve was like, 'Let's get the money now,'" said a friend.
The deal was finally signed in October 2006 at a branch of the diner Denny's 20 miles from their office.
Chen, now 29 and single, and Hurley, 31 and a married father-of-two, would remain in charge. Karim, also a University of Illinois alum, had left YouTube soon after its founding to pursue his graduate degree at Stanford University.
In return they were given £874million in Google shares and celebrated with a burger at their local TGI Friday's.
At the time, Chen said he was overawed with the success
"I'm definitely floored by everything that has happened, but I haven't come to terms with the full ramifications of it," he said.
He described the feeling as cerebral jet lag, his brain struggling to catch up with how fast his life had changed.
Such phenomenal success inevitably reaped a backlash. And the site has been attacked on a number of fronts mainly for failure to police its content correctly.
Though site rules prohibit pornography, nudity, defamation, harassment, commercial advertisements and material encouraging criminal conduct, critics argue they are still all over the site.
Organisations including the US entertainment corporation Viacom and the English Premier League have issued lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material.
The former claimed $1billion (£529million) in damages after it discovered 150,000 unauthorised clips on the site which had been viewed more than a billion times.
Perhaps more damaging is the use of the site to post distasteful home movies like "Happy Slapping" where beatings and bullying are filmed and cruelty to animals, Holocaust denial and the Hillsborough Disaster, in which 96 football fans from Liverpool were crushed to death in 1989.
Most disturbing is the claim that a video showing a rape has been posted on the site.
MPs in Britain this week attacked the "dark side" of YouTube and called for greater safeguards and the use of 18 ratings to stop children downloading inappropriate material.
Chen and Hurley argue it is impossible for them to police everything that is on the site and they rely on users to follow the rules and report any breaches. Once "inappropriate content" is discovered it is removed, they insist.
YouTube is now so powerful that many movie and music organisations have launched tie ups with them. For many now getting their latest song or trailer on Youtube is better than it being played on mainstream television.
Not bad for a three year-old company that according to Google reports has yet to turn a profit.Too Cheap for Our Own Good
November 30th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan
I’ve been meaning to write this piece for a while — now seems to be the time. It’s more about American culture, or perhaps human nature, than anything else. It is most certainly an issue everywhere, but I don’t think there’s a country on earth where it’s a bigger problem than in the U.S.
For some reason, we seem to be obsessed with thinking about the prices of things before almost everything else. Not in all situations — humongous iPad sales show that cool is still a big factor in some cases as well. Paying $10,000 more a year for a car when you could bike or use transit instead is another example of an exception to the rule. But, generally speaking, when we consider something, we focus on price first. You may think this makes sense, but in many situations, I think it’s clear that it doesn’t.
First of all, price IS NOT cost. For example, the price of solar may be higher than the price of coal today (note: for some, it may actually be cheaper already — look into it), but the cost of solar is lower for most or all of us. Why? Because the price of coal does not include the billions or trillions in health costs attributed to coal. It does not include other environmental costs. It does not include the cost of suffering from coal-related cancers. It does not include the cost of suffering from climate-change-related disasters. It does not include the rising cost of food from climate-change-related ‘natural’ disasters.
The same goes for electric vehicles over gas-powered vehicles now.
The same goes for the cost of healthy versus unhealthy food.
But, we choose to be polluted. We choose to get cancers. We choose to have less national security and sacrifice the lives of our fellow citizens rather than change our transportation options.
Basically, we seem to be too bad at examining costs (and our government doesn’t do enough to adequately adjust the price of products to internalize health, national security, environmental, and other costs) for our own good.
Just putting it on the individual today, though, it’s our own responsibility to do a little research and choose a better life for ourselves — one with less suffering and disease, and one with more quantifiable and unquantifiable net benefits.
Aside from putting a cost on things like clean air, clean water, and a healthy body, it also makes sense to acknowledge that some such things cannot truly have a price tag — they are necessities for a “good” life. They are a base need. How can we say it makes more sense to burn coal today since it’s slightly cheaper, while people suffer and die every day from the horrible effects of coal mining and the burning of coal?
And one more thing: we often make a big deal of price without thinking about where that extra money we’re paying goes. Does it go towards creating more jobs, rather than sending more money into a highly automated industry in which the rich are getting richer? Does it go towards local, small-scale businesses versus giant multi-nationals, industrial farms, or hostile countries where the citizens and leaders hate you? Spending money isn’t only about you, it’s also about who or what you support….
I know some readers (and commenters) sometimes get frustrated when we focus on the price of solar or wind versus coal or nuclear sometimes. I certainly get a little frustrated having to write in those terms sometimes, and appreciate the reminders to look beyond price. But I think the truth of the matter is, we’ve got two issues to tackle — 1) we need to try to get people to see and incorporate more of the costs of dirty energy more often, since that already makes renewable energy a better option (and since people do think in money terms so much), and 2) we need to promote the idea that everything isn’t about money, since we have basic necessities and even desires that trump a small difference in the price of one option over another.
These are things I think I do every day, but once in a while it’s good to spell that out rather than imply it or stick a few lines into a story about another topic.
Take home point: don’t be too cheap for your own good.
Image via SS&SS0 Shares
You might recognize the name Rosey from his time in WWE from 2002 until 2006. He was a member of 3-Minute Warning and also teamed with the Hurricane. He is also the older brother to current WWE superstar: Roman Reigns.
We have some sad news to share, Rosey (real name: “Matt” Anoaʻi) has reportedly passed way.
Several of his friends have taken to Facebook and Twitter to remember him.
Rest In Peace Matt Anoai….such a kind and lovable soul. Love goes out to the Anoai family…. — Brian Heffron (@BlueMeanieBWO) April 18, 2017
Heart wrenching phone calls are not the way to start a day. Tell your loved ones you love them. Let them know! — Gregory Shane Helms (@ShaneHelmsCom) April 18, 2017
[irp posts=”21240″ name=”Roman Reigns’ Brother (Rosey) Comments On If WWE Should Turn Reigns Heel”]
He was previously hospitalized in 2014 due to congestive heart failure. He was only 47 years old.
We are sending a lot of love to Roman and the entire Anoa’i family in their time of grief.Boreal forest and tundra ecosystems cover approximately 33% of Earth's terrestrial surface (McGuire et al. 1995) and are experiencing climatic warming at rates twice as fast as the global average (Serreze and Barry 2011). The ecosystem impacts of warming are well documented, including permafrost thawing (Schuur et al. 2008), shrub expansion (Myers‐Smith et al. 2011), altered forest productivity (Beck et al. 2011), and increased fire activity (Kelly et al. 2013). Northern high‐latitude ecosystems also play a key role in the global climate system, storing an estimated 50% of global soil carbon (McGuire et al. 2009). The fate of these massive carbon stocks is directly tied to wildfire (Bond‐Lamberty et al. 2007, Kelly et al. 2016), and thus to potential shifts in 21st‐century fire regimes (i.e. the expected pattern of burning over broad spatiotemporal scales; Baker 2009). For example, the 2007 Anaktuvuk River Fire in the Brooks Foothills ecoregion of Alaska, an event locally unprecedented in the past 6500 yr (Chipman et al. 2015), resulted in an estimated 2.1 Tg C emitted to the atmosphere, comparable to the annual net carbon sink of the tundra biome (Mack et al. 2011). Thus, increased fire activity in this tundra region would likely result in novel levels of burning, with important implications for ecosystem structure and function, including carbon storage.
Climate warming is expected to alter fire activity globally (Flannigan et al. 2009), but anticipating regional fire‐regime shifts requires understanding how potential changes may manifest across space and time. The direction and impacts of shifting fire regimes will vary among ecosystems due to regional variation in climate change, vegetation composition, disturbance histories, ecosystem productivity, and carbon storage. For example, there is a wide range of fire‐driven fuel consumption across boreal forests (0.6 to 12.9 kg C m–2) due to regional differences in fuel composition and combustion efficiency (van Leeuwen et al. 2014). Therefore, regional differences in fire‐regime changes could have important implications for wildfire emissions and carbon cycling. Spatial variability of northern high‐latitude fire regimes (Rocha et al. 2012, Boulanger et al. 2013) is ultimately a product of climate and landscape controls on fuel productivity and fuel drying (Kasischke et al. 2010, Parisien et al. 2011). Anticipating potential fire‐regime shifts and associated impacts of 21st‐century climate change thus requires understanding the controls of spatial variability in historical fire regimes.
Statistical models of fire–climate relationships at annual timescales across broad regions of boreal forest or tundra suggest strong links between annual area burned and summer moisture deficits, highlighting mechanisms related to low fuel moisture (Duffy et al. 2005, Hu et al. 2015). Consequently, under future scenarios with higher summer moisture deficits, models project increased annual area burned, in some cases by up to 200% by the end of the 21st century (Balshi et al. 2009, Hu et al. 2015). Annual‐scale models also have several important limitations for projecting potential fire‐regime shifts. First, annual‐scale models generally trade off spatial for temporal resolution, with fire and climate information aggregated over broad spatial regions (Duffy et al. 2005, Hu et al. 2015). These models thereby average across regional or sub‐regional variation in climate and landscape features that influence fire activity, masking regional variability in future fire activity. Second, these models are inherently sensitive to inter‐annual climatic variability, a feature not well captured in global climate models (Rupp et al. 2013).
Multi‐decadal scale statistical modeling offers a complementary approach to annual‐scale models, trading off temporal for spatial resolution (Parisien et al. 2014). Using spatially resolved long‐term (e.g. 30 yr) climatic averages and local landscape features, multi‐decadal scale models explain fire occurrence at spatial resolutions from 1 to 100 km2 (Krawchuk et al. 2009, Paritsis et al. 2013). These models help reveal mechanisms that drive spatial variation in modern fire activity (Parisien et al. 2014), and they may provide more robust scenarios of future fire activity because they are less sensitive to uncertainty in projections of inter‐annual climatic variability (Moritz et al. 2012). While in many ecosystems annual‐scale fire–climate relationships align with multi‐decadal scale relationships (i.e. warm, dry conditions facilitate burning at both scales), alignment between these two scales is not ubiquitous. For example, fire activity is low in the warmest and driest biomes of Earth, due to consistently high fuel moisture or limited burnable biomass, respectively (Krawchuk and Moritz 2011). It remains unclear where tundra ecosystems fall along this ‘resource gradient’ of burnable biomass. Global‐scale analyses suggest that tundra fire regimes may be primarily fuel limited (Moritz et al. 2012), making them fundamentally different from fire regimes in North American boreal forests. This contrasts with evidence from Alaskan tundra, which occupies some of the warmest, wettest regions of circumpolar tundra (Hu et al. 2015) and in some areas has burned as often as boreal forests (Higuera et al. 2011a).
Here we use multi‐decadal scale statistical modeling to elucidate the historical drivers of regional fire‐regime variability in boreal forest and tundra ecosystems, and then project potential fire‐regime changes under 21st‐century climate. To quantify historical and future fire regimes, we modeled the spatially explicit 30‐yr probability of fire occurrence in Alaska at 2‐km resolution using explanatory variables representing climate, vegetation, and topography. The 30‐yr probability of fire occurrence can be related to the annual percent area burned, thus allowing a direct comparison to other fire‐regime metrics from historical and paleo‐fire records (e.g. fire frequency, mean fire return interval; Baker 2009, Chipman et al. 2015). Alaska is ideal for studying fire–climate relationships in boreal forest and tundra ecosystems, because estimated fire frequencies span several orders of magnitude, from one fire per 50 yr in areas of boreal forests (Kelly et al. 2013) to less than one fire per 10 000 yr in areas of tundra (Chipman et al. 2015). Alaska also offers one of the longest, most continuous fire records available for both boreal forest and tundra (< http://fire.ak.blm.gov/ >), with high‐resolution downscaled climate data available for the region (Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning 2015a, b2015b). We expect multi‐decadal climate to be an important control of Alaskan fire regimes, but we also expect the nature of fire–climate relationships to vary between boreal forest and tundra ecosystems across this vast region. Thus, two key questions we address in this work are: 1) what are the key climatic and landscape (e.g. vegetation, topography) factors controlling fire‐regime variability in Alaskan boreal forest and tundra ecosystems, and 2) how does vulnerability to climatically induced fire‐regime shifts vary across Alaska throughout the 21st century?Cead mile fáilte, and welcome back to Nemesis!
Today we’re going to start thinking about Major Victoria Haley, and her two favourite Stormwalls, Stomp Wall Sr. and Bondy. I’ll take a brief pause while you huck up old school!
All done? Excellent! We’ll dive right into our business, the following is the Haley Double Stormwall list that you will encounter in the competitive setting (Most of the time).
Haley2, 5 warjack points
-Stormwall, 19 points
-Stormwall, 19 points
-Squire, 2 points
Arcane Tempest Gunmages, 6 points
-Officer, Gunmage unit attachment, 2 points
Black 13th, 4 points
Junior, 3 points
Let’s do the Time Warp…
That is a lot of shooting, a lot of Arm, and a lot of high Pow punches. This is all backed up by an incredible spell list (That will be largely unused here), a huge bank of focus, and one of the best feats in the entire game.
It is however very much so a skew list; Skew lists while powerful, and typically very good against balanced lists, are susceptible to hard counters. We should discuss the strengths and operating plan of this list first though. Strategy 1: The Stormwalls will shoot a heavy off the table. Expect at least one turn of being shot by 5 Rat 6 Pow 15 guns from 19”+ away. If you have low Def that’s 5 boosted Pow 15’s, which will do 25 damage on average to a Khador heavy. You’ll still be miles from engaging them, and even if you have huge threat ranges, you’ll get feated on, and still lose a turn. Running the rest of your heavies at her will have the bonded stormwall charge one of them and kill it. At this point you are 2 heavies down, and you may kill on stormwall, but the second is nearly impossible after it can charge another.
Infantry is the answer? Well you’ve got a unit of gunmages, then 4 covering fire templates, and a mage storm that can be targeted on a pod to be exactly spaced. You’re infantry will struggle to get there. In a typically Cygnar fashion it’s all about getting there, in an atypical fashion you have to get an enormous projection of force to arrive. So what are its weaknesses?
They see me podding…
There are 3 goals going into the game, Attrition, Scenario and Assassination. It’s very difficult to beat Haley on attrition with a generic list. You need to have overwhelming threat saturation, and shooting denial. Scenario and Assassination however are weaknesses. More than half of the scenarios will require the Cygnar player to split up. If you can clear one zone’s stormwall and start scoring, while maintaining the ability to contest the other zone, you will tear ahead. On the other hand, there is Destruction. That scenario is really difficult to beat double stormwall on with a very serious hard counter. Infantry will nearly not be able to enter the zone and needing to kill 2 objectives makes it harder to get into the zone, but means you aren’t hurting stormwalls.
It is important to note, that really nailing heavies from far away and getting those guys to clear zones if the gunmages go down, requires spending a lot of focus. Only two of the non-kill box scenarios have one contestable zone, Ammunition Run and Into the Bre |
. I can’t hate them too much, knowing what absurdity and agony is in store.
You may not think I’m serious about this. I don’t expect it to always be easy. Plenty of people have kids without even trying. It’s our main instinctual drive.
There are difficulties that await people who refuse to bear offspring. I have steeled myself to endure them. In the future, I’ll also buffer myself with all the money I’m going to save.
It’s Lonely
To not have kids of one’s own is to miss out on a lot of the simple pleasures life has to offer. As I sit in traffic, I may miss the screaming serenade from the back seat. I may never again see the inside of a Chuck-E-Cheese franchise. Big decisions require such sacrifices.
When I get old, I’ll get old alone. I will not be able to hit up my kids for money they don’t have, after the robots take over, after the great Bitcoin collapse of 2042 and the assassination of President Kardashian destabilize the economy and we’re all hunting rats for sustenance. My death will be lonesome and painful, as I expected. And as I perish, isolated and unloved, I won’t have anyone to inflict with guilt.
But I don’t have to wait that long. A lot of my friends will cave in to the overwhelming social and biological pressure to have kids, and they will disappear into Kid World. I won’t see them much, and when you do, we won’t have anything to talk about. They won’t watch Quentin Tarantino movies, and I won’t understand the use of allegory in Wow Wow Wubbzy. They won’t listen to music from Top Dawg Entertainment, eat dinners for two infused with cannabis, or engage in other meaningful adult activities as I understand them. I’m going to get older and sicker, and I won’t have many pals to share it with.
Granted, I’m fortunate that my wife is just as committed, if not more committed, to keeping her womb barren. We’ve done a lot of soul-searching and had intense conversations about it.
ME: Do you think you would ever want kids?
MY WIFE: LOL no. Ew. Let’s get K-BBQ.
ME: K.
This means I won’t have to lie about my feelings toward the idea of having kids, or have them when I’d rather not in an attempt to make someone else stop glaring at me. And I’ll have at least one person who still wants to hang out and do stuff.
It Requires Tenacity
Of course, if I screw up and get divorced, I’m in big trouble. I have to put in a lot more work on my marriage than my parents did on theirs. They had the excuse of being exhausted, embittered, and drunk from dealing with their horrible children. I’ll have to keep my head in the marriage game.
Having kids is socialism in action: From you, according to your ability, to your ungrateful brats, according to their need. It burns away your selfishness and forces you to invest in others, because that’s the only way to keep them from dying. That’s good. I have seen certain people become a lot more well-rounded, generous, and cool as a result of their parenting experiences.
Since I’m not having kids, I get to keep all my money and do whatever I want with my time. I hate that I’m missing out on a chance to share and grow. I’ll be all right, though.
It Changes the Game
As far as I can tell, the only common end goal of human life is to recreate it. That’s the whole hokey-pokey, which is what it’s all about. If I’m going to find meaning outside of that, I’ll have to get creative. That’s a challenge, and it’s one I’m prepared to accept if it means I don’t have to have kids.
Because I’m not sure that fulfilling ancient biological imperatives is all that there is, or ought to be, to life. Most of us aren’t satisfied simply following our instincts and acting on our encoded urges. We know there’s more to life than just doing the thing that it feels as if we ought to be doing.
Take murder. Based on the dictates of our genes, we’re supposed to be killing up a storm. When someone wrongs us, we’re compelled to protect ourselves and our honor, because being humiliated by a competitor makes it harder to pass on our genes. You look like a loser in front of potential mates and allies, and the only way to get your evolutionary mojo back is to get revenge. There are a lot more murderous genes still in circulation than genes from people who got murdered.
But we don’t have to do that anymore. We have options.
I wouldn’t equate having kids with killing someone – murder is easier on the environment – but there’s undeniable pressure to spawn them. Some of it is social. Some of it is instinctual. Some of it is probably primordial. But that doesn’t mean we have to act on it. We can build character by resisting our instincts, by finding ways around them, ways to do things better for ourselves and others, the people who are already here.
Check it! Now I’ve solved two of my problems. I’ve found meaning in my life, through thwarting and transcending my outmoded drives. And I don’t have to have kids if I don’t want to. If you do, or you already have, please do what you can to make sure they inherit a worth having.Video Game High School Season 2 Premiere Party video and photos
This week was the release of the first 30-minute episode of the new season of Video Game High School. With the success of the last season (mainly due to the 2.5 seconds that you can see me in the background), this newest 6-episode arc was greatly anticipated.
At the premiere party the stars were out in full force and the YouTube Space was packed with internet celebrities, producers, writers, and people to slip my resume to. Check out the premiere party video below.
And here’s episode 1 featuring Freddie Wong, Jimmy Wong, Harley Morenstein (Epic Meal Time), and Chris Hardwick (The Nerdist).
Freddie Wong and gang.
The writing team
Cast members Jimmy Wong and Bryan Forrest.
Joey Rassool (me) and Beck HortonOctober 23, 2016 7 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
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To replace more than 200 million vehicles on Indian roads with electric vehicles (EV) by 2030 is one heck of a ‘formidable’ task for the government, having finally woken up to the exigency of making electricity as the de facto transportation fuel. ‘Formidable’ because EVs are just less than one per cent of total vehicles (around 80 per cent of which are two-wheelers), and 14-year time is way too less for India- an overly bureaucratic country.
However, a slew of start-ups, manufacturing electric or e-scooters, are already making headway given the enormous opportunity they have, however, equally enormous are their barriers to growth.
Large two-wheeler manufacturers, like Hero and Mahindra, and start-ups, like Ather Energy, Ampere Vehicles, and Go GreenBOV, are pressed for reimagining scooters into e-scooters, and not motorcycles, because of cost efficiency, comfort with contemporary features, easy maintenance, preference from female riders and light weight. Hence for a nascent e-two wheeler market, e-scooters are best form for early experiment for an increasingly environment-conscious urban population, looking at getting value-for-money.
Need Kick-Start
According to industry body, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles India (SMEV), sale of EVs picked up by 37.5 per cent in 2015-16, however, the number is still negligible. Around 22,000 EVs (out of which around 20,000 were e-scooters) were sold in 2015-16 compared to 16,000 in 2014-15. “The market potential is overwhelming but its current size is not even worth talking about,” says Sohinder Gill, Director, SMEV.
“China has exerted policy pressure to get a million EVs in its 208 cities within a year. In India, while there are schemes and roadmaps, but the government is yet to create a policy pressure,” adds Gill referring to the need to replace petrol scooters with e-scooters for commercial use within two-three years. Gill is also the CEO of Global Business for Hero Electric – the EV arm of the Hero Eco Group, which holds 70 per cent market share.
The government, in 2013, had launched National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020, aiming to put six to seven million electric or hybrid vehicles on roads. It further introduced Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles (FAME India) scheme in union budget (2015-16), which offer incentives up to Rs 29,000 for two wheelers and Rs 1.38 lakh for cars.
The scheme helped revive sale of EVs, however, start-ups don’t consider it to be a long term pull factor to drive sale. “It will help kick-start the industry. However, many manufacturers don’t want to depend on subsidies for a long time. That’s not healthy for the business,” says Tarun Mehta, Co-founder of Ather Energy. Launched in October 2013, Ather Energy will soon start taking preorders for its smart scooter S340.
Finance For Fuelling Up
Banks and other financial institutions are yet to launch any financial assistance schemes for EV buyers in India, unlike petrol vehicles. Start-ups, like Ather Energy, see it as their biggest challenge. “94 per cent of vehicles sold in India, especially two wheelers, are financed by bank or other financial organizations. However, banks (public or private sector), and non-banking financial institutions are yet to launch loan schemes for EVs,” says Dhivik Reddy, Co-founder of Bengaluru-based Go GreenBOV.
The company offer its e-scooters on lease to e-commerce, delivery and other logistics companies on its B2B side. “We tried everything to get momentum in the B2C market but that didn’t happen as expected, and we had bankers knocking at our doors. So as a survival measure we ventures into B2B,” adds Reddy.
Mehta and Gill understand banks’ inhibition as the market is nascent and there are not enough data points for insurers and financial partners to build their lending model. However, the lack of government will to walk the talk faster than they can, is apparent. “Public sector banks particularly don’t act until they are pushed against the wall to do a certain thing. Financing is already available for electric rickshaws, which is a riskier mode of transport, then why not for EVs,” maintains Gill.
‘Kitna Deti Hai’ – The Ultimate Obsession
When it comes to buying a vehicle, there is no bigger obsession for Indians than the kind of mileage it can provide. A famous brand campaign by car maker, Maruti Suzuki, ‘Kitna Deti Hai’, explains this obsession in three words. Coming back to it, two wheelers run anywhere between 50-60 kmpl of petrol, which costs around Rs 63 in Delhi. Compared to it, e-scooters returns mileage of 30-120 km per battery charge, wherein the battery pack takes 1.5-8 hours for full charge. So the cost per km is significantly low. Despite this, people are skeptical to shift to e-scooters.
To address this problem, the government has decided to setup more charging stations. Currently, there are around 100 charging stations across the country. Lack of charging infrastructure might be a discouraging factor for the car buyers, with the issue of range anxiety (running out of charge with no source to recharge battery while commuting). But, for e-scooters, which can be charged with a normal smartphone charger, range anxiety is truly a mindset problem.
Electrifying New Pockets
Apart from e-scooters, there are start-ups in e-bicycle space, like Spero (meaning hope in latin), manufactured by Coimbatore-based Milltex Engineers that produces jute machineries. Spero recently raised Rs 38.65 lakh via Bengaluru-based crowdfunding platform Fueladream.
Another is Hulikkal Electro, a Coimbatore-based start-up, that claims to be India’s first e-bicycle maker using lithium-ion battery. Tork Motorcycles, on the other hand, is India’s first electric motorcycle company that last year shifted focus from building hispeed electric motorcycles to a commuter bike called T6X. It will be available for test ride by end of 2016 and for sale by end of 2017.
“Charging can be a problem during inter-city travel, since we don’t have proper infrastructure. However, travelling within the city is not an issue,” said Mehta. His company is planning to setup charging points at every two-three km, beginning with Bengaluru, Chennai and Pune. “An e-scooter that gives 60-120 km per battery charge is enough to run for an entire day. Moreover, the battery can be charged at home,” Dhivik Reddy said.
E-scooters, on an average, cost Rs 30k-50k, slightly lesser than petrol scooters, for e.g. Honda Activa, India’s largest selling scooter costs around Rs 54,000 (Delhi). The batteries cost the most as the mineral like lithum or lead, which are used to make those are not mined in India. Hence, they are imported from China, Taiwan, and Korea in Asia; and Brazil, Argentina, and Chile in Latin America.
“Even when government says ‘Make in India’, it is not entirely true. For two key minerals, neodymium magnets for motor application and lithium and lead, needed for making the battery are not mined in India,” says Hemalatha Annamalai, Founder and CEO, Ampere Vehicles. Annamalai launched Coimbatore-based Ampere Vehicles focusing on offering mobility solutions to people in tier two and three towns.
Because of low volumes, start-ups can’t afford to spend on marketing EVs and neither sector banks will offer finance. And until they offer finance, volumes eventually won’t go up. So apparently, it is a chicken and egg situation, even as the government has to throw its weight around to open up financing options that will eventually lead to mindset shift of people to buy EVs. But would that happen by 2020 as NEMMP mission? It seems less electrifying.
(This article first appeared in the Indian edition of Entrepreneur magazine (October 2016 Issue).Anyone who has kept themselves up to date in the league of legends scene over the past two years is quite familiar with the predictable outcome of many of the offline tournaments. With Allstars having just been completed this is the second time in a row that a Korean team seen to be struggling by their own scene has shown up and dominated a tournament with some of the best teams from other parts of the globe. The question isn’twhy however, many people have routinely cited the same two major issues, a lack of infrastructure and a lack of talent – the question is why haven’t we done anything to change that fact?
The answer to that question is much simpler than one might originally think, we just don’t want to. Let us take a look at the main infrastructure issue that we currently have.
Many top professional teams in the west do not have full time coaches, analysts and support staffs that would make life easier for the players and increase the efficiency of their practice.
This is self explanatory. Even a team at the level of Fnactic, a team that has won the European LCS three splits in a row, has said they need an analyst and it proved to be a glaring problem for them at Allstars. The very best teams are not actively seeking out additional resources that will make them stronger, or willing to spend time and effort grooming an additional resource, despite its clearly proven value. If our very best teams are being so complacent in this department what sort of example does it set for the teams aspiring to catch them in their regions? (Fnatic doesn’t have that sort of stuff; I guess we don’t need it either!) This mentality is incredibly dangerous for the success of our regions. The support staff Korea has built around its teams is proving to be, not a nice extra, but essential for making a team relevant in the ultra competitive international scene.
So why doesn’t every team have a support staff if it is becoming so evident that they have such a positive impact on the players and their performance? Money. The truth is there is a lack of funding for the majority of western teams to pay 3-4 people on top of the players full time to ensure that these teams really do have well rounded support staffs. The fact that more North American teams have and are willing to spend this money than Europe, has already manifested itself in demonstrating the superior quality of the top NA teams, despite a lot of agreement that European players seem to be more talented on an individual basis. This hammers the point home even further, demonstrating in a second region how much potential can be unlocked in a team by having a proper staff to support them.
The question becomes however, why would money want to invest in a western E-sports team? The answer for the most part is that it wouldn’t. As much as some organizations (like TSM or EG) do a great job at marketing and promoting their teams/players they simply do not get the results. In any already established sport, sponsors look to go after the best players with the most talent. Big companies want to sponsor the Kobe Bryants and Tiger Woods of the world, not some guy who barely made it onto a starting roster of an NBA squad or squeaked through the PGA qualifications. Thus it only makes sense for these organizations to preferably go to Korea for this sort of sponsorship, as they are more likely to achieve results on the world stage.
For my evidence of this we have to look no further than the sad state of the NA scene. What is one comment repeated by many top pros in North America? There is no upcoming talent. I find this comment to be incredibly amusing. Are the few pros we have who can compete really that ignorant? Do they think they have been bestowed a divine gift usually reserved only for people born in Asia? I completely disagree with the notion that we have no talent, I believe we just put in no effort to develop that talent.
Let me explain why I think this. I am going to start with the pro players and work my way down to the very worst players on our servers. First to our pros. The community loves you guys, they look up to you and want to be just like you. This is why despite many of you giving us hours of entertainment you have hurt your abilities to compete internationally. The overall mentality of American pros in solo queue is to not care. Many of them view scrimming as practice and solo queue as a way to keep enjoying the game. I don’t want to be the guy to burst the bubble of handholding and love but this is BIGGEST issue that our scene has today.
You don’t see professional hockey players counting shinny as practice or NBA players citing the hours they spend playing pickup with their friends, because it isn’t practice. If you don’t enjoy the practice, doing drills, watching replays, going in depth on all sorts of possible scenarios etc, maybe being a professional isn’t for you. It isn’t what many pros want to hear but if you are not willing to sacrifice you cannot realistically expect to compete with people who sleep 5 hours a day so they can dedicate the rest of their day to improving their game (Hi Piglet). A great quote was on the wall of a gym I used to frequent “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” it was by a high school football coach Tim Notke and I think it is very fitting in this sort of situation.
Thousands and thousands of people watch professionals’ stream every day. Many get to become more acquainted with them and cheer for them more because of their personality on stream, which is great and unique to E-sports. I’m not advocating for this to go away as I think it is partially responsible for the rapid growth of E-sports, nor am I advocating a practice style with no enjoyment. So what is the issue then? The pros don’t try. Watching hundreds of hours of streams myself, many players do not use their solo queue time as a very serious practice mode but instead as a fun mode, like many people in the lower ranks use normal modes. This has the direct effect of discouraging amateur players who reach that level of competition. They see their favourite players just having fun and they decide that is what they are going to do too. As this attitude filters down you get tons of players who take the game more lightly and thus never unlock their potential playing it. Of course some pros do take solo queue seriously but I think those are the few that get credit for being able to compete on an international stage.
This is where, as a fan, I beg our pros to stop and think about how they play solo queue. What are they trying to accomplish playing it? There should be set goals every time a game is played that help define in concrete terms how a player tends to use that game to improve. Without this sort of dedication and intensity I don’t see how the west will ever catch up to Korea. This doesn’t mean not enjoying the serious practice, but like I said earlier if you are a pro and find playing seriously isn’t “fun” for you anymore it’s probably time to hang up your skates.
This second issue is not as easy to fix but is the one the average person reading this has the power to change. It essentially boils down to how we look at the game and gaming in general. When we play a game what is our purpose? Are we trying to relax? Enjoy ourselves? Improve our ability? League of Legends is popular because it has outlets for all of those desires. Aram and normal games are available as fun modes where people go to enjoy themselves, but ranked must be treated differently and it is not.
It is too acceptable in our culture, for ranked to be taken as “just a game”. If that is your attitude, no matter if you are in bronze 5 or challenger, you are the source of this second problem. This attitude and nonchalant way of playing ranked, the mode specifically designed for improving and winning, destroys our ability to compete internationally. Want to pick a troll champion? Go play normal. Sounds harsh? Good.
It is not acceptable, at any level of competition, to not try. I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my father when I was a child after one of my hockey games. I was playing house league at the time and was miles better than most people on the ice in most of my games, so occasionally I would play a game where I didn’t put any effort in. Coaches and other parents would think I did fine as I would still score, but my dad got angrier at me than if i scored goals in my own net. He instilled in me that the end result wasn’t what was important, it was the journey. The effort you put in directly related to how you felt at the end of the day and to your overall success. What does this have to do with league? Everything.
It doesn’t matter if you are in bronze 5, when you enter the queue for ranked you are making a commitment to yourself and the community that you are going to do your absolute best to learn from, and win, the game you are in. If that doesn’t sound like something you want to do, don’t play ranked. Currently we have the nonchalance dripping from the top of the leagues down, maybe this process can cause desire to win and improve to move from the bottom up.
What the west needs is an attitude shift, we need the hunger to improve and win to be instilled in every player that goes into ranked. It is common practice for people to play at the level they are forced to play at in order to succeed. Players are much more capable than we think of raising their play to match that of their competition if they are forced to repeatedly (a strong solo queue environment) however if it is not demanded of them they will player at a lower level, thus struggling when thrown into a series against players who constantly force themselves to perform at their peak.
I’d love to say an injection of millions of dollars would help us compete with Korea but currently, I think it would just be a waste of money. If we want to improve it is going to require us to think about the game differently, and that is going to take some time to fully implement. The good news is that you can help. Next time you play a game make a conscious choice of how you want to play, and when you enter ranked make sure that learning and improving or winning are the only acceptable outcomes. If you do this, the rest will take care of itself.
AdvertisementsThe US national team put in an underwhelming performance in Bruce Arena's first game back in charge, a scoreless draw against a green Serbia side on Sunday in San Diego.
While the home side was staffed with players working their first games in a couple months, more was expected considering the opponent traveled a long way in short time, carrying a large experience disadvantage. While the US were not poor, much more should be expected of them in the coming months.
Nick Rimando (6.5) – The US 'keeper had next to nothing to do for 89 minutes, but came up with a good save when it counted.
Graham Zusi (6) – The Sporting KC veteran showed he could aid the attack from right back, and stayed tight to his man when Serbia worked into his corner.
Steve Birnbaum (5.5) – The D.C. United defender wasn't overly busy at the back, but did come up with a couple of forceful clearances under pressure. His grade took a small hit for a couple moments of timidity when Serbia forwards breached the box.
Chad Marshall (5.5) – Though Marshall came up with a handful of strong defensive stops, he also made a couple of mistakes moving the ball out of the back.
Greg Garza (5) – The left back improved defensively as the game went on, but he never showed a great understanding with his winger and failed to push into the opposite corner when given the chance.
Michael Bradley (5.5) – The skipper cleaned up some messes in his own end and launched some promising attacks in the first half. He also was guilty of a couple shaky giveaways that knocked his mark down.
Jermaine Jones (6.5) – After a bit of a slow start, Jones was the team's main driving force into the final third during his 45-minutes of work.
Alejandro Bedoya (5.5) – The Philadelphia Union man was responsible for a nice link pass here and hustle play tracking back there, but the team needed him to be more aggressive offensively.
Sacha Kljestan (6) – The Red Bulls playmaker actively sought out space to maneuver and worked some nice lead balls for teammates. However, Kljestan's final passes were often a shade off.
Darlington Nagbe (7) – No one helped their standing more than Nagbe on this night. Though some of his attack moves fizzled out, the Portland ace repeatedly worked the opposing defense and even found time to get back for a few strong steals in the US end. He went close to scoring twice, but probably should have set up a wide-open Jozy Altidore instead of taking the second shot.
Jozy Altidore (5.5) – The Toronto FC striker started brightly, with knockdowns and hold-up plays helping the team threaten. After about 40 minutes, though, he gradually faded out of the game.
Coach Bruce Arena (6) – Opting to prioritize continuity over experimentation, Arena put his charges in position to succeed. Even if the execution and intent wasn't always solid, the game plan was.
Subs:
Sebastian Lletget (6) – The LA Galaxy midfielder enjoyed a solid start for his debut cap, showing grit and the ability to push the team forward, often in the same incident. Lletget did suffer a couple of sloppy episodes in the waning moments, though.
Chris Pontius (5.5) – The Union attacker was fairly quiet until the late going, when he whistled a decent chance just wide.
Jorge Villafaña (6) – The left back debutant kept things quiet in his own end and showed the ability to support attacking possession during his short shift.
Jordan Morris (5.5) – The reigning MLS Rookie of the Year really only found one opportunity to get loose, and he fired that chance wildly.
Benny Feilhaber (6.5) – Back in the USMNT fold after four years on the outside looking in, Feilhaber quickly proved he can still ask questions of the opposing defense. His stoppage time outside-of-the-boot entry feed was classy.
Juan Agudelo (5.5) – An 87th minute sub normally wouldn't get a grade, but taking one touch too many on his stoppage time break-in chance cost Agudelo a half-point.and your speech is a thunderous noise and my ears are catching a dreadful static --norma jean, high noise, low output
Many years ago, I remember my father once told me a story about a child he knew (neighbor’s kid or something like that). He once heard this child use some swear word or other, and so he gave them a lecture that they should never say such things.
Some time later, when he was working out in the woods behind our house, he found an old board on which someone had scribbled out in crayon all the words that my father had told them never to say. When he asked why they had (obviously) written these words out on the board, the child replied, “Well you told me I wasn’t supposed to say them, so I had to write them down!”
It’s a pretty adorable thing for a kid to do… the key word here of course is “kid.”
This of course brings us to the topic at hand: the ongoing kerfuffle over Julie Burchill’s recent column in the UK Observer. The piece was Burchill’s attempt to defend her friend and fellow columnist Suzanne Moore who had been criticized as a result of a series of events. First Moore made an odd, underhanded reference to Brazilian trans women, followed by comments about trans women “lopping off” their genitalia when she was approached about the issue (in a reasonable, polite manner) on twitter.
It’s ironic that many of Moore’s defenders have stubbornly complained that trans women who reacted to her comments (regarding our “mutilated” bodies and such) are being “politically correct” and over-sensitive, considering that the opening paragraph of Moore’s original article that set this situation off was a complaint about the phrase “Calm down, dear,” spoken by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron to Labour MP Angela Eagle during a Parliamentary session.
Of course, Moore is absolutely correct in her response to Cameron’s words: his comment was clearly patronizing and misogynistic. It’s just bizarre that Moore’s defenders accept that “calm down, dear,” deserves strong public condemnation, but somehow they expect that her talk of mutilated trans bodies and such should pass without a forthright rebuke (to say nothing of Burchill’s later use of slurs “trannies” and “she males” and such).
That having been said, I want to say one thing very clearly: as a trans woman, I absolutely condemn the decision by the Observer to “de-publish” Julie Burchill’s article.
(And I suspect there are more than a few trans women out there who will agree with me on that).
Sure, they should have known better than to publish such garbage in the first place, but given that they did publish it, the Observer should have stood by it. Instead, they de-published it (whatever that means), I suspect largely their motive was just to protect the reputation of the paper and its editors.
And of course, we all know that “de-publishing” doesn’t mean anything: the article has already been posted elsewhere.
And not only was this meaningless decision a bit cowardly, but it also provided the perfect cover for Burchill herself, because now she gets to step into the ready-made role of “free speech” martyr, acting like some kind of hero because her column was taken down from one site and placed on another.
Boo-who… as in, who cares.
Seriously, this woman has a decades-long career in which she has written for most of the UK’s major papers, and she has previously written (in somewhat more-veiled terms) pieces on her feelings about trans women.
Does anyone seriously believe that this woman’s free speech has been inhibited in any meaningful way? Does anyone have any doubt precisely what her feelings are about trans women?
As I mentioned, this provides excellent cover for Burchill, because now we can all have a perfectly meaningless conversation about free speech, which provides the much-needed distraction from the fact that the “censored” column was largely devoid of any content.
Before sizing up the article itself, a brief comment on the historical context in which it appears is in order. The fact is that there is an ugly transphobic history to a certain branch of second-wave feminism that stretches back to the mid 70’s and 80’s. One notable highlight in this sad history took the form of Janice Raymond’s trans-misogynistic screed The Transsexual Empire: the Making of the She-male (language that should be familiar from the recent fracas).
For example, this work stated utterly hateful (though entirely non-sensical) concepts such as the idea that trans women were rapists merely for inhabiting their own bodies:
“All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves …. Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive.”
The book also targets individual trans women such as Sandy Stone who worked in the late 70’s as the sound engineer at feminist recording company Olivia Records. Stone was the subject of escalating abuse and intimidation as a result, and was eventually compelled to leave Olivia Records under the threat of a boycott (in other words, some “feminist” cis women hated trans women so much, they were willing to destroy the only feminist recording company just to see her ejected her from women’s space).
Sadly, this type of attitude towards trans women was at one point fairly mainstream in second-wave feminism.
Another strong trend in feminism along these lines has been the accusation that trans people prop up stereotypical concepts of “womanhood” and “manhood;” and of course, trans women are treated as the ultimate evil from this perspective. And indeed, both Burchill and Moore have a history of arguing this false idea of who trans women are. For example, Moore penned a previous column for the Guardian back in 2011, titled “Why does nobody want to feel like a natural woman any more?” in which she writes:
“Today’s templates of beauty for women are very samey, but they rarely occur in nature. The tall, slim-hipped figure with huge, pert breasts – basically the body of a Brazilian transsexual – was sought after for a while. Now we are told bottoms are making a comeback (where HAVE they been all these years?). These things are spoken about it in vacuum, as if we are not allowed to talk about the racial aspects of ‘the bootylicious’.”
and she closes with
“A[n] [unnatural] look that has comes to us via porn, ladyboys, transsexuals, queer culture and high fashion is a look I now see on the bus. This excess of femininity may compensate for endless anxiety about appearances. There is nothing natural going on here, and some women are not hiding that fact. To become a woman is to become a female impersonator. How, in such a world, can we say to any young girl: ‘You are fine just as you are’?”
This context suggests that not only does Moore view trans women as “unnatural” women, she seems to actually holds us partly responsible for beauty stereotypes or even the beauty industry itself. A glance through some of Burchill’s writings makes clear that she holds similar views.
The truth is that trans women, like all women, fall all over the map in terms of body shape, size, etc. Some do indeed obtain surgery. And some don’t. Although there certainly are valid questions to ask about the beauty industry, scape-goating us for it is silly, willfully blind, and just taking the easy way out of dealing with the issue seriously.
And in any case, the truth of course is that the trans community ultimately serves as the very best challenge to gender stereotypes, even if some trans people do feel their gender falls more in line with the traditional binary (just as plenty of cis people feel in a similar manner).
But beyond exposing (for the umpteenth time) Moore and Burchill’s strongly-held anti-trans woman views, I would like to make a more specific point about the more recent column:
The Burchill column everyone is wasting their time discussing actually contains virtually no original content or new ideas (not even bad ones).
I realize that much in opinion writing in general involves rehashing snippets from the past, but for an aggressive column that has gotten so much attention (and left more than a few howling on the horrors of “censorship”), it really doesn’t contain any original thought whatsoever.
What do we learn from reading the piece? We do learn that Burchill is close friends with Moore, however, that’s not of any public interest. She reminds us that second-wave feminist Julie Bindel holds some similar views (albeit usually stated it in a more diplomatic manner), and other than that we mainly learn that Burchill despises trans women… but we already knew that.
However, many have noted that the piece seems to end with a threat:
“Shims, shemales, whatever you’re calling yourselves these days – don’t threaten or bully we lowly natural-born women, I warn you. We may not have as many lovely big swinging Phds as you, but we’ve experienced a lifetime of PMT and sexual harassment, and many of us are now staring HRT and the menopause straight in the face – and still not flinching. Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. You really won’t like us when we’re angry.”
First of all, it’s sad that Burchill wishes to ignore the fact that trans women have faced oodles of sexual harassment (and in some ways, face very particular vulnerabilities to sexual violence– and victim-blaming after the fact).
Second, I think it should be noted that by and large trans women have stood in the face |
for that party.
Nevertheless, even here Labour seems to be struggling with clarity when it comes to Brexit. While 85% of those intending to vote Conservative, 80% Liberal Democrat and 77% UKIP think their respective parties have been clear on the issue, this figure is just 49% for those planning to vote Labour.
Of course, this could partly be an intentional strategy. Previously Anthony Wells showed how difficult it would be for Labour to adopt a position on Brexit that would not alienate many Labour voters. But with Brexit the dominant issue of the election, Labour has very much found itself between a rock and a hard place and the party is likely to take fire from their opponents on their lack of clarity.
Photo: PA
See the full results hereThe catapult. U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Public Domain
Drugs are important to different kinds of people. For the police, they can be an opportunity to make an arrest. For dealers, they are an opportunity to get paid. For users, they are an opportunity to … well, you get the idea.
Many drugs are also illegal of course, including, in many places, the popular drug marijuana. The demand for that drug, though, also creates a massive market, frequently forcing dealers to resort to creative measures to get their product into the hands of users.
And so it happened last Friday that agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, patrolling near Douglas, Arizona, came upon a group of people in the desert, who, after spotting the agents, quickly fled. Upon closer inspection, the agents discovered the device you see above: a catapult, attached to the south side of a U.S.-Mexico border fence. Nearby, the agents also found 47 pounds worth of marijuana.
The catapult as a drug delivery device has been tried before, the primary benefit—as opposed to say, simply tossing the drugs over the fence—apparently being that a catapult would allow for more drugs to be flung over the wall.
According to C.B.P., Mexican authorities took and dismantled the catapult, while American authorities kept the marijuana, each seizing the items that were found on their side of the fence. Despite its high-flying adventure, the authorities did not say whether the marijuana would be used to get anyone high.How many CPU cores does StarCraft 2 use?
Test Setup
Intel Core i7-980X CPU, Hyper-Threading and power saving states disabled;
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 motherboard
6GB Crucial Ballistix 1,600MHz CL8 memory
Asus ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB graphics card
Titan Fenrir CPU cooler
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA Hard Disk
Seasonic X-Series 650W PSU
Intel inf 9.1.1.1025
ATI Catalyst 10.7 WHQL
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium x64
After 12 years in development, you might expect StarCraft 2 to have undergone some serious technical development and push your PC to its limits. Either that or it might look like its 12 years old.The truth of course is somewhere in between: RTS games never really stresses a graphics card in the same way FPS do, but StarCraft 2 is still a good looking game. It's not just the GPU that has work to do: with dozens of units on screen and the AI scheming away in the background, the CPU doesn't get off easy.After our last article on the number of cores games need, we decided to see how many CPU coresrequires.The game engine uses DirectX 9.0c which does natively limit the multi-threading capacity of the graphics-software interface, however it also uses Havok physics which is all CPU driven. We used an Intel Core i7-980X to maximise the core count available, but we disabled Hyper-threading and power saving states. A Hyper-threading core is not a'real' core, it's just a piece of software trickery that opens up 'what's left' of the available CPU pipeline so could easily have created inconsistencies in our tests. We ran the game entirely run from the hard disk - no slower optical media was involved.We cranked the game up to use its full detail setting and fired up a local game (required for consistent, reportable results) with seven other AIs to try and torture the system. We then built up an army and recorded a section with several dozen units on screen fighting each other.Share. From aliens to talking dolls to gremlins, the Twilight Zone is an unforgettable classic. From aliens to talking dolls to gremlins, the Twilight Zone is an unforgettable classic.
One of the most profoundly influential television series of all time, The Twilight Zone has managed to live on far past its original air date and remain a source of terror, imagination, and social commentary in the decades since its release.
With the July 4th holiday weekend next week bringing with it yet another Twilight Zone marathon on SyFy, we thought the time was right to look back on Rod Serling’s television masterpiece and count down ten of its most memorable episodes.
10 Nick of Time
One of the many amazing Twilight Zone episodes written by Richard Matheson, “Nick of Time” finds a married couple stuck in a small town in Ohio while their car gets fixed. The husband, played by William Shatner, is attracted to a fortune telling booth – a “Seer” – that will answer yes or no questions for a penny each.
Soon, Shatner realizes that everything the Seer is telling him is coming true. He quickly becomes obsessed with the machine, diving down a rabbit hole of yes or no questions as his wife becomes concerned. It’s a great performance laced with obsession that ultimately builds the tension effectively.
Eventually, Shatner breaks free thanks to his wife, giving the machine over to a different couple who is apparently less fortunate - as the episode suggests they will be trapped under the Seer’s gaze forever.
9 The Masks
One of the most macabre episodes of the show, “The Masks” tells the tale of a dying millionaire named Jason who summons his unappreciative, greedy, cruel family to his death bed in New Orleans. He forces them to wear grotesque masks under the stipulation that they must keep them on until after midnight or they won’t receive anything from his estate. The masks all correspond to what the millionaire thinks of that person – a miser, a coward, a buffoon, etc.; Jason takes the death mask for himself.
The family continues to be truly awful to the man until he finally passes. Once he’s dead, they remove the masks only to find that their faces have been twisted into the disgusting shapes they wore, forever reminded of the terrible people they are on the inside.
8 It's a Good Life
Everybody loves creepy kids -- including Rod Serling, it seems. “It’s a Good Life” is about 6 year-old Anthony Fremont, a little boy with the ability to create and destroy things using his mind. If someone or something displeases him, he can mutate it into a horrific beast or banish them to a “cornfield” they can never return from. He’s isolated a small town in Ohio from the rest of the world, and everyone around him is forced to think good thoughts or suffer the consequences.
Over the course of the episode we see the depths of his powers and his spite. What’s terrifying about it is that we all know children like this; bratty kids that want to get their way. In the real world, parents have the power to discipline. But what if that power was taken away through fear of your own life? What would the world look like if it could be shaped by a spoiled 6 year-old boy? That’s the question this episode tackles, to great success.
7 Five Characters in Search of an Exit
This episode is less notable for its twist ending than it is for the circumstances that it provides for the characters. It pits together five random characters from different walks of life – a hobo, a ballet dancer, a bag pipe player, a clown, and an Army major. All trapped together in an indecipherable cylinder where they have no need for food or water, the characters try to determine where they are and why. All of them come up with different theories ranging from Purgatory to Hell to dreams to an alien spaceship.
It’s an interesting evaluation of human psychology, despite the reveal that these characters aren’t technically human at all. It’s a play on psychological stereotypes as well, considering that the most philosophical suggestion comes from the hobo, a character we might expect to be lacking any real insight. This episode is also one of the most oft-referenced in popular culture – who can forget the version done on Felicity, from that show’s second season?
6 The Hitch-Hiker
Before The Sixth Sense revealed that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, “The Hitch-Hiker” pulled off the same twist in ¼ of the time. Here, Inger Stevens plays a woman whose cross-country trip is halted by a car accident caused by a flat tire. As she continues on her trip after getting her car fixed, she begins to see an odd-looking man hitch-hiking on the side of the road. The problem is, she keeps seeing him over and over again the further she goes. Soon she becomes paranoid, convinced the man means her harm.
The episode builds this way until she’s so frightened that she finally calls her mother. Unfortunately, she finds out that her mother wound up in the hospital after finding out her daughter was killed in a horrible car accident days earlier. It’s then that we realize that Inger Stevens has been dead all along, and the man on the side of the road is none other than Death.
One of the most memorable lines in the history of the show comes when she returns to her car after learning the truth and finds the hitch-hiker in the back seat asking, “I believe you’re going my way?”Image caption No visitors were at the Great Pyramid (right) on Friday
Egypt has closed the Great Pyramid outside Cairo after rumours that groups would try to hold special rituals on 11 November at 11:11 (09:11 GMT).
The rumours sparked an internet campaign to stop any ceremonies.
However the head of Egypt's antiquities authority said the pyramid had been closed until Saturday morning for "necessary maintenance" only.
The Great Pyramid houses the ancient tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu. Two nearby pyramids and the Sphinx remained open.
Everything is normal Ali al-Asfar, Director of pyramid complex
Security was tightened across the entire complex, Associated Press news agency said, with dozens of police officers and armed soldiers on patrol.
After 11:11, the director of the pyramids complex, Ali al-Asfar, said nothing unusual had happened.
"Everything is normal," he told AP.
"The only thing different is the closure of the Khufu pyramid."
Both he and the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mustafa Amin, said the pyramid was closed for maintenance after the large number of visitors during the Eid al-Adha holiday last week.
Reports of planned ceremonies at the site were "completely lacking in truth," Mr Amin said.
But the rumours had sparked an internet protest campaign to block any rituals "within the walls of the pyramid on November 11, 2011," Atef Abu Zahab, the head of the Department of Pharaonic Archaeology, told AFP news agency.
The pyramid is the biggest and most famous of the Giza monuments and is the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing.
Numerologists have been excitedly awaiting the alignment of ones on Friday, believing the date holds special significance.
Hospitals have reported a surge of bookings for Caesarean births and wedding venues have been having a busy day as well.Mike & Mike break down what Ron Rivera ruling RB Jonathan Stewart out on Sunday means for how he will approach going for an undefeated season. (1:34)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Carolina Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart will not play on Sunday against the New York Giants, coach Ron Rivera said Wednesday.
Stewart suffered a sprained left foot in the first half of Sunday's 38-0 win against Atlanta.
The Panthers (13-0) will turn to Fozzy Whittaker, Mike Tolbert and rookie Cameron Artis-Payne.
Rivera said cornerback Charles Tillman looked good in practice and appears ready to return after missing the past four games with a hyperextended knee.
Bene Benwikere, who was replacing Tillman, suffered a fractured leg Sunday against Atlanta, ending his season.
"He did well," Rivera said of Tillman. "Charles took all the reps that he needed. He moved well. A little rusty. You could tell his conditioning wasn't where he needed it to be, but he moved around good."
Rivera said that if Tillman doesn't have a setback in the next couple of days, he is hopeful the 13-year veteran will return to the starting lineup.
Ideally, Rivera said the team might have given Tillman one more week to recover, but Benwikere's injury sped up the process.
Rivera said he's being "extremely cautious" with Stewart, who is third in the NFL in rushing with 989 yards. He said Charlotte-based orthopedic specialist Dr. Robert Anderson recommended giving Stewart at least one game off.
Stewart continues to wear the walking boot that he had on Monday after the MRI revealed the sprain.
"We're going to be smart about it," Rivera said. "Doc's not necessarily concerned, but he does think the foot needs to be rested."
Rivera said Whittaker or Tolbert likely will start, but added that Artis-Payne would get his share of opportunities.
The SEC's leading rusher last season at Auburn, Artis-Payne hasn't taken a snap since the Oct. 25 win against Philadelphia. He has been inactive the past six games.
"This is a big opportunity for Cameron," Rivera said. "He's going to get some opportunities for sure. I'm excited about it. It's one of those things where we said when the time's right and Jonathan needs a break [Artis-Payne will get an opportunity], but Jonathan just kept rolling and rolling.
"Now it's a great opportunity [to] have him up and see what he can do."Zoe Blenkinsop, bullied teengager with scoliosis has spine corrected to become model.
A 19 year old UK teenager, Zoe Blenkinsop has gone on to defy the odds by having her spine corrected allowing her to pursue her dream of being a fashion model.
Experiencing scoliosis as a child, the aspiring model went on to be bullied at school as she had a lump which protruded from her back where her spine curved.
Nevertheless the young woman would spend hours practicing her poses and runway walk but struggled as her curved spine, which left her limping, shattering her confidence in the process.
Diagnosed with her condition at the age of eleven, doctors told her she would have to wait until she had finished growing at eighteen before she could have an operation performed which could tend to the curvature in her spine.
Told Zoe Blenkinsop: ‘I was always so conscious about my back because there was such a huge lump sticking out from it.
‘I never allowed anyone to take pictures of me because I didn’t want them to see it.
‘In PE I would hide in a corner to get changed so that no-one saw it as I was already being bullied.
‘When I was told I could have the operation I was so happy but I knew I had to wait a long time for it.’
In July 2011 Zoe was finally able to go ahead with the procedure and was in surgery for seven hours while surgeons fitted metal rods to straighten her spine.
It took her a year to recover from the major surgery and she had to teach herself how to walk, sit and stand all over again.
Reiterates Blenkinsop: ‘I used to look at everyone else in school and think about when I would be normal like them.
‘The pain would be horrible some days and I wasn’t able to sit or stand for a long time.
‘The only way to ease it was to lie down which was pretty embarrassing, I felt like an old lady.
‘Recovering from the operation took a long time and it was really hard.
‘I wasn’t allowed crutches as I had to be able to support myself, some days I would pass out with the pain but I kept going.’
Scoliosis causes the spine to curve and affects about four per cent of the population.
If left untreated, it can lead to fatal heart and lung problems and considerably damage mobility.
Zoe had her first taste of modelling success when she stepped on to the catwalk for Newcastle Fashion Week.
She said: ‘Modelling has always been a dream of mine but I never thought it was possible.
‘I knew that standing and posing for shoots would be impossible and I would have been far too scared to walk down the catwalk with my limp.
‘I was in constant pain and couldn’t imagine having the lifestyle I have now.’
Zoe Blenkinsop hopes to take her modeling career onto the next level building up her portfolio with fashion shoots and one day hopes to walk the catwalks of fashion weeks worldwide.City of regional significance in Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine
Vinnytsia (Ukrainian: Ві́нниця, translit. Vinnycja, pronounced [ˈʋinːɪtsʲɐ]; German: Winniza, Polish: Winnica, Romanian: Vinița, Russian: Ви́нница, translit. Vinnica and Yiddish: וויניצע, translit. Vinitse) is a city in west-central Ukraine, located on the banks of the Southern Bug.
It is the administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast and the largest city in the historic region of Podillia. Administratively, it is incorporated as a town of oblast significance. It also serves as an administrative center of Vinnytsia Raion, one of the 27 districts of Vinnytsia Oblast, though it is not a part of the district. Population: 372,484 (2015 est.)[1]
The city's roots date back to the Middle Ages and it was under Polish control for centuries until the Russian Empire annexed it in 1793. During 1930s and early 1940s the city was the site of massacres, first during Stalin's purges and then during the Holocaust in Ukraine and the Nazi occupation. A Cold War-era airbase was located near the city.
Name [ edit ]
The name of Vinnytsia appeared for the first time in 1363. It is assumed that the name is derived from the old Slavic word "Vino", meaning "given as a gift." This name can be explained by the fact that the Vinnytsia and surrounding land were captured by Lithuanian Duke Algirdas in the 14th century, and then, they were given as a gift to his nephews. [2]
Geography [ edit ]
Location [ edit ]
Vinnytsia is located about 260 km (160 mi) southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, 429 km (267 mi) north-northwest of the Black Sea port city of Odessa, and 369 km (229 mi) east of Lviv.
It is the administrative center of the Vinnytsia Oblast (province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Vinnytsia Raion (district) within the oblast. The city itself is directly subordinated to the oblast.
Climate [ edit ]
A long lasting warm summer with a sufficient quantity of moisture and a comparatively short winter is characteristic of Vinnytsia. The average temperature in January is −5.8 °C (21.6 °F) and 18.3 °C (64.9 °F) in July. The average annual precipitation is 638 mm (25 in).
Over the course of a year there are around 6–9 days when snowstorms occur, 37–60 days when mists occur during the cold period, and 3–5 days when thunderstorms with hail occur.
Climate data for Vinnytsia, Ukraine Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °C (°F) 11.6
(52.9) 17.3
(63.1) 22.3
(72.1) 29.4
(84.9) 32.2
(90.0) 35.0
(95.0) 37.8
(100.0) 37.3
(99.1) 31.5
(88.7) 28.6
(83.5) 19.9
(67.8) 15.4
(59.7) 37.8
(100.0) Average high °C (°F) −1.4
(29.5) −0.3
(31.5) 5.1
(41.2) 13.4
(56.1) 20.1
(68.2) 22.7
(72.9) 24.8
(76.6) 24.3
(75.7) 18.7
(65.7) 12.4
(54.3) 4.7
(40.5) −0.4
(31.3) 12.0
(53.6) Daily mean °C (°F) −4.1
(24.6) −3.3
(26.1) 1.2
(34.2) 8.3
(46.9) 14.5
(58.1) 17.4
(63.3) 19.2
(66.6) 18.6
(65.5) 13.4
(56.1) 7.8
(46.0) 1.7
(35.1) −2.8
(27.0) 7.7
(45.9) Average low °C (°F) −6.7
(19.9) −6.1
(21.0) −2.2
(28.0) 3.7
(38.7) 9.1
(48.4) 12.3
(54.1) 14.1
(57.4) 13.4
(56.1) 8.9
(48.0) 4.0
(39.2) −0.8
(30.6) −5.2
(22.6) 3.7
(38.7) Record low °C (°F) −35.5
(−31.9) −33.6
(−28.5) −24.2
(−11.6) −12.7
(9.1) −2.8
(27.0) 2.5
(36.5) 5.2
(41.4) 1.5
(34.7) −4.5
(23.9) −11.4
(11.5) −24.6
(−12.3) −27.2
(−17.0) −35.5
(−31.9) Average precipitation mm (inches) 29
(1.1) 28
(1.1) 30
(1.2) 45
(1.8) 50
(2.0) 94
(3.7) 86
(3.4) 67
(2.6) 61
(2.4) 31
(1.2) 38
(1.5) 35
(1.4) 594
(23.4) Average rainy days 7 6 10 13 14 15 15 10 12 11 12 9 134 Average snowy days 16 16 11 3 0.1 0 0 0 0 1 8 14 69 Average relative humidity (%) 85 83 78 68 66 72 72 71 76 80 86 88 77 Mean monthly sunshine hours 58 70 114 171 248 255 267 261 194 132 58 41 1,869 Source #1: Pogoda.ru.net[3] Source #2: NOAA (sun only 1961–1990)[4]
History [ edit ]
From Medieval to Early Modern period [ edit ]
Vinnytsia has been an important trade and political center since the fourteenth century, when Fiodor Koriatowicz, the nephew of the Lithuanian Duke Algirdas, built a fortress (1363) against Tatar raiders on the banks of the Southern Bug. The original settlement was built and populated by Aleksander Hrehorovicz Jelec, hetman under Lithuanian Prince Švitrigaila. Aleksander Jelec built the fort, which he commanded as starosta afterwards.
In the 15th century, Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon granted Winnica Magdeburg city rights. In 1566, it became part of the Bracław Voivodeship. Between 1569 and 1793 the town was a part of Poland and in this period, for a short time between 1672 and 1699 was a part of the Ottoman Empire. During period of Polish rule, Winnica was a Polish royal city. On March 18, 1783, Antoni Protazy Potocki opened in Winnica the Trade Company Poland.
After Second Partition of Poland in 1793 the Russian Empire annexed the city and the region. Russia moved to expunge the Roman Catholic religion – Catholic churches in the city (including what is now the Transfiguration Cathedral) were converted to Russian Orthodox churches.
Vinnytsia on a 1910s postcard
According to the Russian census of 1897, Vinnytsia with a population of 30,563 was the third largest city of Podolia after Kamianets-Podilskyi and Uman.
World War II [ edit ]
Vinnytsia was occupied by German troops on 19 July 1941 during World War II. In 1943, the Germans exhumed 9,439 bodies, mostly male and ethnically Ukrainian, from mass graves to discredit Soviet Communist government claims that men had been sent to prison, and not executed.[citation needed] The majority of the executions were believed to have happened during the Stalinist Great Purge between 1937–1938 in the Vinnytsia massacre.
Adolf Hitler sited his eastern headquarters, Führerhauptquartier Werwolf or Wehrwolf, at the Wehrmacht headquarters [5] near the town; the complex was built in 1941-1942 by Russian prisoners of war; many of them were subsequently killed.[6] Hitler's accommodation consisted of a log cabin built around a private courtyard with its own concrete bunker[7] but the complex included about 20 other log buildings, a power generating station, gardens, wells, three bunkers, a swimming pool, and wire; it was surrounded by defensive positions.[8] Hitler spent a number of weeks at Wehrwolf in 1942 and early 1943.[9] The few remains of the Wehrwolf site (described by one report as a "pile of concrete", because it was destroyed by the Nazis in 1944,)[10] can be visited but plans to create a full-fledged museum had not come to fruition as of August 2018.[11][12]
Nazi atrocities were committed in and near Vinnytsia by Einsatzgruppe C. Estimates of the number of victims often run as high as 28,000 although historian Oliver Rathkolb states that 35,000 Jews were deported from the Vinnytsia region and most of those later died.[13]
The last Jew in Vinnitsa
In 1942 a large part of the Jewish quarter of Yerusalimka was destroyed by Germans. One infamous photo, The Last Jew of Vinnytsia, shows a member of Einsatzgruppe D about to execute a Jewish man kneeling before a mass grave.[14] The text The Last Jew of Vinnytsia was written on the back of the photograph, which was found in a photo album belonging to a German soldier. It was captured by the Red Army on 20 March 1944.
Cold War period [ edit ]
Since the end of World War II, Vinnytsia has been the home for major Soviet Air Forces base, including an airfield, a hospital, arsenals, and other military installations. The headquarters of the 43rd Rocket Army of the Strategic Rocket Forces was stationed in Vinnytsia from 1960 to the early 1990s.[15] The 2nd Independent Heavy Bomber Aviation Corps, which later became 24th Air Army, was also stationed in Vinnytsia from 1960 to 1992. The Ukrainian Air Force Command has been based in Vinnytsia since 1992.[citation needed]
Spy town [ edit ]
In early 1959, Major Per Lindgren, writing in the Swedish military journal "Contact with the Armed Forces" reported that the Soviet Union had built a school in Vinnytsia for training KGB infiltrators in how to live in the United States. A mock-up of an entire American small town was built, complete with American-style stores, movie theater, houses, restaurants, American vehicles, and a small college campus that served as the classrooms of the school.[16][17]
In 1960 the Central Intelligence Agency created a educational documentary entitled "Spy Town".[18]
Education [ edit ]
There are many educational universities and research institutions in Vinnytsia:
There is also the Regional Universal Scientific Library named after Kliment Timiryazev in Vinnytsia.
Economy [ edit ]
Vinnytsia is a tourist[citation needed], scientific and industrial center in Ukraine.
There are the Roshen confectionery corporation, the Crystal diamond polishing corporation,[19] RPC Fort largest Ukrainian firearms manufacturing corporation, Analog corporation,[20] Mayak corporation,[21] Budmash corporation,[22] Agregat corporation,[23] Pnevmatika corporation,[24], PlasmaTec corporation [25] etc.
The headquarters of the Ukrainian Air Force is situated in Vinnytsia.
Politics [ edit ]
Vinnytsia is considered the long-time political base for the current Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. He owns a local confectionery (as part of the Roshen Corporation) and was elected member of parliament from the local constituency for several convocations. However, contrary to some speculations, Poroshenko has never lived in the city.
The present Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman is from Vinnytsia.
Greek Catholic Church as seen from South Bug River in Vinnytsia
Parks and squares [ edit ]
Central urban park in Vinnytsia
Park of Culture and Rest named after Maxim Gorky located in Vinnytsia city - between the streets of the Cathedral (center), May Day and Khmelnytsky highway.
The park is 40 hectares.
In the park there are numerous monuments (Gorky at the main entrance,soldiers in Afghanistan,Sich Riflemen, killed police officers), and "Walk illustrious countrymen" are objects of leisure and recreation: a concert hall "Rainbow", a summer theater, stadium, ice club, city planetarium, numerous attractions and gaming machines.
For more than 70 years history of the park has always been a place of celebration as the general public and local/municipal events and holidays. Fine tradition was held in the park folk festivals and holidays is particularly on City Day, Victory Day, Independence Day and more.
New Orthodox Church Construction in Vinnytsia
Concert Hall in Vinnytsia
Ukrainian Aviation Monument in Vinnytsia
Fountain Roshen[27] is the only one in Ukraine and the largest floating fountain in Europe, built in the river is the only one in Ukraine and the largest floating fountain in Europe, built in the river Southern Buh in Vinnytsia City near Festivalny Isle (Campa Isle)
Buildings and structures [ edit ]
The Transfiguration Cathedral, built in Vinnytsia in 1758.
The new Greek Catholic Church at South Bug river.
Baptist Church – reportedly one of the largest Evangelical Church Buildings in Europe.
TV Tower Vinnytsia
Vaksman family’s real estate, 1915 – Style: Art Nouveau. Address: 24 Chkalov Street. Built by architect Moisey Aaronovitch Vaksman. Architectural landmark.
Afghan War Museum and War Glory Memorial Park – The Afghan War Museum is located in the red-brick bell tower. Exhibits include photos, letters and other artifacts representing Vinnytsia soldiers who fought in that war. The Memorial Park contains a large statue representing three different soldiers from World War II. An eternal flame burns in front of the statue.
Multimedia Fountain Roshen – Built in 2011 it is considered as one of the largest floating fountains in Europe. [28] It is the major multimedia attraction in the city.
It is the major multimedia attraction in the city. The Literary and Memorial Museum of the “great sun-lover”, classical author of Ukrainian literature M.M.Kotsyubynsky, is very popular among local inhabitants and guests; it is also a place of development for creative youth. In the city, numerous historical buildings are being repaired and new ones are being built.
The national Pirogov's estate museum
Transport [ edit ]
Air [ edit ]
Havryshivka International Airport (IATA: VIN, ICAO: UKWW) is situated near Vinnytsia.
Railway [ edit ]
There is a railway station in Vinnytsia, which is a part of 'South-Western Railway'. In 2013 it was named among 10 biggest railway stations in Ukraine[29] Current building of Vinnytsia railway station was built in 1952 and considered to be the 4th railway building in Vinnytsia (previous three were destroyed in different years). Vinnytsia is an important transport point, both for internal and external railway connection. Most of the international trains, which cross through Ukraine, have a stop in Vinnytsia. For example, trains from Moscow and Saint Petersburg (Russia), Minsk (Belarus), Sofia (Bulgaria), Chisinau (Moldova), Bratislava (Slovakia), Belgrade (Serbia), Budapest (Hungary) transit through Vinnytsia.[29] [In internal railiway connection, Vinnytsia is also an important transport point for trains, heading to Western Ukraine (Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Chernivtsi) and to South (Odessa), as well as to Central Ukraine (Kiev).
Vinnytsia railway station, Ukraine
Tram [ edit ]
The tram is the most popular public transport in Vinnytsia. There are six tram routes in Vinnytsia (1,2,3,4,5,6).[30]
The table of tram routes in Vinnytsia Number of the route Route starting and ending point 1 The railway station (Zaliznychnyi vokzal) - Elektromerezha. 2 Barske Shose - Vyshynka 3 Vyshynka - Electromerezha 4 Barske Shose - the Railway station (Zaliznychnyi vokzal) 5 Barske Shose - Elektromerezha 6 The railway station (Zaliznychnyi vokzal) - Vyshynka.
There are a lot of trams in Vinnytsia. The newest ones (blue trams) are from Switzerland.
Old diesel locomotive TEM2M-063 in Vinnytsia railway station, Ukraine
Bus [ edit ]
There are the central bus station[31] and the Western bus station in Vinnytsia.[32][33]
Unofficial transit map of Vinnytsia featuring tram, trolleybus, bus and minibus (marshrutka) routes
Modern bus at Western bus station in Vinnytsia
Notable people [ edit ]
International relations [ edit ]
Twin towns — Sister cities [ edit ]
Vinnytsia is twinned with:[34]
Gallery [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]This month's column diverges from the normal pattern of covering my struggles with technology. When I started this column, I was really looking forward to the Software Development issue, because I was hoping to spotlight a language I am learning—Clojure (pronounced like “closure”). But, I found myself still in the process of bending my brain around it as my deadline loomed, so instead of trying to teach you while I am still learning, I decided it would be more interesting to hear from the man who created the language instead, Rich Hickey.
Rich Hickey, Creator of Clojure
DE: What did you do before you started the Clojure project?
RH: I'm a consultant, so I work on various things. I think the big thing I've done recently is I worked on the national exit poll.
DE: What other languages did you use before inventing your own?
RH: I was a C++ developer for a long time. I taught it at NYU for a little while. I worked in scheduling systems and broadcast automation all in C++. Then I moved from that to Java and C#. At the same time, I also started doing some Common Lisp.
DE: Most people who create their own language start from scratch—what was it that drew you to do a Lisp?
RH: I discovered Lisp after ten years of C++ and said to myself, “What have I been doing with my life?” I realized it was just much more productive for me. I fell in love with it right away. Basically, I said to myself, “At some point in my life, this is really what I want to be doing.” I spent several years subsequent to that continuing to do my commercial work in Java and C#, but all the while hoping at some point to be able to get Lisp into the mix. That's what drove me to doing Clojure, because I saw that either.NET or the JVM were requirements for all the customers I was encountering. Lisp really couldn't reach those platforms, so I decided to make a Lisp that could.
DE: Why put it on the JVM?
RH: It's designed to be useful for the work I was doing, where |
financial institution.
Apropos of nothing, Bloomberg notes that “while Deutsche Bank has reached settlements on the Russia deals with several financial watchdogs, it has yet to conclude the probe that is being conducted by the D.O.J.”
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Whatever happened to “Infrastructure Week”?
When Donald Trump was running for president, he pledged a $1 trillion plan to replace the nation’s “crumbling infrastructure with... new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and railways gleaming across our beautiful land.” This week, in a sporting effort at some anti-Comey counter-programming, the first U.S. president to work in “construction” unveiled the details of his yuuge, beautiful, terrific plan. Here’s what Infrastructure Week entailed:
A vow to privatize air traffic control;
A speech in Ohio that contained zero specifics on the plan, wherein Trump reportedly “veered off topic for long enough to praise the king of Saudi Arabia and rant about Democratic opposition to his health-care plan”;
... and a speech at the Department of Transportation that was light on details and heavy on props, literally. Trump held up a huge binder that he said contained an environmental report on a road in Maryland, flipping through the pages as he told reporters it weighed 70 pounds and cost $24,000 a page, then dropped it on the floor for effect. “These binders on the stage could be replaced by just a few simple pages,” he explained. “And it would be just as good. It would actually be much better. Because these binders make you do unnecessary things that cost billions and billions of dollars.”
Is that all? Did the president really need a full week to roll out an off-the-shelf privatization plan and a proposal to speed up permitting?
Who could have seen this one coming?
Back in May, the White House used a nifty loophole to install a friendly face at the Office of the Comptroller, where the most recent head, Obama-appointee Thomas Curry, was posing an obstacle to Team Trump’s quest to undo as many financial regulations as possible. Instead of simply nominating financial services lawyer Keith Noreika for the job, which would have involved a Senate hearing and approval process that would lay bare all his conflicts of interest, the White House made Noreika the “first deputy” at the O.C.C., which meant that he would be given the top job on an interim basis once Curry was canned. But now that he’s got it, there’s just one teensy problem: he has so many conflicts of interest that his work will basically amount to coming into the office and twiddling his thumbs for the next 12 hours. Per the Journal:
The acting head of a top U.S. banking regulator has temporarily recused himself from matters involving 80 banks, law firms, and other entities, according to documents made public Friday. The recusal list for Keith Noreika, a former banking lawyer whom the Trump administration named acting Comptroller of the Currency in early May, includes J.P. Morgan Chase JPM to Bank of America Corp. and other large banks the agency oversees.
“Mr. Noreika has recused himself from virtually all of the major banks that the OCC... regulates, how can he possibly do his job?” Senator Chris Van Hollen wondered, fairly, on Friday. We’ll let you ponder that over the weekend.
Note: the Levin Report will be off next week, returning June 19. Have a great week!
Elsewhere!
Wall Street Money Managers Shoot for a Triple Crown at Belmont (W.S.J.)
U.K. Election Delivers New Variable for Uncertain Global Economy (Dealbook)
Wall Street Is Starting to Get Nervous About Venezuela's “Hunger Bonds” (Bloomberg)
Snap loses big Wall Street backer as Citi downgrades less than 3 months after saying buy (CNBC)
Matt Zames departure shines spotlight on JPMorgan succession (Financial Times)
How Low Has the Dollar Sunk? Even Some Rappers Prefer Euros (W.S.J.)
Indian tech firm makes it official: Trump is a risk to its business (CNN Money)
SoftBank to buy robotics businesses from Alphabet Inc. (Reuters)
The Monk Who Left the Monastery to Fix Broken Retirement Plans (N.Y.T.)
Trump’s jobs plan could make your beer more expensive (N.Y..P)Democratic Rep. George Miller plans to relase the report Monday. Farm-subsidy Republicans targeted
House Democrats are targeting Republicans who receive farm subsidies but opposed a stripped-down farm bill with no food stamp assistance.
Fourteen GOP lawmakers have received a total of $7.2 million in farm subsidies, according to the available data since 2004, but all voted for an amendment that would have decreased the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program according to a report Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) is releasing Monday.
Story Continued Below
“It’s outrageous that some members of Congress feel it is OK to vote for their own taxpayer subsidies but against critical nutrition assistance for 47 million Americans,” Miller said. “It’s bad enough that the House of Representatives didn’t pass a farm bill that included authorization for sorely needed nutrition programs, but to see members of Congress approving their own benefits at the expense of the working poor is a new low, even for this Congress.”
( Also on POLITICO: Ag panel heads meet on farm bill)
The farm bill originally included funding for SNAP, but when it failed to get enough votes in the House in June, Republicans stripped food stamp funding from the bill to gain enough GOP support for passage. In July, on a partisan vote, the farm bill passed without food stamp funding.
Only one of the 14 members listed in the report, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), voted against the bill when it included SNAP benefits but for it once SNAP was removed.
Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.) has received a total of $3.5 million in farm subsidies, according to numbers tracked by the lobbying firm Environmental Working Group. The company points out that according to his congressional filings, his net worth is between $204,995 and $1.1 million. And 22 percent of the residents of Fincher’s home county receive food stamps.
( Also on POLITICO: Senate pushes House on farm bill)
Fincher argues he’s trying to get rid of subsidies he benefits from.
“As I’ve long said, the farm bill is in need of major reform,” Fincher said in a statement. “At first chance, I voted to remove direct payments. Both the House and the Senate passed bills that end direct payments, and as we move forward, I hope we can work out the rest of the issues to implement the necessary reforms.”
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) received $1.7 million in farm subsidies and resides in a county in which 11 percent of the population receives SNAP benefits.
( Also on POLITICO: Farm bill debate ignites confusion)
“The congressman has long advocated for modernizing federal farm programs. He voted for eliminating the subsidies that are in question. What’s more, I would add that voting on the stripped-down farm bill in no way affected the SNAP program, and those criticizing it as such are misinformed,” said Kevin Eastman, spokesman for LaMalfa.When the junior class at Riverton High School in Riverton, Utah, crowned their queen at the junior class prom, they thought the 2014 prom queen was in the school's record books for good.
Little did they know that just three days later they would have a new prom queen after the classmate they elected made a selfless act.
On Wednesday, Kendra Muller, 16, the junior girl who was named prom queen on Saturday, entered a classroom and handed her sash, tiara and title to Amanda Belnap, a special needs student who had been voted "first attendant," or first runner-up.
"Kendra came into Amanda's class and, in front of her peers and the teachers, said, 'I thought that Amanda really deserves this honor,'" Riverton High Principal Carolyn Gough told GoodMorningAmerica.com. "It's just absolutely one of the neatest things that I could ever imagine."
Amanda, also 16 and a junior, is a cheerleader and well-known and well-loved by her fellow students, according to Gough. She and Kendra had never interacted, however, prior to Saturday's prom.
Kendra, who was paralyzed in an accident nearly three years ago and is in a wheelchair, told Gough she had no idea her generous act would garner all the attention that it has.
"She said, 'I just did it because I thought it was the right thing to do,'" Gough said.
Amanda, meanwhile, has been relishing in her new title, wearing her tiara and sash around school with a "grin from ear to ear," according to Gough.
"The thing that is so remarkable about our school in general is that we're oblivious to disabilities," Gough said of the 2,050-student school she leads. "Students are very generous to other students in the school, seeking out ways to help and to serve."
"How can you see this as anything else but just the most generous character in a student, especially for a student who genuinely deserved it herself," Gough said. "This is just a bright spot for me."There were a couple surprises when the United States' roster for the pre-U20 World Cup tournament were announced on Monday: DeAndre Yedlin wasn't among the 22 players selected, but Jordan Morris was. The Toulon Tournament (May 28-June 1) is a warmup for the U20 World Cup in Turkey (June 21-July 13) and head coach Tab Ramos has said the rosters for both tournaments will be very similar.
No explanation for the roster choices has yet been given, but there's at least a chance that Yedlin could still be selected for the World Cup and that his being left off was merely a product of the Sounders wanting to hold onto him for as long as possible. Especially with the injury to Osvaldo Alonso, the Sounders may be wary of losing someone who has started all nine matches in which he was eligible for selection.
Morris' selection is a bit of a surprise for entirely different reasons. His recent call-up to the U20 camp was the first time he'd trained with a youth national team at any level and he was not even in the Sounders Academy until last year. He burst onto the national scene this year, scoring 24 goals in 24 academy matches and being one of the breakout players at national team training.Alarm buzzes as you hit snooze on the early Wednesday morning. Then you remember; when you freelance, every morning is a Wednesday morning.
Most imagine lazily waking up at 11am, busting a few hours of work in your PJs, and topping off the productive day with a beer. All without the need to leave one’s comfortable couch! When you first start working from home, it feels like a vacation. Three years later, it’s routine.
Every day is a Wednesday
The big allure of work from home is making your own schedule. I can work at 10pm if I want to! I can take Tuesday off! The world is yours! Until the greatest benefit of freelance becomes its greatest downfall.
Does it matter if it’s Monday or Saturday? No, because you make your own schedule. Does it matter if it’s 2am or 2pm? No, because you don’t have to clock in at 9am. Oh it’s President’s Day? I didn’t notice…
Without routine, there is no flow of time. Days blend in seamlessly. I’ve been puzzled to find stores closed, forgetting it was the 4th of July. When any day can be a holiday, no day is a holiday. It’s all groundhog day.
In an ironic twist you go back to a regular weekly, 9-5 schedule, just to keep your sanity. The flexibility is still there if you need it, but you really need to learn how to “use it properly.”
You have free time. Others don’t.
The flexibility also flounders for extroverted types. Yes, I can call it quits at 1pm on a Thursday and… do what exactly? All your friends are at work. The bars are closed. Everyone you meet is waiting for 5pm to hit.
You begin to miss the trivial watercooler conversations, simply craving human interaction. Once again you realize a typical 9-5 routine is best because that is how the rest of the society operates. Sure there’s books, and movies, and games and this and that. But if you are an extrovert like me, you soon grow bored of spending all your free time alone.
You are your own boss. The worst boss.
Setting your own hours gives you tremendous flexibility… and responsibility. Finding balance takes time. You could always work more. You could always work less. It is easy to slip both ways.
I’ve had weeks pushing 12hr days, waking up at 5 or 6am to send critical emails, and skipping my weekends to finish a project. “Just one more hour…” – it’s like a horribly twisted version of playing Civilization. It becomes addictive.
And then, it crushes you. You only leave your house to pick up more rice and chicken, you have no social life, only more money. Money you’re not spending.
And I’ve had weeks where my hours slowly dwindled, clocking after half days, then quarts. You become lazy, you become complacent. You feel guilty, yet too demotivated to work more.
Neither side is pleasant, but if you’re not careful, you may end up oscillating between them. Because you can really be your own worst boss.
The non-work bullshit and costs
With a typical job, your morning commute is probably the greatest non-work peeve. Working from home you may not deal with the traffic, but plenty other annoyances make up for it.
There’s time spent on self-promotion, seeking new leads, and analyzing projects to draft quotes. Half of those will not land you a job. Then there’s extra hours each month spent tracking, preparing and sending invoices. God forbid you end with an unpaying client you need to hunt down with multiple reminders, phone calls, and strongly-worded legal letters.
Eventually you consult an accountant because fuck doing those taxes. You run to your bank every other week. And you have to keep tabs on expenses because some months you earn three times as much, others three times as little. And let’s not forget you’re already paying double tax, thanks to the self-employment portion.
Oh, and health insurance! Or lack thereof – you you don’t get it. You have to find an individual plan on your own, usually paying much more for far shittier coverage. The joy.
All these are required to run a good business, so they are technically work. Work you do not get paid for. Work you lose money on. And now you know why freelancing rates are so much higher.
Silver Lining
Of course, if freelance was all doom and gloom I wouldn’t be tourting myself with it. Or maybe I’m just a masochist?
Thanks to my flexible job I nicely augmented my student income back in college. I got to live in North Ireland, visit my grandparents in Poland, and spend 3 months in India, all without needing to take vacation time off. And, most importantly, freelancing gave me the time and flexibility to pursue my true passions – cinematography and game development.By Brad Brevet I was recently sent the link to a 2003 article in the “New York Times” headlined “What Else Was Lost in Translation” and it was something I had never known about Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation having to do with Bob’s (Bill Murray) filming of the Suntory Whiskey commercial. Of course, we all knew the director (Yutaka Tadokoro) was giving Bob much more information than what his interpreter (Akiko Takeshita) was translating for him, but I never knew the actual English translation of what Tadokoro was saying. It would seem back in 2003 Motoko Rich was well ahead of me in getting the answer. Rich also says the scene came out of Coppola’s own experiences while promoting her first film, The Virgin Suicides, in Japan and also adds Bill Murray never knew what the director was saying. “I like the fact that the American actors don’t really know what’s going on, just like the characters,” Coppola said. Below is the translation of the scene from Rich’s 2003 piece and just below that I’ve added video of the scene with a translation that’s relatively similar but not exactly the same. I don’t know a lick of Japanese so which one is more accurate is beyond me. DIRECTOR (in Japanese to the INTERPRETER:): The translation is very important, O.K.? The translation. The translation is very important, O.K.? The translation. INTERPRETER: Yes, of course. I understand. DIRECTOR: Mr. Bob-san. You are sitting quietly in your study. And then there is a bottle of Suntory whiskey on top of the table. You understand, right? With wholehearted feeling, slowly, look at the camera, tenderly, and as if you are meeting old friends, say the words. As if you are Bogie in “Casablanca,” saying, “[Here’s looking at you, kid!]” Suntory time! (*EDIT* Motoko Rich contacted me to correct one line of his translation replacing “Cheers to you guys” with “Here’s looking at you kid”) INTERPRETER: He wants you to turn, look in camera. O.K.? BOB: That’s all he said? INTERPRETER: Yes, turn to camera. BOB: Does he want me to, to turn from the right or turn from the left? INTERPRETER (in very formal Japanese to the director): He has prepared and is ready. And he wants to know, when the camera rolls, would you prefer that he turn to the left, or would you prefer that he turn to the right? And that is the kind of thing he would like to know, if you don’t mind. DIRECTOR (very brusquely, and in much more colloquial Japanese): Either way is fine. That kind of thing doesn’t matter. We don’t have time, Bob-san, O.K.? You need to hurry. Raise the tension. Look at the camera. Slowly, with passion. It’s passion that we want. Do you understand? INTERPRETER (In English, to Bob): Right side. And, uh, with intensity. BOB: Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that. DIRECTOR: What you are talking about is not just whiskey, you know. Do you understand? It’s like you are meeting old friends. Softly, tenderly. Gently. Let your feelings boil up. Tension is important! Don’t forget. INTERPRETER (in English, to Bob): Like an old friend, and into the camera. BOB: O.K. DIRECTOR: You understand? You love whiskey. It’s Suntory time! O.K.? BOB: O.K. DIRECTOR: O.K.? O.K., let’s roll. Start. BOB: For relaxing times, make it Suntory time. DIRECTOR: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! (Then in a very male form of Japanese, like a father speaking to a wayward child) Don’t try to fool me. Don’t pretend you don’t understand. Do you even understand what we are trying to do? Suntory is very exclusive. The sound of the words is important. It’s an expensive drink. This is No. 1. Now do it again, and you have to feel that this is exclusive. O.K.? This is not an everyday whiskey you know. INTERPRETER: Could you do it slower and —— DIRECTOR: With more ecstatic emotion. INTERPRETER: More intensity. DIRECTOR (in English): Suntory time! Roll. BOB: For relaxing times, make it Suntory time. DIRECTOR: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! God, I’m begging you. Beyond all this, it would seem when it actually comes time to get non-Japanese actors for Suntory commercials they just didn’t speak. Take the two following Suntory Whiskey commercials with Sean Connery and Keanu Reeves as evidence. Sean Connery Keanu Reeves SHARE TWEET Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.White House Criticizes CISPA, Though Meekly And For Partially Wrong Reasons
from the still,-it's-something dept
With next week's vote on CISPA looming, the White House has made an official statement that implicitly criticizes the bill without mentioning it by name. The Hill reports that National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden issued the statement after a cybersecurity briefing in Congress:
"The nation’s critical infrastructure cyber vulnerabilities will not be addressed by information sharing alone," Hayden said.
"Also, while information sharing legislation is an essential component of comprehensive legislation to address critical infrastructure risks, information sharing provisions must include robust safeguards to preserve the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens. Legislation without new authorities to address our nation’s critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, or legislation that would sacrifice the privacy of our citizens in the name of security, will not meet our nation's urgent needs," she said, without explicitly mentioning CISPA.
While it's very good to hear them to make privacy concerns a central point, the administration's reasons for this position are not entirely the same as the citizens and civil liberties groups who oppose CISPA. The White House endorses the Lieberman-Collins bill in the Senate, which does indeed include better privacy protections (including an all-important requirement to anonymize shared data whenever possible), but also grants the federal government broad new regulatory powers relating to cybersecurity and critical infrastructure. This is in stark contrast to CISPA, which explicitly forbids regulatory usage. The White House wants to be able to start creating rules for "critical infrastructure" providers, which is undoubtedly the number one reason they support the Lieberman-Collins bill—but granting them that power is opening up a whole different can of worms. Nevertheless, though not an explicit or especially strong condemnation, this statement from the White House still adds significant weight to the growing CISPA opposition. The fact that the bill they are backing has its own problems really just points to the bigger and more important question: is there really any need to rush to create new cybersecurity legislation.
Filed Under: cispa, cybersecurity, white houseUNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee’s call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade.
People view various newspaper front pages showing President Barack Obama's victory over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on display at the Newseum in Washington November 7, 2012. REUTERS/Gary Cameron
U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge Washington denies.
The month-long talks at U.N. headquarters broke off after the United States - along with Russia and other major arms producers - said it had problems with the draft treaty and asked for more time.
But the U.N. General Assembly’s disarmament committee moved quickly after Obama’s win to approve a resolution calling for a new round of talks March 18-28. It passed with 157 votes in favor, none against and 18 abstentions.
U.N. diplomats said the vote had been expected before Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election but was delayed due to Superstorm Sandy, which caused a three-day closure of the United Nations last week.
An official at the U.S. mission said Washington’s objectives have not changed.
“We seek a treaty that contributes to international security by fighting illicit arms trafficking and proliferation, protects the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade, and meets the concerns that we have been articulating throughout,” the official said.
“We will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of our citizens to bear arms,” he said.
U.S. officials have acknowledged privately that the treaty under discussion would have no effect on domestic gun sales and ownership because it would apply only to exports.
The main reason the arms trade talks are taking place at all is that the United States - the world’s biggest arms trader accounting for more than 40 percent of global conventional arms transfers - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.
‘MONTHS AWAY’ FROM DEAL?
Countries that abstained included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Iran. China, a major arms producer that has traditionally abstained, voted in favor.
Among the top six arms-exporting nations, Russia cast the only abstention. Britain, France and Germany joined China and the United States in support of the resolution.
The measure now goes to the 193-nation General Assembly for a formal vote. It is expected to pass.
The resolution said countries are “determined to build on the progress made to date towards the adoption of a strong, balanced and effective Arms Trade Treaty.”
Jeff Abramson, director of Control Arms, a coalition of advocacy groups, urged states to agree on stringent provisions.
“In Syria, we have seen the death toll rise well over 30,000, with weapons and ammunition pouring in the country for months now,” he said. “We need a treaty that will set tough rules to control the arms trade, that will save lives and truly make the world a better place.”
Brian Wood of Amnesty International said: “After today’s resounding vote, if the larger arms trading countries show real political will in the negotiations, we’re only months away from securing a new global deal that has the potential to stop weapons reaching those who seriously abuse human rights.”
The treaty would require states to make respecting human rights a criterion for allowing arms exports.
Britain’s U.N. mission said on its Twitter feed it hoped that the March negotiations would yield the final text of a treaty. Such a pact would then need to be ratified by the individual signatories before it could enter into force.
The National Rifle Association, the powerful U.S. interest group, strongly opposes the arms treaty and had endorsed Romney.
The United States has denied it sought to delay negotiations for political reasons, saying it had genuine problems with the draft as written.A newly identified species of spiky-headed dinosaur that roamed Canada 78 million years ago is the oldest known large, horned reptile ever discovered in North America.
"In terms of large-bodied ones that look like Triceratops, this is definitely the oldest," said biologist Michael Ryan, lead author of the new study describing the dinosaur, published online Thursday by the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.
The newfound plant-eater has been named Xenoceratops foremostensis—Latin for "alien horned-face from Foremost," the small Canada town where some Xenoceratops fossils were found in 1958.
Like its more famous cousin Triceratops—which lived 15 million years later, during the dinosaurs' last days—Xenoceratops had long spearlike horns thrusting from its brow and a shieldlike frill extending back from its skull. But unlike Triceratops, Xenoceratops also had horns on its frill.
(Read about another Triceratops ancestor found in Canada.)
Like No Other Dinosaur
The new dinosaur is known from fragments of fossilized skull and horn found in Alberta, Canada. Ryan and his team recently found 78-million-year-old bones during a dig, and that led them to search the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa for other fossils from the same time period.
There, the team found the 1958 fossils, which had long since been filed away. The museum fossils dated to the same period as Ryan's team's bones, and appeared to belong to the same unidentified species of dinosaur.
"In the museum we found... two large pieces of the frill, including one spike. As soon as I saw them, I recognized it as being different from every other horned dinosaur," said Ryan, who heads the vertebrate paleontology division of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio.
Measuring approximately 20 feet (6 meters) long and more than 2 tons, Xenoceratops was average-size for a horned dinosaur—African elephant-size Triceratops was half again as large. But the new dino would have been among the largest ceratopsids alive 80 million years ago.
Living alongside Xenoceratops would have been predators related to Tyrannosaurus rex as well as duck-billed dinosaurs and ankylosaurs—dinosaurs resembling giant armadillos with big club tails.
In the late Cretaceous period, they all would have known a very different Alberta from the current, cool Canadian province, Ryan said. In the then subtropical region, "there were probably wet and dry periods, but there would never have been snow or frost."
Today, the area around Foremost is prairie country, he said, and inhabited by the modern analog of horned dinosaurs: cattle.
Early Developers
Xenoceratops' flamboyant frill reveals that horned dinosaurs evolved intricate cranial ornaments very early in their lineage—adornments that got only more elaborate with time, scientists say.
"Historically, what we know [about horned dinosaurs] comes from about 65 to 75 million years of age," Ryan explained. "What we've done is push back the evolutionary origins by several million years."
Moreover, it appears that Xenoceratops and Triceratops' different scientific subfamilies—Centrosaurinae and Chasmosaurinae, respectively—didn't look all that different from one another early in their evolution.The Buffalo Bills returned to the practice field on Wednesday to begin preparations for their Week 3 showdown with the New England Patriots at Ralph Wilson Stadium. The team left Week 2 a bit battered and bruised, and that continued into Wednesday, with five players missing practice.
Chief among those players is star wideout Stevie Johnson, who hobbled through the final offensive series against Oakland dealing with cramps and, more importantly, a lingering groin injury. Johnson is expected to be limited throughout the practice week, but he's also expected to suit up on Sunday.
With Johnson ailing and receiver depth thin, WGR 550's Joe Buscaglia reported that third quarterback Brad Smith saw a lot of reps at receiver on the practice field.
Kraig Urbik (knee), Spencer Johnson (hip), Kirk Morrison (hamstring) and Terrence McGee (hamstring) also missed practice; Urbik and McGee were not on hand for the workout, according to several reports. However, Torell Troup (back) - who missed the first two games - was a full practice participant, and may be on track for a return to the lineup.From BerryTube Wiki
The BerryTube Cup is a community event hosted by Tommyspud. Formula one cars representing various BT users compete in 12 tracks per grand prix in the racing simulatior rFactor.
Italian Grand Prix
Player
Team
Laps
Time
Gap
1
SteamBerry
Team SteamBerry
21
0:30:18.870
00:00.000
2
Kalyandra
N/A
21
0:30:19.815
+00:00.946
3
DigitalVagrant
Team Shenanigans
21
0:30:38.610
+00:19.740
4
Flanders4Ever
N/A
21
0:30:41.445
+00:22.576
5
wut
Team Combustion
21
0:30:58.365
+00:39.496
6
PatronNight
Moonshine Motors
21
0:31:00.615
+00:41.746
7
Phoenix
N/A
21
0:31:02.953
+00:44.083
8
TerminalHunter
BT DnD Not_Euro
21
0:31:16.116
+00:57.246
9
katiescootaloo
Rainbow Dash Fan Club
21
0:31:33.317
+01:14.447
10
ayrl
Team Lyra
20
0:30:19.909
+1 Lap
11
bionictigerstk
Team Plush Life
20
0:31:29.900
+1 Lap
12
Ganey
N/A
20
0:31:55.444
+1 Lap
13
Tommyspud
N/A
19
0:30:28.867
+2 Laps
14
Lovershy
N/A
19
0:30:38.743
+2 Laps
15
Yakoshi
Mean Green
11
Accident
--:--.---
16
snake8head
Team snake8head
5
DNF
--:--.---
17
Wr3nch
Beret Motorsports
2
Accident
--:--.---
18
Mojo
Cult of Rarity
2
Accident
--:--.---
19
ShippingIsMagic
The Droids You're Looking For
1
Accident
--:--.---
20
derpkit
N/A
0
Accident
--:--.---
Watkins Glen
Player
Team
Laps
Time
Gap
1
Ganey
N/A
35
0:30:12.360
00:00.000
2
SteamBerry
Team SteamBerry
35
0:30:28.722
+00:16.361
3
katiescootaloo
Rainbow Dash Fan Club
35
0:30:39.440
+00:27.060
4
PatronNight
Moonshine Motors
35
0:30:42.688
+00:30.328
5
snake8head
Team snake8head
35
0:30:49.061
+00:36.700
6
Kalyandra
N/A
35
0:30:59.169
+00:46.808
7
TerminalHunter
BT DnD Not_Euro
34
0:30:14.573
+1 Lap
8
Wr3nch
Beret Motorsports
34
0:30:16.951
+1 Lap
9
ayrl
Team Lyra
34
0:30:18.413
+1 Lap
10
derpkit
N/A
34
0:30:20.883
+1 Lap
11
ShippingIsMagic
The Droids You're Looking For
34
0:30:36.794
+1 Lap
12
Tommyspud
N/A
34
0:30:58.740
+1 Lap
13
DigitalVagrant
Team Shenanigans
34
0:30:58.923
+1 Lap
14
Flanders4Ever
N/A
33
0:30:45.215
+2 Laps
15
bionictigershk
Team Plush Life
29
Engine
--:--.---
16
Mojo
Cult of Rarity
11
DNF
--:--.---
17
wut
Team Combustion
5
Accident
--:--.---
18
Yakoshi
Mean Green
5
Accident
--:--.---
19
Phoenix
N/A
5
Accident
--:--.---
20
Lovershy
N/A
0
DNF
--:--.---
Nuerburg GP
Player
Team
Laps
Time
Gap
1
SteamBerry
Team SteamBerry
20
0:30:13.312
00:00.000
2
Wr3nch
Beret Motorsports
20
0:30:14.599
+00:01.287
3
DigitalVagrant
Team Shenanigans
20
0:30:14.758
+00:01.447
4
ShippingIsMagic
The Droids You're Looking For
20
0:30:15.284
+00:01.972
5
Yakoshi
Mean Green
20
0:30:21.205
+00:07.893
6
Tommyspud
N/A
20
0:30:24.674
+00:11.362
7
bionictigershk
Team Plush Life
20
0:30:26.848
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TerminalHunter
BT DnD NetEuro
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katiescootaloo
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derpkit
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Phoenix
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Flanders4Ever
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Lovershy
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ayrl
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PatronNight
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Ganey
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snake8head
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Mojo
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Kalyandra
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DNF
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wut
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Talledega
Player
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Yakoshi
Mean Green
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17.”
The source, who chose to remain anonymous, added that the militias had “refused, at first, to return those cars to their owners.”
“After negotiations with them, a sum of 300,000 Syrian pounds was set for the return of each car.”
“After more negotiations, through a person close to them, the sum was reduced to 200,000 Syrian pounds.”
According to the source the negotiations for the release of the impounded vehicles is ongoing and, so far, no money has been handed over.
“How can the Syrian regime and its supporters take pride in the fact that the flank of their army is stealing the property [of other people], looting places of worship, blackmailing civilians and detaining them [to extract] money or [on the basis] of their ID cards?” a political activist said in an interview with ARA News.Deftones Bass Player Chi Cheng in Coma
Rock band Deftones bass playerwas involved in a car accident yesterday in Santa Clara, California. The band member is reported to be in stable but serious condition.
Frontman for the band, Chino Moreno left a message for their fans on their website saying;
"I am on my way up North right now to be by his side along with the rest of our band mates and family. Chi is one of the strongest people I know, and I'm praying that his strength will get him through this. Please say a prayer for him as well."
The Deftones have been together since 1988 and have a new album to be released in early 2009. The groups home base is Sacramento. You may have heard their songs on the soundtrack to the movie The Crow: City of Angels.
Chi is currently being treated at San Jose Hospital and is in a coma. We wish Cheng and his family the best.Mathematical Theology: Future Science of Confidence in Belief
Self-reflexive Global Reframing to Enable Faith-based Governance
1st October 2011 | Draft
- / -
Annex to the proposal for an International Institute of Advanced Studies in Mathematical Theology (2011),
which contains an Introduction, commentary on the Potential strategic importance of mathematical theology and Conclusion.
References are provided in a separate document
Reframing mathematical theology in terms of confidence
The proposal follows from valuable efforts to clarify the nature of mathematical theology, most notably that of Philip J. Davis (A Brief Look at Mathematics and Theology, The Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal Online, 27, 2004), following his earlier influential study in collaboration with Reuben Hersh (The Mathematical Experience, 1981). As noted by Davis, the interface has of course been explored over centuries by a variety of authors from a variety of perspectives and with a variety of convictions. The references provided separately (Bibliography of Relevance to Mathematical Theology) give a sense of this variety, although unfortunately there appears to be no mind map showing the relationships between the preoccupations they represent.
Of potential relevance, in subsequent compilations Hersh and colleagues have given a sense of the original and provocative things said about mathematics by mathematicians, philosophers, cognitive scientists, sociologists, and computer scientists (18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics, 2006; Loving and Hating Mathematics: challenging the myths of mathematical life, 2010). Hersh (2006) argues that:
... contrary to fictionalism, mathematical objects do exist -- really! But, contrary to Platonism, their existence is not transcendental, or independent of humanity. It is created by human activity, and is part of human culture.
Davis and Hersh had asked in 1981 (p. 406):
Do we really have to choose between a formalism that is falsified by our everyday experience, and a Platonism that postulates a mythical fairyland where the uncountable and the inaccessible lie waiting to be observed by the mathematician whom God blessed with a good enough intuition? It is reasonable to propose a different task for mathematical philosophy, not to seek indubitable truth, but to give an account of mathematical knowledge as it really is --fallible, corrigible, tentative, and evolving, as is every other kind of human knowledge. Instead of continuing to look in vain for foundations, or feeling disoriented and illegitimate for lack of foundations, we have tried to look at what mathematics really is, and account for it as a part of human knowledge in general. We have tried to reflect honestly on what we do when we use, teach, invent, or discover mathematics.
Scope: Also of relevance is any significance associated with the various interpretations of "mathematic theology", "mathematical theology", "theology of mathematics" and "theological mathematics". For example, with respect to the latter, a Knol by Jeff Leer (Theological Mathematics: a Hierarchy, 9 May 2007) asserts that:
Theological mathematics sets aside (insofar as possible) the questions of zero, negative numbers, imaginary numbers, infinite variety, and the like, not as irrelevant to life, but as a distraction from the pure mathematics of the Holy Trinity.
This selective interpretation would appear to exclude features which could be vital to an approach of larger scope.
Sarah Voss (Mathematical Theology, UUWorld, 2003) explains that:
Mathematical theology is a study of the divine that in some way draws on mathematics. It opens our minds (and maybe our hearts) to new possibilities, and in so doing it brings hope. God seems to speak in mathematics in two basic ways. One is through the precision of numerical calculation, logical proof, and all the other blessings associated with mathematics in the "hard" sciences. Science can be thought of as a way of interpreting God's revelation found in nature. The other way is through metaphor. Only in the last decade or so has our society started to acknowledge the existence of mathematical metaphors. I call such metaphors "mathaphors"; when they apply to the spiritual realm, I call them "holy mathaphors." Ideas drawn from mathematics can greatly extend our spiritual worldviews. Such mathematical notions are suggestive, not conclusive. But in those suggestions lie the makings of new ways of interacting with each other, of healing, of understanding God. In a world that is often spiritually fractured and hurting, we can look to mathematical theology for the seeds of new hope.
A description of theological mathematics by W. J. Eckerslyke (WikiInfo, 11 January 2009) indicates:
Theological mathematics comprises that part of mathematics which goes beyond secular mathematics, and asserts the existence of undefinable entities. Much of theology, particularly pure theology, is concerned with discussions of, and the establishment of conclusions about, the ineffable. Nor does such theology recoil from the apparent contradictions that emerge. On the contrary, they only serve to strengthen our conviction that the subject is of infinite depth and significance. We are happy when people say"That's nonsense" because we can respond with "Yes, it's a Mystery". Much mathematics, particularly pure mathematics, is theological in nature, in that it too is concerned with the study of, and predicated on the existence of, entities which are constitutionally ineffable. As every philosopher knows, "exists" is a very slippery word; and as Wittgenstein said, "What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence." But that does not deter the more intrepid mathematical explorers, who build layers of indescribable structures out of indescribable entities.
Emergent science of confidence and credibility? The argument here is that the dependence on faith and belief, understood generally, suggests that "theology" might be fruitfully reframed to encompass the range of approaches to fundamental integrative belief, especially where those formulations substitute for the divine -- or are effectively treated as such. There is a need for the study of belief systems -- or systems of confidence -- through which people are called upon to give coherence to their lives. This might be called the "science of confidence" to be contrasted with the "confidence science" effectively developed and exploited for marketing purposes. More generally, however, money is recognized as a token of confidence vital to a sustainable economy -- a significant focus of belief. There is therefore an important conflation of connotations with the articulation of confidence in "theology" and that in "economics". It might even be said that the crisis of the times lies in the failure to explore the manner in which such forms of belief are entangled.
Mathematics, through its insights into the subtlest patterns of relationships, has traditionally been associated with theology. Mathematical theology continues to explore these matters in terms of their implications, but primarily in celebration of religious understanding. Could it engage with such entanglement, in the light of insights from physics?
From such perspectives "mathematics" and "theology" have a fundamentally complementary concern with both "credibility" and "infinity" (Michael Heller and W. Hugh Woodin (Eds.), Infinity: new research frontiers, 2011). The relationship might perhaps be usefully and unconventionally presented as "mathematics 8 theology". There is also a sense in which both are especially but distinctly attentive to engaging confidently with the inexplicable and the unexpected -- which have currently acquired considerable strategic importance, as separately discussed (Engaging with the Inexplicable, the Incomprehensible and the Unexpected, 2010).
The latter point is highlighted by the very recent declaration of Rick Perry -- the person who may well be elected as the next "most powerful man on the planet":
Right now, America is in crisis. We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy... Some problems are beyond our power to solve.... with praying people asking God's forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees. (Rick Perry under fire for planning Christian prayer rally and fast, The Guardian, 5 August 2011)
Confidence in the face of the unknown has been brought to the fore by the strategic recognition of the complementarity between "hearts and minds" in developing processes to elicit conviction in order to enable sustainable change -- the will to change. There is a sense in which this preoccupation is embodied in the seemingly improbably complex relationship between theology and mathematics -- perhaps reminiscent to that of moonshine mathematics. With its focus on belief, frequently symbolized by the heart, theology necessarily offers a range of insights to complement the focus of mathematics on confidence established by the mind. It might even be said that the two are brought to a tragic focus -- a form of singularity -- in the mindset of those effectively engaging with infinity and the unknown as suicide bombers.
Strategic convictions: It should be stressed that the only qualification for the formulation of this initial presentation is past responsibility for the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential which referred to aspects of a number of the issues highlighted here -- in an effort to interrelate world problems, global strategies, human development, integrative insights, and human values. This does not imply any special expertise in theology or mathematics. This deficiency could however be understood as an advantage, given the challenging nature of the interface between them.
It could however be argued that the nature of the "existence" attributed to the entities so profiled is primarily a matter of belief -- variously articulated in terms of belief systems, as separately argued (Cultivating Global Strategic Fantasies of Choice, 2010; Globallooning -- Strategic Inflation of Expectations and Inconsequential Drift, 2009). Can a "problem" exist in the absence of belief in a corresponding "value"? And, as argued above, a "strategy" is necessarily driven by dependence on a "belief" and a commitment to it readily described as "religious" -- not infrequently marked by "martyrdom for a cause".
The implication of "mathematics" in any such "theology" is evident in the effort to analyze, organize and represent the relationships between such entities as complex networks -- effectively a global belief system (Simulating a Global Brain -- using networks of international organizations, world problems, strategies, and values, 2001).
As with Monsieur Jourdain in Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, is this a case of being surprised and delighted to learn that one has been doing "mathematical theology" all one's life without knowing it:
Par ma foi! il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j'en susse rien, et je vous suis le plus obligé du monde de m'avoir appris cela.
In managing their beliefs, might that be the case for everyone -- whatever their skill in doing so?
Imagining the initiative: reframing conventional labels
As queried above, what indeed might be the imaginative initiative that a fruitful interaction between mathematicians and theologians would engender? Echoes of Castalia and The Glass Bead Game (1943), as articulated by Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse? Shades of the Foundation Series in the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, or perhaps of other "science fiction"?
Again, with respect to any requisite "global reframing" of an "International Institute of Advanced Studies in Mathematical Theology":
"International": Many initiatives have used this descriptor. Given the challenges of a "global" society, the term has lost its relevance for the integrative complexity with which governance is increasingly confronted. The term is valuable in that it exemplifies a formulation of relationships between spaces with which people identify -- also evident in intersectoral, intercultural, interdisciplinary and interfaith dynamics. The question is whether a subtler formulation of these spaces and relationships is possible with the aid of mathematics, especially to enable the emergence of higher and subtler forms of integration and coherence, avoiding entrapment in simplistic unification, irrespective of belief in that possibility. The argument was developed with respect to a specific case (Emergence of a Union of Imaginable Associations engendered by a Union of Intelligible Associations from a Union of International Associations, 2007)
"Institute": Again this corresponds to a well-established pattern -- as noted above with respect to "think tank". Unfortunately the term is not associated with the complexity which could held to be requisite in responding to the dynamics of global society. Many have indeed experimented with "network", "community", and other such indicators of form. The question is however what form might be considered appropriate to the intersect of mathematics and "theology" (understood as encompassing belief systems of every kind). Especially intriguing, as suggested by the above case, is the implication of imagination in the credibility of any such form.
What new forms can mathematics engender in support of imaginative thinking? Interesting examples are offered by visual renderings of the Mandelbrot set, "exceptional simple" Lie groups, and potentially the Monster Group itself (Sustainability through the Dynamics of Strategic Dilemmas -- in the light of the coherence and visual form of the Mandelbrot set, 2005; Psycho-social Significance of the Mandelbrot Set: a sustainable boundary between chaos and order, 2005; Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007).
As shown below, representations of Lie groups in particular are aesthetically reminiscent of the patterns characteristic of religious architecture and design, whilst the "Buddabrot" variant of the Mandelbrot rendering deliberately recalls Buddhist iconography.
Mandelbrot set
("Buddabrot" orientation)
Lie group (e8 graph of the Gosset 421 polytope)
(reproduced from Wikipedia)
The further implication is that the form might not be static, as is conventionally assumed, but might be designed to have an inherent dynamic -- perhaps alternating/transforming between a variety of forms. This might recognize the fundamental role of resonance hybrids -- appropriately given their central function in all organic structure with which life is associated. The Mandelbrot set emerges from such a dynamic by iteration in the complex plane.
"Advanced": Whilst this term is indicative of an appropriate effort to dissociate the initiative from oversimplistic preoccupations, it necessarily has unfortunate connotations of elitism. This is typically reinforced by efforts to associate "institutes of advanced studies" with "centres of excellence". This offers the implication that excellence is not to be found elsewhere. It also leaves the initiative open to accusation that if it is unable to "deliver" -- or to offer "deliverance" -- then the excellence in question is a sham. This argument has been developed in relation to the metaphorical use of "higher" in education (¿ Higher Education 8 Meta-education? Transforming cognitive enabling processes increasingly unfit for purpose, 2011).
At the intersection between mathematics and theology, "advanced" would appear to require reframing in terms of emergence of insight of greater maturity -- whatever such terms might imply and however they are to be understood. Given the sense in which any "advance" is especially associated with linear thinking, how is it to be understood with respect to any "higher" dimensionality? Might it even call for a complementary sense of "retreat", recognizing the importance this may have for both spiritual and academic exploration. Also relevant is the sense in which "retreat" may be associated with the "lowly" cognitive implications of "grounding" and embodiment (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought, 1999).
Going further, this could involve the enabling of a cyclic dynamic "advance 8 retreat" -- implying a continuing cycle of enantiodromia (Psychosocial Energy from Polarization within a Cyclic Pattern of Enantiodromia, 2007). As discussed elsewhere (Toward an Enantiomorphic Policy), the cultural historian William Irwin Thompson (From Nation to Emanation; planetary culture and world governance, 1982) has sharpened considerably the ecology-sensitive intuition concerning the psycho-social lessons to be learned from cooperation between co-evolving systems.
Thompson stresses the importance of an appropriate understanding of the interaction between opposites by citing E. F. Schumacher (A Guide For The Perplexed, 1977):
The pairs of opposites, of which freedom and order and growth and decay are the most basic, put tension into the world, a tension that sharpens man's sensitivity and increases his self-awareness. No real understanding is possible without awareness of these pairs of opposites which permeate everything man does... Justice is a denial of mercy, and mercy is a denial of justice. Only a higher force can reconcile these opposites: wisdom. The problem cannot be solved but wisdom can transcend it. Similarly, societies need stability and change, tradition and innovation, public interest and private interest, planning and laissez-faire, order and freedom, growth and decay. Everywhere society's health depends on the simultaneous pursuit of mutually opposed activities or aims. The adoption of a final solution means a kind of death sentence for man's humanity and spells either cruelty or dissolution, generally both. (1978, p. 127)
Such a cyclic dynamic also highlights the time dimension which is implicit, but effectively demeaned, in "advanced" -- despite being central to continuous learning, supposedly characteristic of both mathematics and theology. The argument with respect to "advance 8 retreat" is rendered succinctly by the oft-cited lines of the poet T. S. Eliot (Little Gidding, 1942):
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know it for the first time.
"Studies": This implies, unchallenged, a very particular style of cognitive engagement. It effectively delimits the "comfort zone" of academic endeavour -- often to be defended at any cost. It is more typically the spiritual disciplines of meditation that challenge this comfort zone through a degree of emphasis on self-reflexivity (as discussed below). A helpful articulation of a distinct mode of cognitive proprioception is offered by Steven M. Rosen (2004, 2006, 2008), a selection of whose relevant arguments have been summarized elsewhere (Nature of the requisite self-reflexive skill, 2011).
Some implications of such reframed, self-reflexive "study" are offered by the argument of Douglas Hofstadter (I Am a Strange Loop, 2007). Its implication for a collective initiative have been partially addressed elsewhere (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops: comprehension and engagement through aesthetic ring transformation, 2010).
Missing from "study" in any academic context is the unexamined extent to which the subject and methodology acquire the focus and characteristics of a religion requiring uncritical belief -- complete with high priesthoods, rituals and acolytes, and the capacity to offer benediction and condemnation for all time.
"Study" is also typically and appropriately challenged by "action" -- possibly to the exclusion of "study" -- as in many current examples of "fire fighting" responses to crises. Hence the exploration of "action research". Again these might be framed as complementaries through the conjunctive device "action 8 research". Many religious retreat centres of course emphasize a cyclic balance between concrete action and reflection -- as a key to "grounding".
Study and action, in the sense of application, can be further challenged in the light of the "intractable conflict" between "objectivity" and "subjectivity" (treated as synonymous with inaction). This has been explored in an earlier argument explaining the use of "8" (¡¿ Defining the objective ∞ Refining the subjective?! Explaining reality ∞ Embodying realization, 2011).
"Mathematical": The reframing required in the case of "mathematics" follows from the extent to which it is restrictively and exclusively defined as what mathematicians do and are expert at. Whilst it may be allowed that others use those insights, it is often inferred that they do so only insofar as they have been so enabled by suitable mathematical instruction. However, without denying the vast repertoire of insights which professional mathematicians explore and articulate, it is the case that others necessarily use "mathematics" to survive -- long illustrated by the skill required in throwing a spear or a boomerang (Reidar Mosvold, Mathematics in Everyday Life, 2005). Especially striking is the extent to which individuals without mathematical instruction engage in complex kinetic manoeuvers in certain sports.
It is of course also the case that every species uses "mathematics", most notably as observable in the design of shells. The degree of order in nature is the theme of a massive compilation by Christopher Alexander (The Nature of Order, 2002-2004). The fourth volume approaches religious questions from a scientific rather than mystical direction. In it, Alexander describes deep ties between the nature of matter, human perception of the universe, and the geometries people construct in buildings, cities, and artifacts, suggesting a crucial link between traditional beliefs and recent scientific advances.
The question then is how "mathematics" might be fruitfully reframed so as not to preclude the wider range of insights and expertise with which individuals may have an instinctive cognitive engagement -- even in extremely depressed slum areas (as research has made clear). How might these inform their engagement with belief? This question has been partially addressed separately (Navigating Alternative Conceptual Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms through movement, 2002).
"Theology": There is an implicit challenge to any "theologian" as to whether he or she is primarily an apologist for the given belief system within which she or he is "embedded" as a believer. The argument made above is that "theology" merits reframing to encompass any ordered pattern of "belief" and the expectation of "faith" with respect to it -- as is increasingly the requirement by governance of even the most secular kind.
The irony is that such ordered patterns of belief, however they are enshrined in secular contexts, effectively elicit behaviours analogous to the traditional response to deity. The head of any institution may readily be accorded the nickname "God" by those who function within it -- a name with which the recipient may well identify quite comfortably.
With respect to this reframing, a valuable insight is succinctly offered through a neologism by Alan Nordstrom (On Credology, 12 February 2008):
The study of credology, its central inquiry, investigates the perennial need of our species to establish systems of belief, as distinguished from systems of scientific knowledge.... Beliefs, then, serve our distinctly human need for meaning, and more particularly for authority (What is true?), ultimacy (What is absolute?), purpose (Why is anything?), direction (Where should we go?), guidance (How should we get there?), protection (What will keep us safe?), and connection (How are we related to everything else?).... Thus credology is the study of our speculative attempts to discover meanings beyond what science can reveal, meanings that are vital to our thriving as human beings.
It is however unclear why Nordstrom endeavours to dissociate belief in "science" from his argument regarding belief, given that -- as with the policy proposals of governance -- the theoretical assertions of science, in which many are expected to believe, may at any time be revised.
The "study of beliefs" is recognized as one of the oldest anthropological preoccupations, as noted by Benson Saler (Beliefs, Disbeliefs, and Unbeliefs, Anthropological Quarterly, 41, 1, 1968, pp. 29-33) and as implied by the study of Joseph Jastrow (The Psychology of Conviction: a study of beliefs and attitudes, 1918). As suggested by a "credology", the issue is how a system of beliefs invites "conviction" and merits consideration through "theology" -- as more generally understood.
With respect to the study of credos as a conventional pattern of beliefs, in the Handbook of Research in the Social Foundations of Education (2009) Steve Tozer indicates:
It has been thought that study of credos provides teachers theoretical tools to apply in practice. Of all the approaches, this one has received the most critique from philosophers of education. Problems mentioned include the logical impossibility of matching belief to action as well as "inherent" conflation of complex educational matters... There is nothing wrong with systematic interrogation of basic beliefs of life and learning, but reliance on systems seem too reductive. (p. 71)
This argument bears reflection in relation to those made strongly, and controversially, in favour of atheism in recent years (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006; Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: how religion poisons everything, 2009). It is not a question of arguing against this position as some have done (Greg Taylor, The Atheist Delusion: Answering Richard Dawkins, New Dawn, 1 May 2007). People everywhere are variously called upon to have faith in science (as argued by Dawkins), or in the financial system (to avoid "panic"), or in the security of the internet (to enable telecommerce), or in God (as in the US political system, and by the parties to the crisis in the Middle East). As always people give their primary allegiance to different manifestations of the "divine", according to their understanding of the nexus of coherence it offers to their worldview.
The global system has struggled vainly to achieve allegiance to a global ethic, to global plans, or to global standards (in many domains). The mysterious challenge is the nature of potential collective consensus in a global civilization. Simplistically this may be imagined as "universal agreement", perhaps qualified through musical metaphor allowing for distinct voices ("everyone singing from the same hymn sheet"). Separately it has however been argued that the title of the controversial study by Dawkins is inadequately framed and should be extended beyond "God" to encompass "consensus" in general (The Consensus Delusion: mysterious attractor undermining global civilization as currently imagined, 2011). That argument emphasized that the weak inter-faith consensus on the nature of "God" is merely an aspect of weak collective consensus in general.
More threatening for the coherence of society than "atheism", as a lack of belief in deity, is then lack of any belief at all -- collective unbelief -- considered highly problematic by religions (kafir, apostasy, and the like). Many commentators recognize the marked tendency to disillusionment and alienation.
The question for a reframed "theology" is how to articulate the nature of any complex, integrative "attractor" which it is assumed could fruitfully attract whatever might be understood as "consensus" (Human Values as Strange Attractors, 1993). The elegant complexity of the Monster Group, as discovered by mathematics (mentioned above), is an indication of one extreme challenge to comprehension (Dynamics of Symmetry Group Theorizing: comprehension of psycho-social implication, 2008). Ironically it is astrophysics which has detected the existence of a "Great Attractor" in intergalactic space -- to which ordinary humans would naturally be insensible. For the Abrahamic religions the challenge, expressed mathematically, might be framed in terms of a humanly incomprehensible "enormous theorem" allowing for three distinct "solutions" -- each at the limits of human comprehension for those persuaded by it, but mutually incomprehensible in consequence.
How then are "meta", "union" and "integrative" to be fruitfully understood, as discussed elsewhere (Dynamic Reframing of "Union": implications for the coherence of knowledge, social organization and personal identity, 2007; Criteria for an Adequate Meta-model, 1971). How can mathematics facilitate thinking on these matters? The argument can be explored in relation to the elusively comprehensible "infinity" cited above. Fruitful insights are to be found in the case made by Gregory Chaitin (Metamaths: the quest for omega, 2005), just as others are to be found in the arguments of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (The Future of Man, 1950) with respect to an Omega Point, or in the case for a singularity (discussed below).
Generically understood, the "confidence" to be explored by a reframed "theology" may take many forms (Varieties of Confidence Essential to Sustainability: surrogates and tokens obscuring the existential "gold standard", 2009; Exploration of Prefixes of Global Discourse: implications for sustainable confidelity, 2011). Rather than the conventional static implication of "union", consideration could be given to dynamic, interactive and emergent forms (Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance, 2010).
Such explorations effectively correspond to the arguments of Sallie McFague (Metaphorical Theology: models of God in religious language, 1982).
Institutional and thematic precedents
It is improbable that any institute of advanced mathematical studies would provide for a thread on theology, other than as a historical curiosity. The format of an "institute of advanced studies" has however been emulated by various religions and might in principle provide for a focus on "mathematical theology". Examples might include:
It is however difficult to compare the research quality of such bodies with that of the membership of the selective International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study. The point is well-argued in a proposal by John T. Noonan Jr. (An Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, America: the national Catholic weekly, 1 July 2000). Especially relevant is the extent to which conventional faith-based approaches to "theology", however "excellent", might obscure the disciplined focus on "mathematical theology", as it might be variously understood and explored. Noonan, for example, makes not mention of that dimension.
More difficult to detect are occasions within university faculties of religious studies which have provided a focus on mathematical theology. A notable exception is a paper presented by Richard S. Kirby to a Senior Seminar in 1988 of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies (King's College, University of London) under the title, Theology of Mathematics: the emerging field of theological investigation (subsequently published as A New Mathematics for a New Era, World Network of Religious Futurists, 2005).
This highlights an interesting complementarity between "mathematical theology" and "theology of mathematics". How indeed might mathematics be understood as a belief system -- perhaps to be approached with attitudes characteristic of any religious engagement with the divine, as was the case in centuries past?
Potential thematic guidance is offered at the intersect between religion and science (rather than mathematics and theology specifically), as with the International Society for Science and Religion, the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (EssSAT), or Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. The latter focuses on the questions of meaning and values that challenge individual and social existence today. In the case of the journal Theology and Science of the international Center for Theology and Natural Science (CTNS), a special issue was recently devoted to theology and mathematics (Volume 9, Number 1, February 2011), including:
Earlier issues of Theology and Science included:
Organization of the initiative
Given the systemic insights which are liable to characterize some of those interested, a strong case can be made for a fruitful mix of self-organization and self-reflexivity, as separately discussed (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007).
Schismatic tendencies: Especially interesting are the divisive tendencies shared by the faiths and by mathematicians (as with those in other disciplines). Those identified strongly with distinct branches of mathematics are as liable to have conflictual relations as those identified with particular faiths. There is little capacity or inclination to map the conflicts fruitfully, or even to acknowledge them as separately argued (Epistemological Challenge of Cognitive Body Odour: exploring the underside of dialogue, 2006). How this is framed or expressed is another matter. The question is whether those differences can be embodied in a new kind of relational structure -- notably in the light of insights from mathematics. To what extent, however, is either theology or mathematics self-reflexive -- as discussed below?
Appropriate "distance": Any initiative, however it is organized, will raise interesting challenges with regard to who can "afford" to be associated with it, given the potential implications for their reputation and prospects elsewhere:
for the religious: can participation be framed so as to attract the benediction of relevant religious authorities, or will it automatically be framed as inappropriate and to be condemned as heresy, anathema or blasphemy?
for the academic: would those in the wider academic community view any such association as inherently problematic -- and a "dangerous career move"?
In both cases there is a question of how any "engagement" with the initiative is managed in order to ensure appropriate "distance" -- for those who would prefer a degree of "arms-length" collaboration.
Boundaries and primacy: A related issue is that of ensuring appropriate distance from other institutes with an interest in some particular form of "mathematical theology" and potentially concerned to assert that claim as unquestionably primary. This is a question of "intelligent design" -- ensuring appropriate "boundaries" and clarifying the distinction between being "in" or "out", as well as its implication (Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities: emergent patterns of isolation within knowledge society, 2004).
Given the wider territorial implications of "boundary" issues and "gate-keeping", can mathematicians and theologians together develop more interesting ways of framing such boundaries -- especially those of relevance to other intractable conflicts? The possibilities of the Klein bottle, explored by various authors, were highlighted to this end in the above-mentioned discussion. How can any interface be framed with "others" advocating an especially narrow approach to "mathematical theology"?
Dysfunctional dynamics: As a feature of the self-reflexive/self-organizing modality, how might those involved creatively reframe the vexatious dynamics of:
game-playing : well-known for its potential dysfunctionality in every institutional environment, as well as interpersonal relations (for example, as explored by the International Transactional Analysis Association). It might be understood as permeating the various efforts at inter-faith dialogue. The need to explore this from the perspective of the complexity sciences was highlighted separately, framed as the "irresolutique" -- in contrast to the "problematique" and "resolutique" promoted by the Club of Rome (Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation, 2007).
: well-known for its potential dysfunctionality in every institutional environment, as well as interpersonal relations (for example, as explored by the International Transactional Analysis Association). It might be understood as permeating the various efforts at inter-faith dialogue. The need to explore this from the perspective of the complexity sciences was highlighted separately, framed as the "irresolutique" -- in contrast to the "problematique" and "resolutique" promoted by the Club of Rome (Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation, 2007). blame-gaming: this has been a key feature of inter-faith conflicts, but also highly evident in questions of accountability with regard to the recent financial crisis and its ongoing development. The question is whether blame-gaming can be more fruitfully analyzed, as separately discussed in relation to Knight's move patterns (Monkeying with Global Governance Emergent dynamics of three wise monkeys in a knowledge-based society, 2011)
The current incidence of game-playing and blame-gaming with respect to public confidence in global governance -- well-described as "monkeying" -- makes a powerful case for a mathematical theology capable of naming the games and giving formal precision to the issues and options.
Dialogue possibilities: The challenge of giving form to an initiative between such seemingly distant preoccupations -- theology and mathematics -- can be fruitfully compared to that between the aesthetics of "poetry" and the strategic realities of "policy" (Poetry-making and Policy-making: Arranging a Marriage between Beauty and the Beast, 1993). That document included sections on the problematic issues of any meeting to discuss such a possibility, under headings of potential relevance (mutatis mutandis) to any preliminary mathematical theology encounter:
Given the tendency to overly optimistic initiatives -- as evident in inter-faith dialogue -- cautionary frameworks merit clarification (Evaluating Synthesis Initiatives and their Sustaining Dialogues: possible questions as a guide to criteria of evaluation of any synthesis initiative, 2000; An Inconvenient Truth -- about any inconvenient truth, 2008).
Historical inspiration: Reflection on possibilities can also be stimulated by references to historical settings -- notably royal courts -- in which fruitful cross-fertilization between theology and mathematics was enabled. The possibility is also central to any reflection on the "university" ideal -- as variously endeavoured (cf. University of Earth; University of Earth: meta-organization for post-crisis action, 1980).
Examples of research themes for consideration
The strategic concern here is the research on mathematical theology |
PT1 is several 10s of kilometers across. Here’s what that looks like next to Cape Cod and #Comet67P: pic.twitter.com/IHUx6uymO7 — Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) October 15, 2014
Here is where PT1 lies in relation to the rest of the solar system. The yellow path is New Horizons’ trajectory. pic.twitter.com/4aQDEj8oPZ — Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) October 15, 2014
Here is a gif of the Hubble Space Telescope discovery images of our New Horizons-targetable Kuiper Belt Object PT1. http://t.co/ifw8I4a8Wz — Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) October 15, 2014
An important and sobering note: even though New Horizons can reach this Kuiper Belt Object, there is no guarantee of an extended mission. — Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) October 15, 2014
Each of the three candidates would take a while to reach, as they are all about one billion miles (1.6 billion km) beyond Pluto. They’re also tiny, with two estimated at 34 miles (55 kilometers) across and the third at 15 miles (25 kilometers). This makes them 10 times bigger than the average comet, but only 1-2% the size of small Pluto.
“This was a needle-in-haystack search for the New Horizons team because the elusive KBOs are extremely small, faint, and difficult to pick out against a myriad background of stars in the constellation Sagittarius, which is in the present direction of Pluto,” NASA wrote in a press release.
New Horizons’ team plans to ask for the extended mission in late 2016. Meanwhile, the spacecraft (which has been flying ever outwards since 2006) will finally zoom past its main target of Pluto in July 2015.UNELECTED Ulster Unionist Lord Empey has used a debate in Parliament to demand the Scottish Parliament be held accountable by Westminster.
Empey, a former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), suggested that forcing Holyrood and the Assembly in Wales to defend the decisions of their elected members to the parliament in London could prevent a repeat of violence similar to Northern Ireland’s Troubles in Scotland and Wales.
His speech was described as “bonkers” by an SNP MSP.
In his speech to the upper chamber last night, Empey said too often over the last century Westminster had undertaken a policy of “devolve and forget”.
“Once powers are devolved Whitehall can pay little or no attention to what happens in those policy areas,” he told the Lords.
The peer, a former mayor of Belfast, added: “This was a fatal mistake in the case of Northern Ireland, when after 1921 oversight consisted of a desk somewhere on the Home Office manned by a junior civil servant.
“Our troubles might have been avoided with attention to what happens in those policy areas.
“Are we going to make the same mistake again now that there is a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly as well? I hope not, but see little evidence that the lessons of the past have been learned.”
He then proposed “light touch oversight” of the parliaments in Edinburgh and Cardiff, saying “as most of the revenue raised and spent by these institutions is taxpayers’ money voted to them by Parliament, it seems reasonable that there is some acknowledgement and accountability for these vast sums of money.”
Empey added: “I do not propose any detailed scrutiny, but perhaps an annual appearance before a Parliamentary Committee or even a report to Parliament once a year.”
This, he said, would “enable MPs and MSPs and peers to be aware of what is going on in the regions and get an understanding of how devolution is working in practice”.
His comments provoked an angry response.
Scottish Green MSP Patrick Harvie said Empey had some cheek complaining about a lack of accountability given where he was speaking from.
“It stinks of hypocrisy for an unelected Lord to complain about a lack of accountability, especially at a time when our democratically elected parliament is preparing to fend off a Westminster power grab when we leave the EU,” he said.
“If he expects MSPs to consent to changes that would make Scotland’s government accountable to Westminster instead of to voters in Scotland, then he has lost all touch with reality.
“Surely Lord Empey’s energies would be better spent on pressuring the UK Government to listen to the Irish Taoiseach and prevent a post-Brexit hard border between the north and south of Ireland.”
SNP MSP George Adam voiced his agreement: “This bonkers speech shows just how pointless and out of touch the House of Lords is.
“This unelected Lord rants in a nearly empty room and then picks up a paycheque from the taxpayer for his efforts.
“There are no doubt others on the Tory benches who dream of making the Scottish Government go cap-in-hand to answer to Westminster – but it ain’t gonna happen.”
3252 people lost their lives in The Troubles in Northern Ireland.Samsung Galaxy S7 Wireless Charging Battery Pack Case
Buy from Samsung ($89.99)
Pros Official Samsung product
Official Samsung product Design that suits the S7 well
Design that suits the S7 well Wireless charging Cons Expensive for the battery capacity that it offers
Expensive for the battery capacity that it offers Doesn't provide full protection
It's a god idea to first take a look at Samsung's own Galaxy S7 battery case, which is available in black and grey, complementing the smartphone perfectly. Samsung is calling this product a " Wireless Charging Battery Pack", but it is, ultimately, also a case. The accessory includes a 3400 mAh battery, and can charge your Galaxy S7 wirelessly, letting you know how much battery you've got left via a four-level LED indicator. We must note that the case leaves the bottom of the Galaxy S7 a bit exposed, so it doesn't offer the best protection you can get.
ZeroLemon ZeroShock 7500 mAh Rugged Extended Battery Case
Buy from Amazon ($69.99)
Pros Worry-free, shockproof construction
Worry-free, shockproof construction 7500 mAh battery Cons Extra bulky (20mm-thick) and heavy (218 grams)
Extra bulky (20mm-thick) and heavy (218 grams) Unattractive design
Unattractive design No wireless charging
If you simply must have a Samsung Galaxy S7 case that includes a giant battery, look no further than the ZeroLemon ZeroShock 7500 mAh Rugged Extended Battery Case. With 7500 mAh on board, this chubby case should be able to recharge your precious Galaxy about two times. The case is shockproof, and it's definitely the toughest on our list, but at the same time it's also the bulkiest. It's currently available via Amazon for $69.99 (down from the original price of $99.99).
Mophie Juice Pack External Battery Case
Buy from Mophie ($99.95)
Pros Nice design
Nice design Wide wireless charging support Cons Expensive
Expensive Battery capacity is on the lower side
Mophie has made a name for itself by selling exactly the type of cases that we're talking about here. The Mophie Juice Pack External Battery Case for Samsung Galaxy S7 provides edge-to-edge protection while also being stylish and not too bulky for a product in this class. The case includes a 2,950 mAh battery, which can only deliver about 60% extra power to your Galaxy S7. On the plus side, the Mophie Juice Pack is compatible with most wireless charging technologies, so you don't necessarily need a Samsung-compatible charger when using it.
Incipio offGRID Wireless Charging Battery Case for Galaxy S7
Buy from Incipio ($79.99)
Pros Easy to install
Easy to install Wireless charging
Wireless charging High-impact protection Cons A bit too expensive
Bastex Protective Shell with Rechargeable Battery
Buy from Amazon ($29.99)
The Incipio offGRID Wireless Charging Battery Case for Galaxy S7 features a two-piece snap-on design that makes it easy to install, and will absorb shocks whenever you drop your phone. It has a 3700 mAh capacity (which should be enough to fully recharge your S7), plus frontal LED lights to show remaining power levels. Moreover, as the name of the accessory suggests, you've got support for wireless charging (Qi and PMA standards).
Pros Affordable
Affordable Interesting design, kickstand included Cons No wireless charging
This Bastex battery case is the most affordable on our list, and yet the only flaw (so to say) that we think it has is the lack of wireless charging. The case provides edge-to-edge protection, and includes a 4200 mAh cell - good for offering up to 110% of extra battery life to any Galaxy S7 that may be wearing it. There are three versions of this Bastex battery case - black, white, or gold - each having its own kickstand.Williams driver Massa confirmed his retirement ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, but is likely to continue his racing career outside of F1.
This route has been taken by the likes of Mark Webber and Senna – both also Williams F1 ‘old boys’.
Speaking to Motorsport.com at the Mexico City round of the WEC, Senna believes that many WEC teams would be interested in signing the 11-time Grand Prix-winner – and that at the age of 35 he still has a future in the sport ahead of him.
“Felipe is far from his retiring from motorsport age – there’s lots of miles left in him,” said Senna.
“Endurance racing is pushing the whole time, the cars have downforce – and the LMP1 are pretty close to F1 levels of performance. I think he’d adapt pretty quickly.
“He lives next door to me, so he can knock on the door and have some tea and tips – but I’ll charge him, though!”
Watch the full interview with Bruno Senna…A top US lawmaker from the Republican Party is pushing a bill to remove “arbitrary” country quota for acquiring green cards and incorporate "merit" into consideration.
The lawmaker argues that the fixed percentage quota puts high-skilled immigrant workers coming from countries like highly-populated India or China at a disadvantage. India and China together contribute to 40 percent of world's total population.
The 'unfairness' of green card issuance
The green card grants a foreign national a legal permanent status for living and working in the US. But the current cap on green cards does not consider the size of the country’s while assigning the quota. Therefore, an immigrant from a country like India with 1.3 billion people, stands much less chance of getting a green card than a fairly smaller country like Greenland with a population of around 56,000.
"Right now, there's a mother in Greenland whose unborn child will be able to obtain permanent residence in America before someone from India who is already here and have been working here for years. That's absurd and it's wrong," said Republican Congressman Kevin Yoder in the US House of Representatives.
The current situation
The Congressman underlined that when same percentage of green card quotas are issued to each country without any regard for their size, it forces high-skilled immigrants from larger countries to wait as much as three times longer than others.
According to Yoder, the existing process has resulted into over seven lakh highly skilled Indian workers living in the US on temporary work visas.
Recent media reports highlighted that an Indian working in the US under H1B visa has to wait for a Green Card for 12 years on an average due to the backlogging caused by the ‘arbitrary’ Green-card quota.
From 2004 to 2016, every fiscal the US gave less green cards to newer arrivals and more to people living in the country on temporary visa such as the H1B visa, as per a study published by US-based Pew Research Center.
Another Pew study of 2015 showed that about 36,318 Indians on temporary visas attuned their status to permanent residency while 27,798 Indians, who were new arrivals, received green cards.
The question of merit
The new law, which is aiming to reform existing legal immigration system, is expected to ease the resultant backlogging in the employment-based green card system.
The new law, called the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, presently has 230 Congress members backing it as co-sponsors while more than 100 members from each of the political parties are in support of it.
Kevin Yoder has become the new chief co-sponsor of the act which, according to him, will turn the system on its head to come up with a more effective “first come first serve merit based legal immigration system”.
In his speech, Yoder pointed out how immigrant workers who contribute considerably to American economy and are currently raising their children as “Americans”, are denied many basic rights that come with the green card. It is also counter-productive for the US economy as these merited individuals cannot switch jobs or start their own business in the country.
With inputs from PTIThe idea comes from Portuguese artist Joao Onofre as part of an exhibition called Sculpture In The City. His intention, to quote from the exhibition documents, is that “the box is soundproofed, determining and restricting the performance’s duration to the length of time in which the oxygen is expended”.
Disappointingly, for those who might want to watch this death rattle-and-roll, passers-by won’t be able to see or hear the musicians when the box is closed - the walls are thick and solid. Instead they’ll have to settle for seeing the band walk in and, presumably, crawl out, while getting some of the vibrations from the noise inside.
Displaying as much humour as their surely comic name, Unfathomable Ruination defiantly posted on Facebook, in response to medical professionals warning they might die: “Challenge Accepted”. Adding that they would welcome bets on “who will be the first member to perish without oxygen” as they perform this feat of derring-do three times a week until August 1.
If you had considered this installation might be a Portuguese payback for the sad elimination of their football team from the World Cup with little more than a whimper, the evidence suggests otherwise. Onofre has run this art project before – each time with a death metal band - in Paris, Barcelona, and Switzerland, and two of those are countries which outlasted Portugal at the World Cup.
It’s worth noting that one of the bands which played, and survived, the box in its earlier incarnations, Holocausto Canibal (no, really, that’s what they’re called) both encouraged and advised Unfathomable Ruination.We spend a lot of time celebrating bad quarterbacks in this space, but how often do we celebrate the defenses that make them look so horrible? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what happened Sunday night in Seattle.
It wasn’t Colin Kaepernick’s fault.
I mean, this interception was definitely his fault, yeah. But it’s hard to pin the blame on him for the misery, in general. Right now there are still lots of good defensive players in the NFL, but once you start looking for good defenses, things get more complicated. This is why you have so many teams scoring 30 and 40 points a game. Against a good offense, or even just a good quarterback, 90 percent of teams are helpless.
All of which makes what happened Sunday night AMAZING.
The Seahawks turned Kaepernick into Kordell Stewart on national TV. There was the time he threw into double coverage inside the 10-yard line (deflection, pick). The time he stayed in the pocket and got stripped from behind for a fumble (that gave the Seahawks the ball inside the San Francisco 10). Or when the Niners were down 19-3 and he threw a perfect deep ball to Richard Sherman.
Or the safety, which came on a holding call in the end zone, but also came on a play when Kaepernick was running for his life until he threw a three-yard dump-off that was two yards behind Frank Gore. You get the idea.
This is what we’re talking about when we talk about the Seahawks defense:
He ran this crossing route and started to drift, and on the other side of that drift lived a young man. A 6 foot 5 230 pound young man. — Hamza Abdullah (@HamzaAbdullah21) September 17, 2013
This young man hates visitors. He has a sign on his yard that says…"Trespassers will be Hugged & THUGGED" — Hamza Abdullah (@HamzaAbdullah21) September 17, 2013
This young man hit this Tight End SO HARD, I swear I saw that TE's soul leave Qwest Field right on that 35 yard line. — Hamza Abdullah (@HamzaAbdullah21) September 17, 2013
He hit him so hard the entire stadium went mute. They didn't want to cheer someone being killed on the field. — Hamza Abdullah (@HamzaAbdullah21) September 17, 2013
First of all, football players are awesome. Second: That’s a former NFL safety describing Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor. The whole Seattle defense is like that, just waiting to end lives.
All of which leaves us with two important points. First, Colin Kaepernick put up the highest Bad QB score we’ve seen so far this year. Look at this, it’s incredible:
• +15 (3 INT)
• +5 (fumble lost)
• +16 (4 TO)
• +12 (127 yards passing)
• +5 (46% passing)
• +10 (No TDs)
• +10 (No passes over 25 yards)
• -8 (87 rushing yards)
All told, it rounds out to a solid 65 points for the guy who was completely unstoppable just a week before. Which brings us to the second point: Seattle is pure evil this year. If they did this Colin Kaepernick, what happens when they play actual bad quarterbacks? Does Sam Bradford just burst into flames?
Seattle’s defense could end up winning Bad QB MVP this year.
(PS: Found those Kam Chancellor tweets via Twitter World Champion @DragonFlyJonez. Follow him.)
(OK, moving on.)
Eli Strikes Back
Always a BQBL dark horse. When things go bad for Eli, they go really bad.
Some of this wasn’t his fault.
Some of it was.
Either way, do you realize he’s the first quarterback since 2005 to start the year throwing seven interceptions in the first two games of the season? It’s glorious.
Eli is great, but we can all agree he’s had a lot of good luck in life (starting with being born into football royalty, ending with the Tyree catch and/or that Hail Mary in Green Bay). But then, look at that first interception. Maybe this is the year all Eli’s good luck turns horrible? Maybe the Giants go 6-10 and Eli throws 25 interceptions again? Let’s do it!
PONDER’S REVENGE
Christian Ponder actually played pretty well this weekend, but he scored high in the BQBL thanks to a pick-six (+25) and a vote of confidence from Leslie Frazier last week.
“Christian, he made some mistakes, but he’s not the only reason we didn’t have success on Sunday,” Frazier said. “Our team did not play well, and that affects the quarterback as well. It wasn’t just Christian, it just so happens that he plays the position that’s under the most scrutiny.”
I was at a restaurant in L.A. last night, and the bartender was wearing an Adrian Peterson Vikings jersey. We started talking and she said, “It’s really a shame. Peterson puts in all this hard work, and then Ponder just throws it away.”
And: “The team has been so close, but we always have the shittiest quarterbacks.”
Later: “I was back home in Minneapolis and saw that [Ponder’s] jersey was marked down from $100 to $40. At least I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.”
Anyway, she’s not wrong about any of that, and she’s definitely not the only who feels that way, but I think I’m rooting for Ponder now. Fuck all the haters. Related:
CHRISTIAN PONDER TRUCKS LANCE BRIGGS.
Other notes:
1. Ben Roethlisberger still sucks. So do the Steelers.
2. Geno Smith put up an impressive 42 Bad QB points against the Patriots on Thursday, but it doesn’t feel right to call him a Bad QB, because he’s actually been surprisingly impressive so far. This makes no sense, but still. Geno Smith is somehow both terrible and impressive so far this year.
3. If you have scoring questions, hit up Danny Savitzky on Twitter.
4. BRING BACK JACOBY.
STATS: Major thanks to Danny Savitzky for tracking all of Week 2’s action for us. If you’d like to check out the Bad QB stats for all 32 quarterbacks, head over to the very awesome Fantasizr, where you can sign up to play in your own league.
To see how it’s all scored, click here.Get an exclusive first look at the #SouthernCharm sit-down.
It's that time of the year again when the Southern Charm crew gathers to film the reunion sit-down. And Season 3 was as action-packed as ever before — thanks, in part, to some questions about paternity, some feisty dinner party allegations, and unexpected romance revelations — which means that Charleston's finest will have a lot to hash out.
And now we know just where everyone will be sitting when it all goes down in an exclusive first look at the reunion's seating chart.
Seating chart for the Southern Charm Season 3 reunion.
Reunion host Andy Cohen is smack in the middle, with Kathryn Dennis, Shep Rose, and Craig Conover to his left. Meanwhile, he's flanked by Thomas Ravenel, Cameran Eubanks, Landon Clements, and Whitney Sudler-Smith on his right. Now that you have this first glimpse at what's to come, we can't wait to hear what kind of sweet tea will be shared.
Prepare for more Southern Charm drama by hearing some of Patricia Altschul's biggest pet peeves, below.Donald Trump is a train wreck.
He’d be an utter disaster for women.
Story Continued Below
Latinos would be crushed under his rich-get-richer tax plan.
His refusal to release his tax returns suggests his net worth is less than the $10 billion he claims.
He could start a nuclear arms race and equip terrorists with weapons to destroy the United States.
Even Republicans don’t want him. He’s a “loose cannon,” unpredictable and just “too risky” to be president.
Those are just a few of the opening salvos in the Hillary Clinton campaign’s initial attempts to define the presumptive Republican nominee.
In the early days of the Clinton-Trump showdown, there’s been no shortage of attack lines, or campaign surrogates eager to deliver them. But a potential obstacle is already emerging, one that 16 Republicans have failed to overcome this year: creating a coherent narrative to define a candidate who seems to blunder from one negative headline to the next with no permanent scars to show for it.
“Our problem is a target-rich environment,” said one Clinton ally, who noted that every day this week the news cycle was dominated by seemingly damaging headlines about Trump.
“Right now, they’re doing a little bit of everything to see what works,” explained President Barack Obama’s former senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, noting that the stakes are low because the campaign has yet to put any money behind its attacks.
But the central challenge, he said, already has been revealed: maintaining message discipline at the negative headline buffet that is Trump.
“You can spend all day, every day, going after a hundred different things, and those things can add up to less than one hundred,” Pfeiffer said. “They may not weave into a narrative, or you may not be able to drive any one of them for long enough. You need discipline.”
For all his flaws as a candidate, Trump has proved to be incredibly disciplined in branding his rivals. His nickname “Little Marco” skillfully demeaned the presidential qualities of Sen. Marco Rubio. “Low-energy Jeb” planted the idea in Republican primary voters’ minds that Jeb Bush wasn’t up to the job. And his new focus on “Crooked Hillary” plays on one of the Democratic front-runner’s biggest vulnerabilities as a candidate: trust.
“He’s going to hammer ‘Crooked Hillary’ the whole time,” Pfeiffer added. “To me, the biggest fear is young people will feel like it doesn’t really matter. They may not turn out.”
Clinton has been less successful at defining her primary challenger. The underestimated Sanders campaign grew into a nationwide movement before Clinton’s eyes and drove much of the discourse in the Democratic primary.
Now, as Clinton seeks to define Trump at an early stage in the general election, her campaign appears to be in a phase of seeing what sticks. Last week, Clinton and her surrogates tried out several disparate lines of attack.
“What’s really clear,” Neera Tanden, Clinton’s former top policy adviser, said on a conference call with reporters, “is Donald Trump has made it entirely clear throughout the entirety of his campaign that he would be a terrible choice for women voters.”
That clarion message, however, was not amplified the next day. Instead, the follow-up was a call with Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who urged reporters to “think about what Trump’s plans mean for Latinos. Middle-class Americans and Latinos would pay the price for his reckless quest to continue enriching the billionaires.”
Clinton herself chose to highlight a third issue while stumping in New Jersey, where she surprised her aides by uncharacteristically engaging with an audience member who yelled out a question about Trump’s tax returns.
“You’ve got to ask yourself,” she responded from the stage, “why doesn’t he want to release them? Yeah, well, we’re going to find out.”
And on Monday night, at a speech at the Asia Society in Manhattan, Clinton’s senior foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, painted a frightening picture of Trump as commander in chief. His comments that more countries should be able to obtain nuclear weapons, Sullivan said, have “the very real risk of sparking a nuclear arms race.”
Clinton campaign officials said the common thread of the attacks so far is that they underscore the idea that Trump is “too risky to be president.”
But Clinton allies are not even on the same page yet about that theme.
“I frankly don’t think ‘risky’ captures it, because ‘risk’ implies potential upside,” Priorities USA chief strategist Guy Cecil said Monday while unveiling the PAC’s first television ads attacking Trump.
Other Clinton allies said they worry Trump’s daily distractions will make it difficult for that message to sink in. “I follow closely and couldn’t tell you what she’s been talking about,” said one top Democrat with ties to the campaign. “They literally need to consult a psychiatrist about how you unravel a clinical narcissist.”
Clinton surrogate and Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen admitted there has been “some reticence to get the daily Trump assault started. Once it starts, it’s hard to pull back. I don’t think anyone has quite settled on the right formula for how much of the Trump pushback is from Hillary, and how much is from surrogates.”
She added: “There’s just so much material and he jumps around on so many issues. Finding the balance between responding to his crazy policy inconsistencies and putting your own anti-Trump message out there is a constant set of choices. There’s just so much material, it’s hard to choose.”
Rosen compared the campaign with Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run, when the daily mantra was so simple it was written on the wall at the Little Rock campaign headquarters: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
This time, said Rosen, “The tagline will be, ‘Women make the difference.’”
If so, that has not been conveyed yet to Clinton allies who appear on television on behalf of the campaign. “I’m winging it,” one surrogate said. “They don’t know yet what narrative they’re forming against him, and the story needs to be written well before the convention.”
Another problem confronting the Clinton campaign is how to stay on offense against a candidate who drives the news cycle simply by calling in to television morning shows, or firing off a provocative tweet.
On Tuesday, for example, while campaigning in Puerto Rico, Bill Clinton was asked to respond to Trump’s tweet calling him the “WORST woman abuser of all time.”
“No. I won’t,” he said. “I think people are smart enough to figure this out without my help.”
Hillary Clinton, Democrats said, also needs to make Trump respond to her. “There has to be some tiger team within the Clinton campaign that focuses entirely, all day, every day, on what can we do to make Donald Trump respond to us,” Pfeiffer said. “Is it a video? Is it something Hillary does herself? Will Bill Clinton do it? Your days are so all consuming that if you don’t dedicate some special team whose job it is, it won’t happen.”
However, Jeb Bush’s former communications director and anti-Trump activist, Tim Miller, warned against over-thinking strategy.
“Hillary has the advantage of being able to fight Trump on turf that benefits her,” said Miller, referring to a general election environment as opposed to a Republican primary. “She can fight him on issues where the electorate is with her.”
Miller said Bush struggled because “on the big, driving conversations, Trump really had the primary electorate with him. If I was Hillary, I would really home in on making Trump completely unacceptable to college-educated women, minorities, African-Americans, millennials, and never lose sight of that ball. That is their big advantage in this race.”Kristian Høgsberg has released version 0.85 of his Wayland graphics system for Linux. In his release announcement, he refers to it as the "first real release"; version 1.0 is due later this year. Wayland is written for the requirements of modern graphical applications and the capabilities of modern hardware. It could therefore eventually replace the X Window System which currently provides the graphics on Linux and Unix systems.
The Wayland library implements a protocol by means of which graphical applications can communicate with a compositor. The 0.85 release of the Weston reference compositor has also been released with Wayland; together, applications' graphics are rendered onto the display. Unlike X, Wayland provides no API for graphical primitives such as drawing lines, text and so forth. Instead, graphical applications – clients in the language of X and Wayland – use libraries such as Cairo or write directly via OpenGL. The popular Linux toolkits GTK and Qt already have Wayland support, in principle making it easy for GNOME and KDE applications to display using Wayland.
Version 0.85.0 of Wayland and Weston are available to download from the project's site.
See also:
Wayland - Beyond X, a feature from The H.
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Email You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. University Monash University, University of Queensland
Antarctica’s ice-free areas—home to most of the continent’s biodiversity—needs better protection from human impact and climate change, say environmental scientists.
University of Queensland researcher Justine Shaw says most of Antarctica’s biodiversity occurred in the less than one percent of the continent, which is permanently ice-free. Of that small area, only 1.5 percent belongs to the Antarctic Specially Protected Areas under the Antarctic Treaty System.
[related]
A new study has found that many of the continent’s ice-free protected areas are at risk from invasive species.
Shaw says the Antarctic continent’s tiny ice-free area, where most of the native wildlife and plants are found, need adequate and representative protected areas.
“With more research facilities being built and increasing tourism to Antarctica, the simple ecosystems are at risk from human activities including pollution, trampling, and invasive species such as insects and grass,” Shaw says.
More than 40,000 people visit Antarctica each year.
Shaw’s study found that all 55 areas designated for protection of land-based biodiversity were close to sites of human activity, with seven at high risk for biological invasion. Five of the distinct ice-free eco-regions have no protected areas.
‘A true wilderness’
The study, published in PLOS Biology, shows that Antarctica’s protected area system fell well short of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets—an international biodiversity strategy that aims to reduce threats to biodiversity, and to protect ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity.
“Many people think that Antarctica’s biodiversity is well protected because it’s isolated and no one lives there, but it is at risk,” says Shaw. “Our study found that the protected area system of Antarctica ranks in the lowest 25 percent of assessed countries.”
Hugh Possingham, of the National Environmental Research Program (NERP) Decisions Hub, says Antarctica is one of the last places on Earth without cities, agriculture, or mining.
“It is unique in this respect—a true wilderness—and if we don’t establish adequate and representative protected areas in Antarctica this unique and fragile ecosystem could be lost,” he says.
“Although our study shows that the risks to biodiversity from increasing human activity are high, they are even worse when considered together with climate change.
“The combined effect provides even more incentive for a better system of area protection in Antarctica.”
The NERP Environmental Decisions Hub, University of Queensland’s School of Biological Sciences, the Australian Antarctic Division, and Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences supported the research. Researchers from the Australian Antactic Division and Monash University also contributed to the study.
Source: University of QueenslandLONDON, England (CNN) -- Scientists in the United States are developing a "synthetic tree" capable of collecting carbon around 1,000 times faster than the real thing.
A conceptual design of how the "synthetic tree" might look should they ever reach the stage of production.
As the wind blows though plastic "leaves," the carbon is trapped in a chamber, compressed and stored as liquid carbon dioxide.
The technology is similar to that used to capture carbon from flue stacks at coal-fired power plants, but the difference is that the "synthetic tree" can catch carbon anytime, anywhere.
"Half of your emissions come from small, distributed sources where collection at the site is either impossible or impractical," said Professor Klaus Lackner, Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University.
"We aim for applications like gasoline in cars or jet fuel in airplanes. We are going after CO2 that otherwise is nearly impossible to collect," he told CNN.
While the idea of carbon-catchers may sound far-fetched, an early model has been built and Lackner is in the process of writing a proposal for consideration by the U.S. Department of Energy.
He personally explained the concept in a 45-minute meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month at a three-day symposium on climate change in London.
"He was there and I was there and he showed interest," Lackner told CNN. "That's exciting, but I don't particularly want to discuss this in a public forum because I think this gives me a little bit of an opportunity to tailor my proposals to the Department of Energy in a way that makes them more palatable."
Lackner started working on the concept of an ambient carbon catcher in 1998. "I argued back then and I still argue that the reason this can be done, from a theoretical point of view, is that the CO2 in the air is actually surprisingly concentrated, therefore the device you need to collect CO2 is quite small."
The "synthetic tree" looks more like a public convenience block than a hi-tech method of reducing carbon emissions, but Lackner told CNN it is highly efficient for its size when compared, for example, to a modern power-generating wind turbine.
"If you give me one of those big windmills which have those big areas through which the rotor moves -- how much CO2 can I avoid? And if I had an equally sized CO2 collector -- how much CO2 can I collect? It turns out the collector is several hundred times better than the windmill."
Is the "synthetic tree" an interesting alternative, or a scientific flight of fancy that's unlikely to happen? Sound Off below.
Lackner told CNN that initial concerns over the cost of the technology were focused on the "front-end" carbon collector, including the sorbent used to catch the carbon dioxide in the air.
But after years of research, Lackner told CNN he and his colleagues have developed a sorbent that is "close to the ideal," in that it uses a relatively small amount of energy to release the CO2 and is not prohibitively expensive.
"By the time we make liquid CO2 we have spent approximately 50 kilojoules [of electricity] per mole of CO2." Compare that, Lackner said, to the average power plant in the U.S. which produces one mole of CO2 with every 230 kilojoules of electricity.
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"In other words, if we simply plugged our device in to the power grid to satisfy its energy needs, for every roughly 1000 kilograms [of carbon dioxide] we collected we would re-emit 200, so 800 we can chalk up as having been successful," he said.
Lackner told CNN the biggest cost was at the "back-end" of the collector, primarily the technology used to release the CO2 from the sorbent.
He said for that reason, on a cost-basis, the "synthetic tree" could not compete with modern coal-fired power plants that are designed to release fewer carbon emissions than their older predecessors. But he said when compared to the cost of retro-fitting an existing coal plant, the "synthetic tree" becomes more viable.
"The bottom line is we have in this way the ability to deal with the problem at a cost which is somewhat higher than on a coal-fired power plant retro-fit, but not much higher."
Besides, he said, the technology is not being developed as an alternative to the carbon capture and storage methods currently being tested for large-scale use on coal-fired power stations. He's targeting carbon that's already in the air.
The concept of the "synethic tree" has caught the imagination of one of the first scientists to warn the world about global warming, Lackner's colleague at Columbia University, Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Professor Wally Broecker.
"I'm extremely excited about this. I think this is something that the world's going to have to have, unfortunately," Broecker told CNN from Madrid where he received a BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his work on the issue of climate change.
Broecker told CNN most people still don't recognize the magnitude of the task the world faces in reducing global carbon emissions, and |
more than two weeks against North America's global superstars.
"Please ask me again in 24 hours," Ginobili said after Argentina's 82-77 victory over Brazil and former coaching mentor Ruben Magnano, "because I just want to enjoy this moment before I think about the USA."Yankees right-hander Michael Pineda is having an incredible season. In just 11.1 innings, he’s struck out 17 batters without walking any, a streak that includes — or was caused by, depending on which way you want to point the causal arrow — 6.2 innings of perfect baseball on April 10. A 39.5 percent strikeout rate, even over two starts, is really good, but he’s got another 30 or so starts to make this year. That’s a hot first week from a peripherals standpoint, but J.A. Happ’s done the same thing, more or less, and it hasn’t been that interesting.
But this isn’t a normal pitcher. This is Michael Pineda.
Pineda’s one of those guys who will always be defined by his prospect hype — the 6-foot-7 righty topped out at no. 16 on Baseball America’s prospect list before the 2011 season; Pineda made 28 starts for the Mariners that year, striking out a batter per inning back when that was harder to do and carrying a 3.03 ERA into the All-Star break. By May, Pineda was drawing comparisons to CC Sabathia, and by June, opposing hitters had stopped taking their bats along to face Pineda; instead, they were going to the plate toting a shepherd’s crook, a sling, and a bag of rocks. He tired down the stretch and posted a 5.12 ERA in his last 10 starts, but with Félix Hernández only 25 years old and coming off a Cy Young, the Mariners seemed set at the top of the rotation for years to come.
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Except, that offseason, Seattle traded Pineda, along with pitcher Vicente Campos, to New York for catcher Jesus Montero and pitcher Hector Noesi. This is my favorite baseball trade at least of the past decade, maybe ever, because players like Pineda and Montero — at the time BA’s no. 6 prospect in all of baseball — never get traded for each other. It was a stunning act of self-confidence on the part of both front offices — “I know your top prospect better than you do” — and it could not have gone worse for either side. Montero moved off catcher to DH and has posted a career.253/.295/.398 slash line, was suspended in 2014 after an ice-cream-related dustup with a scout, and has bounced from Seattle to Toronto to Baltimore since his last big league at-bat in 2015.
Pineda missed all of 2012 and 2013 with an injured throwing shoulder, and in fits and starts over three seasons and change since, has posted a 101 ERA+, but averaged only 24 starts and 138 innings a year. Like Martin Guerre, he went away for a long time, and when he came back, wasn’t the man everyone thought he was. Now 28 years old, Pineda will be a free agent after the season, and he’s still something of an unknown quantity. But since he flashed such brilliance, at such a young age, it’s been hard to stop believing in him.
At this point in his career, Pineda’s an unconventional power pitcher. He still throws fairly hard — his fastball averages a shade under 95 miles an hour and last year topped out at 98.8 — and has a swing-and-miss slider and a changeup. The weird thing about Pineda, however, is that he doesn’t really have a pitch with glove-side break.
Breaking pitches almost always break toward the pitcher’s glove side, which is the source of the platoon effect: a same-handed hitter sees a slider coming in, lines it up, then misses as it breaks away like a string being pulled away from a cat. Pineda’s slider breaks to the glove side, but by only a couple of inches; it breaks almost straight down.
Since coming back from his shoulder problems in 2014, Pineda’s fastball has changed. Brooks Baseball classifies it as a cutter, but PITCHf/x still calls it a fastball. Either way, it breaks arm-side, as does Pineda’s changeup. The combined effect is a slight (about 20 points of OPS) reverse-platoon split: He’s better against lefties than righties.
During his first start of 2017, in Tampa Bay on April 5, the Fox Sports 1 booth threw it down to Ken Rosenthal, who delivered a report on Pineda that included this line: “One of the interesting things about Michael Pineda is that his stats just don’t add up.”
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That’s certainly true of Pineda this season. Despite his eye-popping strikeout and walk numbers (his xFIP is 1.20, the best of any starter in baseball as of Friday), Pineda’s ERA stands at 3.97, thanks to a four-run, 3.2-inning performance in that April 5 start. So it looks like Pineda’s had one really good start and one really bad start.
Only that doesn’t tell the whole story, because he got absolutely hosed in his first start. Pineda’s third pitch of the season was an elevated cutter out over the outer half of the plate, and Corey Dickerson chopped it out to left center for a leadoff home run. Since then, Pineda’s given up nine hits, and at least five were cheap. The Rays touched up Pineda for seven more hits in his first game. One was a pop fly off the catwalk at the Trop for a Logan Morrison single. Another would have gotten Pineda out of the second without allowing a run if it hadn’t gone through a gator-chomping Starlin Castro; instead, he went on to give up three runs in the inning. And two more hits were slow rollers that eluded shortstop Ronald Torreyes for reasons that to this day elude me. An inning after Evan Longoria hit a scalding liner for a double to break up Pineda’s perfect game, Morrison homered to the first row of the right-center-field seats, scraping past the wall by a margin so thin it inspired the YES Network booth to invoke the name of Jeffrey Maier.
Pineda’s thrown 164 pitches this year; 31 of them have been swung on and missed, and only two of them have been hit for line drives. He’s pitching closer to his peripherals than his ERA.
To a certain extent, this version of Pineda has always been there. The slider’s always been Pineda’s out pitch (19 of those 31 whiffs have come on sliders), and he’s always thrown a lot of them. What’s new is his use of the changeup, once a distant third in his repertoire; Pineda threw 14 of them (out of 93 pitches) during his perfect game bid — the highest percentage since August 26, 2015. Consequently, Pineda threw only 34 cutters, his lowest fastball/cutter usage rate ever.
It turns out that the changeup might be pretty good, because of how it interacts with the cutter. The arm-side movement on the change is similar to the cutter, though slightly more pronounced, and the changeup comes in around about 5 or 6 miles an hour slower. Pineda threw one past Mallex Smith in his first start that looked like it teleported from one side of Smith’s bat to the other. The catch is Pineda’s changeup doesn’t really have an ideal velocity spread from his cutter. Cole Hamels’s changeup, which is going to end up making him close to $200 million when all’s said and done, comes in about 9 miles an hour slower than his fastball. The pitch Morrison hit out was a changeup that came in at almost 90 miles an hour. But most of the time, it fools hitters into thinking it’s a fastball, which is the point; it’s early, but hitters are whiffing on Pineda’s cutter more in 2017 than they ever have before. If he keeps using it this heavily, the changeup is the legitimate third pitch all good starters need to get by.
We keep believing in prospects like Pineda for so long because it’s hard to accept that what made them great in the first place might not still be there. Maybe, after five years of injury and inconsistency, something’s finally clicked. If Pineda’s the Martin Guerre of baseball, it’s worth remembering how The Return of Martin Guerre ends: The original Martin Guerre shows back up.What could compel two young college grads to move to an old homestead on a ridgetop in rural West Virginia?
A grittier lifestyle of outdoor living, a chance to redefine what success meant to us, the passion to live an authentic life, and an opportunity to answer the “what if” of saying yes to anything life can throw at you.
For years, long before even our marriage was a certainty, my boyfriend and I dreamed of the Big Laurel Learning Center. Ian’s connection began his first year of college during an intentional spring break service trip; two years later he took me along with him.
Our passion for the place grew with the intensity of our relationship. We fell in love with the ramshackle buildings, the sprawling, forested mountaintops, and the quirky community of liberal Catholic Nuns that had called this place home for forty years.
Big Laurel took on a life of its own in our heads, the great pipe dream and “what if” question of our abilities. Having lived in cities for our whole lives, both of us yearned to move to the country, stretch out and pursue hobbies that existed only as dreams in our heads. We wanted livestock: a flock of chickens and a summer pig. I envisioned the overgrown garden lush with edible greenery. The woods inconspicuously growing ginseng and mushroom logs. We saw the place as the perfect destination to mesh our skills and passion, a place that we could both be of benefit to and benefit from. And by working through AmeriCorps, we could get paid to live there.
Things moved quickly, as the important things in life always seem to do. Within nine months of meeting for the first time our relationship turned serious: promises were shared and a wedding was planned.
Making the Move
Everything seemed so perfect — in concept. But actually packing every belonging into our midsize SUV and driving the nine hours to make this dream a reality catapulted our idealist optimism from the comfort of theoretic to the stark uncertainty of reality.
Still, the leap into the unknown was made. Newlyweds of two weeks, we crossed state borders, and moved into a living organism of a derelict mansion on top of a mountain with far more rooms than we could ever heat in the winter. This house depends on massive barrels of rainwater, and a passable wifi connection is only available for a few weeks of each month. Forget cell service; that’s only accessible at the bottom of the mountain.
And our closest neighbors and coworkers? They are two Catholic Sisters that are more frequently seen on quads than afoot.
Key Facts About Big Laurel and the JASMER Land Trust
– JASMER is an Appalachian land trust started by the visionary Edwina Pepper in the late 60’s in an attempt to stop the segmenting of land in the region and to help preserve its natural beauty. It now holds close to 500 acres.
– Edwina Pepper lived on the mountain ridge in a rambling, forever growing stone house with her grand nieces and nephews. They created a sustainable homestead and specialized in crafts like wood working, pottery, essays on mountain living, organic gardening and the promotion of Appalachian culture. A big contribution they made was publishing the Mountain Call, a journal that was published right in the home and distributed throughout the community. (Ian and I now reside in Edwina’s old home, the Knob House.)
– In the early 70’s, Edwina Pepper advertised in the Mountain Call for a few teachers to come and form a school on the mountain ridge in order to educate the local children that couldn’t make the hike everyday to the school below. This call was answered by two nuns, Sister Kathy O’Hagan and Sister Gretchen Shaffer. They formed the Big Laurel School, a one room school that was operational from 1976-1988.
– Now, the Sisters still live on the mountain and run Big Laurel, though the school has been converted into a retreat center that hosts groups year round for educational service opportunities that teach about Appalachian culture, environmental sustainability, and the effects of coal mining on the region.
– Ian and I have taken AmeriCorps positions at Big Laurel, which means for the next 11 months we will be living in and maintaining Edwina Pepper’s old home, working in the local schools as teacher aids or after school programmers, and doing whatever we can on the premises of Big Laurel to help farther its mission as an Appalachian, ecological learning center.
Our Roles as Caretakers of the Knob House
In essence, we have been granted access to the sandbox of our dreams. Scattered throughout the property are abandoned buildings crammed with goods left behind years ago. High quality garden tools may show up in one shed, while another reveals sewing machines, drill presses, and chicken feed dispensers. Fruit trees are being choked out by the encroaching forest, and the old chicken coop can just be seen through the heavy brush that has grown up around it. This place positively groans with the weight of its own history, and it’s in desperate need of some caretakers. And that is the job that Ian and I have enthusiastically taken on.
This blog is going to be a record of these adventures. As two city dwellers, can we actual adapt to such a rural lifestyle? Will Ian and be able to keep chickens alive in the winter? Will the garden’s heavy clay soil impede the growth of anything we plant? Will the loneliness and isolation caused by our useless cell phones make us go crazy? Will our idealistic dreams be proven naive and leave us disheartened and bitter by next summer? Right now there is no way of knowing, so the only way to go is forward, with as much passion and enthusiasm as we can muster. And I can hardly wait to get started.
Six Month Update:
So many good things have come out of our time at Big Laurel. Ian and I have spent countless hours working in our new community. We’ve made big improvements to our homestead, expanded our livestock collection to include laying hens, silkie chickens, guinea fowl and meat rabbits. A pig is in the works as Ian continues to build a pen out of pallets we collect on the side of the road. We’ve also been blessed to be a host for numerous college groups that have used Big Laurel as a service site, including Wheeling Jesuit University and Calvin College. Best of all, after much thought and prayer Ian has accepted the position of Director of Big Laurel for the next two years.
All this to say, our Appalachian homesteading adventure is only just beginning! Thank you for reading and please consider following along by subscribing to my newsletter!The IMSA race-winning factory Viper GTS-R program could be poised for a branding change following a realignment of Chrysler’s manufacturer lineup.
Chrysler Group LLC announced Tuesday a consolidation of its brands, which will see SRT (Street and Racing Technology) absorbed under the Dodge nameplate.
As a result, the Detroit automaker’s signature performance car will return to being known as a Dodge Viper, effective immediately, while other former SRT vehicles will also fall under the Dodge umbrella.
Ralph Gilles, the President and CEO of the now-defunct SRT brand, continues with Chrysler as the Senior Vice President of Product Design and President and CEO of Motorsports.
“I want to thank Ralph for his dedication to the SRT brand,” said Sergio Marchionne, Chairman and CEO, Chrysler Group LLC. “Under Ralph’s leadership, the SRT brand expanded its vehicle lineup to include more highly customized models and received numerous automotive awards and distinctions.”
Despite the shakeup, no significant changes are expected for the factory Viper GTS-R program in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. However, it’s unclear if the Riley Technologies-built car will immediately be rebadged as a Dodge or if the SRT Motorsports team name will be changed.
The GTLM class doesn’t return to action until the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen on June 28-29.As Irma barrels toward the Florida coast, one alligator farm is taking extra precautions to make sure its residents stay put.Keepers at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm began their preparations for Hurricane Irma by draining some of the water out of the enclosure where more than 200 alligators and crocodiles live. That way, the gators won't be able to swim out of the enclosure if the water rises."As they feel the low pressure come in, they all submerge to the bottom and they wait," John Brueggen with the farm told WJXX-TV. "Everywhere in the park is a minimum of two fences and in some places, there's three."Venomous snakes that reside in the facility are secured in pillow cases and then locked in boxes that have air holes, which Brueggen said calms the animals down and keeps them safe.It takes less than five hours to secure all of the birds and monkeys on the property, which are then secured within indoor kennels.The larger birds, however, take refuge in the farm's public restrooms."It worked beautifully last year," Brueggen said. "The bathrooms a great place. Easy to clean. We can bleach it from one end to the other."In our eagerness to tackle inequality, we run the risk of fetishing its victims
Complaining about victimhood mentality and victimhood politics is perhaps easier for the right-wing, who tend to agree more with individual explanations to social problems and an individual’s culpability if things turn out wrong. It’s sometimes expressed in a Littlejohnish “spineless-progressives-pandering-to-whingers-only-makes-them-whinge-more” way, which blames legitimate victims no matter what. Indeed, the very word “victimhood” chips away at a victim’s legitimacy, as if they are whining, wallowing, exaggerating or lying. That all makes it difficult territory for progressives, who believe real injustice happens every day and should be highlighted and resolved.
But progressive liberals should also worry about the allure of victimhood politics, because it’s even easier for them to end up in this unhelpful cul-de-sac. This is because progressives are, or should be, in the business of helping marginalised or oppressed groups. In trying to do so progressives sometimes attribute a kind of superior virtue or presumed authority to those who are victimised, and a reluctance to disagree with anyone who claims to feel like a victim. But this incentivises everyone and anyone to declare themselves as society’s victims too, divorced from any significant personal experience of suffering or oppression. And, when government makes available funding to resolve said grievance, a cottage industry emerges with the incentive is to keep the whole thing going. The danger is an identity politics of aggressively competing victimhoods, in which groups of people, based on religious, national, ethnic, sexual, or whatever else identity they chose, demand to have their victimhood status recognised and something done about it. This quashes all debate and moral reasoning, and in the end does little to resolve genuine oppression and suffering.
In a 1999 article for the New York Review of Books, Ian Buruma argued that there is strange contentment that comes with feeling like you’re oppressed (rather than actually being oppressed which really is not nice). Victims, he said, “cannot escape a momentary feeling of vicarious virtue”. He claims to have felt it himself – much to his own shame – as a Jew visiting Auschwitz, each time a German walked past. Buruma even thought he detected a shade of envy in privileged groups that they too can’t be victims of similarly sufficient magnitude. This, he stressed, was not to deny, belittle or take pleasure in the historical suffering of many groups, much less the present suffering. What he spotted was a bigger trend at play, where ‘communal identity is based on sentimental solidarity of remembered victimhood’. People were increasingly desirous to wear the scars of others, almost as a badge of honour.
Buruma thought people liked to feel like society's victims, even where they were personally doing rather well, because modern life hollows out our identities. Hyper-capitalism is reducing meaningful beliefs and identity to fast food restaurants, sterile movies and empty gestures. But people want and perhaps need the authentic, the real, and the genuine in life. And so in an external world in which everything seems so empty, we turn inward in a search for authenticity. The only thing that can deliver authenticity is our feelings. And what more powerful feeling than victimhood and struggle?
Nothing more than feelings
It's quite true that feelings have become something of a modern obsession (Will Davies in his excellent new book about happiness calls feelings ‘the new religion’). They are being elevated to the highest measure of what it means to be human: what matters is how we feel about something. And a growing number of writers – most recently Mick Hume in his new book ‘Trigger Warning’ – think that people’s feelings are fast becoming the only test of whether something should be allowed. Prioritising feelings invariably means that if those precious feelings are hurt, upset, or offended, then these things should be banned or stopped.
Certainly it feels sometimes like everyone is on a single handed mission to find reasons to feel like, and declare themselves to be, a victim. Of course feelings do matter, but how someone feels about something should not be the sole arbiter of how decisions are made. Of course it's difficult to understand what it’s like being a victim unless you are one (there's a bustling academic literature on'micro-aggression' about this). But this makes it incredibly difficult to make reasoned judgements about who is and who is not a legitimate victim, since everyone can find a way to feel oppressed, either historically, vicariously or presently. Scots feel oppressed by the English; the English feel oppressed by Scottish nationalists; Muslims feel oppressed by government; the far right feel oppressed by politically correct establishment; women feel oppressed by men; men’s rights activists feel oppressed by feminists; and on and on and on in a never ending and renewable cycle.
I suspect the internet makes this worse, because it provides unlimited opportunity to find reasons to feel victimised and assert that claim to the world. Take the modern scourge, internet trolling. Many people – I’ve documented some of them in my book The Dark Net – are genuinely tormented and terrorised by trolls. Others appear to almost revel in it. If you’re not getting trolled, you’re obviously not famous enough. Being trolled by strangers on the net gives you the chance to show how hard things are for you, how right you were, and how noble and magnanimous you are in sharing your suffering with the world. It is very rarely mentioned that the victims of trolls are often far more often privileged, wealthy, happy, and successful than their perceived oppressors, who are often frustrated, jealous, and lonely.
Identity anti-politics
There are lots of reasons for progressive to guard against feeling based victimhood politics. First, it’s inherently anti-political. Politics is about disagreement, argument and debate. Feelings, especially those relating to victimhood, cannot really be argued with, debated or questioned – ‘only meekly accepted’, as Buruma put it. Arguing over degrees of victimhood replaces moral reasoning, since victims aren’t always right. This can be used as justification for bad behaviour. Consider the recent case of the Goldsmiths Equalities Officer, Bahar Mustafa. She asked white people not to attend an event for black and ethnic minority students. I understand the thinking – although disagree – which was to create space for minority groups where social inequality is temporarily suspended, thereby enabling them to speak out on issues which might be difficult to do in other settings. When defending this decision, she argued that she could not be racist or sexist to white men, as she is a BAME woman. Bahar identified herself as a victim. Not personally, but by virtue of her historic status as a member of a victim group. As a victim, eternally and forever a victim, she couldn’t victimise others, especially people who are not victims, like white men. But if only those who claim to feel victimised that can truly speak about it, politics stops being a world of equals people and ideas. That leads toward a world of self-censorship and hecklers’ vetoes.
In a strange way, victimhood politics can also keep genuine victims oppressed. In 1950 Bertrand Russell wrote an essay called The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed. He argued that people tend to imagine those who are oppressed have some kind of superior moral quality. It started with Rousseau’s noble savage, if not before, and has been applied to women, to nationalities, to the proletariat etc. Russell said those admiring these superior qualities prefer to sentimentalise them, rather than actually live as them. (As to the causes of this behaviour, Russell is not entirely clear). The belief in 19th Century Britain that women were spiritually superior to men – better, you see – was a reason to keep them out of the messy business of economics and politics. These great spiritual beings were not to be sullied by actual power or personal agency. Proletarians weren’t to be given any true power, since that power would corrupt them. “Reverence” as Russell put it, “was a consolation for inferiority”.
Worse, I think, is that the more we focus on redressing people’s surface feeling of being a victim, the less time and enthusiasm we have to left to resolve deep and structure problems. If everyone declares themselves as victims, then every claim, no matter how grand or trivial, is put together in the same to-do tray, and whoever shouts loudest gets resolution. If Twitter is any guide, we appear to be more worried about internet trolling and Tim Hunt’s (probably / possibly) sexist remarks than we are about ISIS butchering innocent people and North Korea. Some oppressions are objectively worse than others, and we should focus more energy on them.
At the very edges of this problem, the constant vigilance – the countless declarations of our society or our institutions being riddled with racism, sexism, Islamophobia etc – can become a counsel of despair. It can convince victims their cause is helpless, that society is inexorably set against them; thereby pushing them further away. That surely leads to a society which is even less fair, since marginalised groups stay on the margins. You will find this sense of victimhood sitting squarely behind many of today’s extreme political movements. British Muslims who join or are inspired by al-Qaeda or ISIS are often not themselves particularly poor or in any sense oppressed – seek to personally identify with the (genuine) oppression of other Muslims around the world. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who murdered 77 people in Oslo in 2011 was fairly well off and educated, and yet claimed he (by which he meant White Europeans) were victims of cultural Marxism trying to destroy his culture and religion. The mother of the Tunisian gunman Seifeddine Rezgui, who killed dozens of holidaymakers, said her son was a victim. All in some sense, believing they are victims, and as such their cause was just.
What is to be done?
So what to do? Progressives want a society which, generally speaking, recognises there are victims in society (both individuals and groups); that things aren’t fair; that some groups – on the basis of historical circumstance, current economic status, deep rooted prejudice or whatever – have a life that’s harder and opportunities fewer than we would like. I recognise, too, that it’s exceptionally difficult to determine who is and is not a legitimate victim in any kind of objective way. I've changed my mind several times about publishing this article for this very reason, since many groups are routinely victimised and I want them to shout about it, because the first step in creating a society which is fairer requires injustice being exposed. What's more, victimhood politics is most powerful when there is some truth to it. When an independent jury (who saw all the available evidence) decided that Mark Duggan’s killing by the Met police was lawful, it sparked yet more demonstrations about Met police racism. This wouldn’t have provoked a response had there been absolutely no evidence whatsoever of institutional racism inside the police. If the risk of constant vigilance of oppression is a bit of victimhood politics, then it’s surely a price worth paying.
Nevertheless its negative side effects should be minimised. The progressive must be on guard that victimhood is never fetishized, is never equated with some mystical superior virtue or assumed moral authority, and that feelings don't become the arbiter of what is right. Above all, the progressive should not seek out a victimhood identity for themselves for the purposes of moral rectitude and righteous indignation. Because in the end, this obscures sight of genuine injustices and fuels a victimhood mentality that does nothing to help genuine victims, and most likely harms their cause.Fitness junkies are used to having relatively open access to Red Rocks Amphitheatre’s many steps and benches for morning workouts, but the city of Denver just announced a private fitness program that will close the amphitheater to the nonpaying public for more than an hour once each week, starting Saturday.
The HealthOne Red Rocks Fitness Challenge will close the popular mountain amphitheater once a week, mostly on Saturday mornings between 7 and 8 a.m. The event costs participants $150 for the season and provides them with personal trainers (assigned to groups), medical experts and workout regimens, according to Red Rocks’ website.
The site says Red Rocks sees more than 500,000 visitors each year who specifically head to Morrison for the fitness scene — hiking, biking, running and training in and around the storied space.
Denver-based personal trainer Christopher Flower is one of those people, and he’s not pleased that the city-owned, open-to-the-public venue will be closed during such busy hours.
“Saturday mornings are prime time for anyone, not just trainers, who wants to go up there for a workout,” Flower said Thursday. “Red Rocks is so great because it doesn’t have to be extreme fitness. A hike, a walk, a run — all of that’s great, and cutting into our time up there on a Saturday or Sunday morning, when people don’t have to work, that’s just too bad. I hate to hear that.”
The city hasn’t heard much push-back from the community, according to Kristin Rust, communications and marketing director for Arts & Venues Denver, the city agency which operates Red Rocks.
“We’re doing all we can to get the word out so people can plan,” Rust said via e-mail. “We tried to keep it quite early (because) it is very popular around 8 a.m.”
Early-rising nonparticipants will be asked to clear out of Red Rocks at 6:30 a.m. on the specified days, Rust said. The venue’s top entrance will be the only open gate between 6:30 and 8:10 a.m. on those days, and participants in the HealthOne Red Rocks Fitness Challenge will check in with their wristbands. Nonparticipants will be allowed into the park after 8:10 a.m.
Park limits
For a complete list of closings, visit blogs.denverpost.com/travel/By Chad Kautzer
The situation for academics in Turkey has dramatically worsened since the failed coup on July 15, a matter of increasing importance given the investigations, firings, deportations, trials, and detentions of academics even prior to the coup. In January of this year, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had already stretched the term “terrorist” enough to apply it to over one thousand members of Academics for Peace for publishing a petition. This threat to academics was foreshadowed in previous attacks on journalists and opposition lawmakers.
We are now in a new era. Shortly after the failed coup carried out by a small faction in the Turkish military, Turkey’s Council of Higher Education (YÖK) called for the resignation of 1,577 deans of public and private universities, instituted a travel ban on academics, and called for academics out of the country to immediately return to Turkey. The firings and investigations have increased. Over 1,000 private schools and 15 universities have been shuttered, over 15,000 employees in the Ministry of Education have been suspended, and over 21,000 teachers have had their licenses revoked. Less than a week after the coup attempt, President Erdoğan declared a three-month state of emergency (allowing him to circumvent Parliament and rule by decree) and suspended the European Convention on Human Rights.
Responding to international pressure, Erdoğan has recently made a conciliatory gesture, withdrawing cases against some of the individuals charged with insulting him (there are over 2,000 such cases), including against some opposition party leaders. While important for the individuals involved, these concessions do not address either the purge of academic institutions or the deep institutional changes that are already underway or planned for the near future. Erdoğan has been clear that he desires the formalization of his rule in an “executive presidency,” which would require an amendment to the Turkish Constitution. As Prime Minister Binali Yildirim recently told a Bloomberg reporter, this system is necessary “for stability and security. Under the presidential system, there will be no one attempting such an adventure [i.e. a coup]. Then, an absolute will be in charge.”
Although the situation is dire, there are actions we can take to support academics being persecuted and silenced in Turkey. Below I list seven possible actions, beginning with the most difficult. If you have suggested additions, email me at academicsus@gmail.com and I’ll create a revised list here.
Investigate whether your institution can temporarily host or hire an academic currently at risk in Turkey. Some institutions do this directly and some work with third-party organizations, such as Scholars at Risk. Your institution can also become a member of the Scholars at Risk Network, supporting their work through annual membership dues.
Review any academic or financial relations between your institution and academic institutions in Turkey. These might include joint research projects, grants, or faculty and student exchanges. Such relations can be used as leverage to pressure institutions in Turkey to respect academic freedom.
Use the resources of your institution and the public platforms available to you to disseminate knowledge about the plight of academics in Turkey. This could involve, for example, organizing talks, exhibitions, and press conferences, or producing films and publications.
Organize and participate in political actions and lobbying campaigns directed at Turkish officials and/or officials in your own government. This might be a protest at the Turkish Embassy, making phone calls, or something more creative. Academics for Peace, for example, has a campaign to send letters to university rectors in Turkey, asking them to reinstate academics fired for political reasons. It is particularly important to lobby officials in the United States and European Union member states, given their deep ties to the Turkish government.
Connect with others (both individuals and organizations) who care about this issue, so you can stay informed and motivated. Scholars at Risk, Amnesty International, and the Middle East Studies Association, to name just a few, have email alerts. Like Facebook pages that disseminate news about academics in Turkey and information about actions to support them, such as those of Research Institute on Turkey (RIT) and International Solidarity with Academics in Turkey (ISAT), which I recently created. ISAT also has an email list you can subscribe to by emailing academicsus@gmail.com.
Ask your college, university, professional organization, or union to publish a statement supporting academics in Turkey and send it to officials in Turkey and in your own government. Here is a letter from the Middle East Studies Association that was endorsed by over 40 professional organizations. You can also create petitions and open letters for others to sign, as with this open letter to U.S. officials and this international petition addressed to Turkish officials.
Sign the petitions and open letters. Although this is the easiest action to take, it is still important. These petitions and letters can: (a) communicate the depth and breadth of support to media outlets and government officials, (b) encourage academics in Turkey, and (c) serve as organizing tools to build political networks that facilitate future actions.
Chad Kautzer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Lehigh University. He is the author of Radical Philosophy: An Introduction (Routledge, 2015), co-editor, with Eduardo Mendieta, of Pragmatism, Nation, and Race: Community in the Age of Empire (Indiana University Press, 2009), and administrator of International Solidarity with Academics in Turkey (ISAT).
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If you would like to submit a contribution to the blog, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us via the submission form here.The 1975 will release a new album this year titled Music For Cars. The band’s frontman Matty Healy made the news public on Thursday (Apr. 27) during an interview on Beats 1 Radio. This album follows last year’s I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it. No word yet on the release date — check out a few quotes from the interview below.
"The next record’s called ‘Music For Cars.’ That’s the title and it references our 2nd EP or our 3rd EP." @Truman_Black @the1975 pic.twitter.com/X7pv8hxr9w — Beats 1 (@Beats1) April 27, 2017
"We were always gonna do a trilogy of records. I'm not saying that after this album it's the end of @the1975, but it's the end of an era." pic.twitter.com/tSwDWIFqSt — Beats 1 (@Beats1) April 27, 2017
Check out our Q&A with the 1975 here.
This article originally appeared on Stereogum.Complex decisions are best left to your unconscious mind to work out, according to a new study, and over-thinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes.
The research suggests the conscious mind should be trusted only with simple decisions, such as selecting a brand of oven glove. Sleeping on a big decision, such as buying a car or house, is more likely to produce a result people remain happy with than consciously weighing up the pros and cons of the problem, the researchers say.
Thinking hard about a complex decision that rests on multiple |
(AP) — There have been millions of words, decades of video and reams of commentary devoted to their story. It’s been dissected, defended and decried at kitchen tables and on cable news, in tabloids and classrooms.
But on Tuesday night, as millions of voters watched and with the political stakes as high as they’ve ever been, Bill Clinton tried to make sense of it all and make the case for his wife, the newly minted Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“In the spring of 1971, I met a girl,” he began.
The former president’s tenth address to a Democratic convention was by far his most personal, a 42-minute tour through wedding proposals and Halloween parties, the deaths of parents and movie marathons.
Perhaps their worst moments — the Monica Lewinsky scandal, impeachment and legal battles that followed — were conspicuously omitted.
Instead, Bill Clinton cast himself as a passenger in his wife’s life, reshaping the story of much of their decades in politics.
The goal was to make Clinton, perhaps the most famous female politician in the world, yet a public figure her aides claim remains unknown, relatable to voters. He cast her as a liberal heroine of her own story, who fought for education reform, health care, civil rights, the disabled, 9/11 first responders and economically depressed rural areas.
“She’s the best darn change-maker I’ve ever met in my entire life,” he said. “This woman has never been satisfied with the status quo on anything. She always wants to move the ball forward. That is just who she is.”
He never once mentioned GOP nominee Donald Trump by name, dismissing Republican attacks on Clinton as “made up” and a “cartoon alternative.” Rather, Bill Clinton focused nearly exclusively on his wife’s achievements and how she’d influenced him.
“I have lived a long full blessed life. It really took off when I met and fell in love with that girl in the spring of 1971,” he said.
But it wasn’t only Clinton who broke a glass ceiling on Tuesday when she became the first female nominee of a major party. Should she win on Election Day, her husband will step into a singular role in American history: first gentleman.
The potential new title is perhaps the strangest twist in a political career known for its second acts. After health scares and political missteps, the Comeback Kid, as he was known in his first presidential race, could come back to Washington one last time.
In 2012, he acted as a powerful validator for President Barack Obama, electrifying the room as the party’s “explainer-in-chief.”
But, said Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, “This is different.”
“This is more personal,” said Podesta, who recalled riding to the convention hall with Bill Clinton as he touched up his 2004 convention address. “This is more about her.”
Bill Clinton felt pressure to perform for his wife and make up for his own missteps during her second presidential campaign.
Nearly 70, he’s also a bit frailer, a touch shakier, though aides and friends say his famous memory remains sharp. Some say his administration’s legacy has been repudiated by his own party, which shifted left during Obama’s time in office.
“God bless him, Bill even looks old now,” said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “He’s not the once and future king, he’s the once and past king.”
But no one doubts that Bill Clinton still wants to be at the center of the action. While aides have said he will not get a Cabinet post or a seat in the Situation Room should his wife win, Clinton has made clear that her closest adviser will remain involved with her administration, saying he’d likely have a role in managing the nation’s economy.
They remain a “two for one” package, as Bill Clinton famously said during his first presidential race. But on Tuesday night, he hinted, just barely, that Clinton perhaps is finally getting her part of the deal.
“I married my best friend,” he said. “And I really hoped that she choosing me and rejecting my own advice to pursue her own career was a decision she’d never regret.”
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Follow Lisa Lerer on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/llererBritish researchers have built a working Star-Trek-style “tractor beam” — a device that can attract or repel one object to another from a distance. It uses high-amplitude soundwaves to generate an acoustic hologram that can grasp and move small objects.
The technique, published in an open-access paper in Nature Communications October 27, has a wide range of potential applications, the researchers say. A sonic production line could transport delicate objects and assemble them, all without physical contact. Or a miniature version could grip and transport drug capsules or microsurgical instruments through living tissue.
The device was developed at the Universities of Sussex and Bristol in collaboration with Ultrahaptics.
University of Sussex | Levitation using sound waves
The researchers used an array of 64 miniature loudspeakers. The whole system consumes just 9 Watts of power, used to create high-pitched (40Khz), high-intensity sound waves to levitate a spherical bead 4mm in diameter made of expanded polystyrene.
The tractor beam works by surrounding the object with high-intensity sound to create a force field that keeps the objects in place. By carefully controlling the output of the loudspeakers, the object can be held in place, moved, or rotated.
Three different shapes of acoustic force fields work as tractor beams: an acoustic force field that resembles a pair of fingers or tweezers; an acoustic vortex, the objects becoming trapped at the core; and a high-intensity “cage” that surrounds the objects and holds them in place from all directions.
Previous attempts surrounded the object with loudspeakers, which limits the extent of movement and restricts many applications. Last year, the University of Dundee presented the concept of a tractor beam, but no objects were held in the ray.
The team is now designing different variations of this system. A bigger version aims at levitating a soccer ball from 10 meters away and a smaller version aims at manipulating particles inside the human body.
Asier Marzo, Matt Sutton, Bruce Drinkwater and Sriram Subramanian | Acoustic holograms are projected from a flat surface and contrary to traditional holograms, they exert considerable forces on the objects contained within. The acoustic holograms can be updated in real time to translate, rotate and combine levitated particles enabling unprecedented contactless manipulators such as tractor beams.
Abstract of Holographic acoustic elements for manipulation of levitated objects
Sound can levitate objects of different sizes and materials through air, water and tissue. This allows us to manipulate cells, liquids, compounds or living things without touching or contaminating them. However, acoustic levitation has required the targets to be enclosed with acoustic elements or had limited maneuverability. Here we optimize the phases used to drive an ultrasonic phased array and show that acoustic levitation can be employed to translate, rotate and manipulate particles using even a single-sided emitter. Furthermore, we introduce the holographic acoustic elements framework that permits the rapid generation of traps and provides a bridge between optical and acoustical trapping. Acoustic structures shaped as tweezers, twisters or bottles emerge as the optimum mechanisms for tractor beams or containerless transportation. Single-beam levitation could manipulate particles inside our body for applications in targeted drug delivery or acoustically controlled micro-machines that do not interfere with magnetic resonance imaging.I used to be of the opinion that for really far-out whacky stuff, you couldn’t beat Jerry Springer. You all know Jerry Springer—he was the showman who began a talk show in 1991 which within a few years became something of a voyeuristic freak-show, featuring topics like “Teenage Girls who Marry their Grandfathers,” a kind of real-life version of the Muppets’ song “I Am My Own Grandpa.” It has spawned a host of other talk-shows, all of which feature the same sort of sensationalistic format. For the longest time, I thought that Jerry couldn’t be beat for the unbelievably way-out.
Turns out that we have a new winner: Salon.com has published an article entitled, “5 reasons to suspect that Jesus never existed,” by Valerie Tarico. None of the stuff is the least bit new; there have always been the theological equivalent of Flat-earthers, or of people who claim to have been probed by big-eyed aliens aboard the mother-ship. But since the internet gives a platform to such people, some kind of response must be offered, lest the credulous among the internet community imagine that the Church has been struck terrified and mute by the 5 reasons offered by Ms. Tarico. Her 5 reasons to suspect that Jesus never existed may be examined one at a time.
Reason 1: “No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef” (i.e. “Jesus son of Joseph”; it sounds more scholarly in the Hebrew). That is, as the article goes on to say, “there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries,” and “there are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates.”
This is an astonishing thing to say, and reveals an immense ignorance of how history actually works. For example, there are no birth records, trial transcripts, or death certificate for Saul of Tarsus either (i.e. for St. Paul), but no one seriously doubts that he was born, tried by the Romans, and martyred in Rome in the sixth decade of the first century. And since Jesus was born, lived, and died in a little backwater of the Roman Empire known as Palestine, there is no reason to imagine that any pagan historian would take notice of Him until the movement He founded grew big enough to become a problem.
But actually, one of Jesus’ contemporaries did mention Him–not a pagan contemporary, but a Jewish one. As any first-year college student of the period knows, Josephus (born about 37 A.D.) mentions Jesus in his work Antiquities of the Jews. The bit mentioning Jesus has been reworked by the Christians, but most scholars say that the original text read as follows:
“At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians (named after him) has not died out.”
Josephus lived and died a Jew, and was never a Christian. There is not the slightest reason to suspect his reporting at this point, which accords well with the New Testament records written independently about the same time. Josephus’ history indeed constitutes “first-century secular evidence” supporting “the actuality” of Jesus.
Reason 2: “The earliest New Testament writers seem ignorant of the details of Jesus’ life, which become more crystalized in later texts.” That is, as the article goes on to state, “Paul seems unaware of any virgin birth, for example…What’s more, he never calls the twelve apostles Jesus’ disciples; in fact, he never says Jesus HAD disciples.”
Once again, this reveals a fundamental ignorance of the epistles of the New Testament and their nature. Paul was not writing a systematic theology, nor penning a commentary on the stories of Jesus. He was writing on the run to communities which had problems, trying his best to solve those problems from a distance. He had no reason to mention the Virgin Birth or the miracles of Jesus or His parables, or anything else unless it was directly relevant to the problems he was trying to solve. It is a tremendous non sequitur to jump from “Paul didn’t mention the Virgin Birth” to the conclusion, “And so obviously he had never heard of it.”
And in fact Paul did refer to the Twelve apostles/ disciples of Jesus. Take for example his words in Galatians 1:18-19: “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas [i.e. Peter] and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.” Or take for another example his words in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7:
“For what I received I delivered to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brethren at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.”
One could multiply examples, but these should be sufficient. Obviously Paul spoke of the twelve apostles and knew that “Jesus had disciples.” He wrote that he had met them and spent time with them. He was not ignorant of the details of Jesus’ life. It is Ms. Tarico who is ignorant of the details of Paul’s writings.
Reason 3: “Even the New Testament stories don’t claim to be first-hand accounts.” According to Ms. Tarico, “Even the Gospel stories don’t actually say, ‘I was there’.”
Well, actually, they do.
John in particular is emphatic that he was there and wrote as an eye-witness. He mentions the day on which certain events occurred, and even the hour of the day. Consider John 4:6: “Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus wearied as He was with His journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour”. Or see John 19:13-14: “When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Pavement. Now it was the day of the Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour”.
John thus writes with the keen eye of an eyewitness, recording even such small details as day and hour, just like one would in a court-room. And he expressly claims to have been with Jesus as He hung on the cross and died–see John 19:34-35: “One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.” John claims to be the one who leaned on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24).
One could go on, and give the ancient tradition recorded in Eusebius’ Church History that Mark wrote his gospel based on the reminiscences of Peter in Rome, but why bother? If one can’t read the New Testament, there is little point in reading Eusebius.
Reason 4: “The gospels, our only accounts of a historical Jesus, contradict each other.”
It is difficult to know how to respond to this one. Christians have long been aware that minor details of the same Gospel story differ somewhat from evangelist to evangelist, and they have been doing the work of harmonization from the time of St. Augustine or earlier. This is only to be expected. If four different people saw the same car accident, it is to be expected, if they were honest witnesses who had not got together to concoct the whole thing, that their stories would differ a bit in minor details. One witness might say that the driver of Car A wore a red shirt and another witness might say it was more brown in colour or that it was the driver of Car B who wore the red shirt. But these differences in minor details would not prove that the accident never in fact occurred. The differences would prove the opposite—that the accident had in fact occurred. If the witnesses were liars who were making the whole thing up, they would at least have taken care to get their stories straight. I am at a loss to understand how the minor differences in the Gospel reports of Jesus’ life suggest that in fact His life never happened.
Reason 5: “Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.”
This is true. Ms. Tarico correctly states that the various “modern scholars” have portrayed Jesus as a cynic philosopher, a charismatic Hasid, a liberal Pharisee, a conservative Rabbi, a Zealot revolutionary, and a nonviolent pacifist. She might also add to the list, “a non-existent person.” She correctly concludes that Jesus “cannot very well have been all of [these things] at the same time.” Indeed. No one suggests that He was. Each of the “modern scholars” (she uses the term generously) have created their own version of Jesus by taking the Gospel stories and suppressing in them the bits they don’t like. It’s easy enough to do, and can be done with any historical figure. But once again, this does nothing to discredit the existence of Jesus. It only discredits the modern scholars.
Ms. Tarico sums up her piece by suggesting that “Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity,” and that “We may never know for certain what put Christian history in motion.” It is worth while pausing to pursue this question. The apostles who proclaimed not only the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, but also His divinity, went all over their world with this proclamation, and most of them paid for it with their lives. Why would they do this? What did they have to gain? Ms. Tarico confesses that she has no clue. All she can say is “Only time will tell.” Indeed it will. Eventually time will give place to eternity, and all of us will stand before the dread judgment seat of Christ. All the more reason to pursue such questions more vigorously now while we still have time.
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Posted by the Orthodox Christian Network. You can find the Orthodox Christian Network on Google+.What. A. Game. That’s really all that can be said. Arkansas vs. Auburn will forever go down in history books as one of the greatest overtime games for the Razorbacks football program. With the big win, the Hogs position themselves very nicely for a run at making a bowl game, and maybe spoiling a season for a team or two. That remains to be seen. But let us bask in the light of this weekend’s shootout in Fayetteville.
The Arkansas Razorbacks have played in some of the best overtime games in college football history. Did we always win them? No, but the Hogs are 7-1 in overtime games that go into 3 or more overtimes. That’s the kind of stat you really have to love a team to know.
Nobody does overtime like the Arkansas Razorbacks. Of course, since the arrival of Bret Bielema, the Hogs WERE 0-3 in OT, but not anymore. This game was truly one of the most entertaining of the season. Free football is always great.
via GIPHY
So where does this Auburn’s game rank amongst the Razorbacks’ best overtime performances in the the new millennium? We got some stiff competition; Arkansas vs. Alabama 2003, Arkansas vs. Tennessee 2002, or the two 7OT games vs. Kentucky and Ole Miss? Just how many of these games involved Matt Jones? Let us take a stroll down memory lane. Here are the top 5 overtime games of the new millennium!DC has given us a first look at some covers that previously weren't available. Check them out below.
BATMAN ETERNAL #49
(W) Scott Snyder & Various (A) Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez (CA) Cliff Chiang
This month in BATMAN ETERNAL: The epic Bat-story over a year in the making comes to a stunning end! Gotham City is in flames! Villains are running wild in the streets! Bat-tech has been corrupted! And the mastermind behind it all has put a knife in Batman's ribs! How will the Dark Knight put an end to this nightmare...and how will it shape the face of Gotham City to come?
Item Code: JAN150301In Shops: 3/11/2015SRP: $2.99
EARTH 2: WORLD'S END #23
(W) Daniel H. Wilson & Various (A) Tyler Kirkham & Various (CA) R. B. Silva
Barda, her new Furies and Kalibak attack the world army as Earth-2 falls to Apokolips.
Item Code: JAN150244In Shops: 3/11/2015SRP: $2.99
JUSTICE LEAGUE UNITED #10 (Variant)
(W) Jeff Lemire (A) Neil Edwards, Jay Leisten (CA) Dan Hipp
"The Infinitus Saga" reaches its stunning conclusion! The combined might of the JLU, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Rannian War Fleet and the Thanagarians learn the true meaning of sacrifice as events unfold that will change the DC Universe forever!
Item Code: JAN150256In Shops: 3/11/2015SRP: $3.99Before construction could begin on new student housing at one of Oxford University’s 38 colleges, St. John’s, archaeologists were summoned to investigate the site in January 2008. After just a few hours of digging, one archaeologist discovered the remains of a 4,000-year-old religious complex—an earthwork enclosure, or henge, built by late Neolithic tribesmen, probably for a sun-worshiping cult. About 400 feet in diameter, the temple was one of the largest of Britain’s prehistoric henges, of which more than 100 have been found.
Later, the archaeologists found pits full of broken pottery and food debris suggesting that people had used the henge as a medieval garbage dump millennia after it had been dug. Excited, they began searching for items that might reveal details of daily life in the Middle Ages. Instead they found bones. Human bones.
“At first we thought it was just the remains of one individual,” says Sean Wallis of Thames Valley Archaeological Services, the company that did the excavating. “Then, to our surprise, we realized that corpses had been dumped one on top of another. Wherever we dug, there were more of them. Not only did we have a 4,000-year-old prehistoric temple, but now a mass grave as well.”
After one month of digging at the grave site and two years of lab tests, the researchers concluded that between 34 and 38 individuals were buried in the grave, all of them victims of violence. Some 20 skeletons bore punctures in their vertebrae and pelvic bones, and 27 skulls were broken or cracked, indicating traumatic head injury. To judge from markings on the ribs, at least a dozen had been stabbed in the back. One individual had been decapitated; attempts were made on five others.
Radiocarbon analysis of the bones convinced the archaeologists that the remains date from A.D. 960 to 1020—the period in which the Anglo-Saxon monarchy peaked in power. Originally from Germany, Anglo-Saxons had invaded England almost six centuries earlier, after the Roman Empire had fallen into disarray. They established their own kingdoms and converted to Christianity. After decades of conflict, England enjoyed a degree of stability in the tenth century under the rule of King Edgar the Peaceful.
But “peaceful” is a relative term. Public executions were common. British archaeologists have discovered some 20 “execution cemeteries” across the country—testifying to a harsh penal code that claimed the lives of up to 3 percent of the male population. One such site in East Yorkshire contains the remains of six decapitated individuals.
The Oxford grave, however, didn’t fit the profile of an execution cemetery, which typically contains remains of people put to death over many centuries—not all at once, as at Oxford. And execution victims tended to be various ages and body types. By contrast, the bodies buried at Oxford were those of vigorous males of fighting age, most between 16 and 35 years old. Most were unusually large; an examination of the muscle-attachment areas of their bones revealed extremely robust physiques. Some victims had suffered serious burns to their heads, backs, pelvic regions and arms.
The most telling clue would emerge from a lab analysis, in which scientists measured atomic variations within the skeletal bone collagen. The tests indicated that the men ate, on average, more fish and shellfish than did Anglo-Saxons.
The mounting evidence increasingly pointed to an astonishing conclusion: this was a mass grave of Viking warriors.
In the late eighth century a.d., the Vikings—a Scandinavian people from Denmark, Norway and Sweden—began a 300-year campaign of pillaging and piracy throughout Europe. Some scholars say that political changes (especially the emergence of fewer yet more powerful rulers) forced local Viking chieftains to seek new sources of revenue through foreign conquests. Others point to advances in shipbuilding that enabled longer voyages—allowing the Vikings to establish trade networks extending as far as the Mediterranean. But when an economic recession hit Europe in the ninth century, Scandinavian seamen increasingly turned from trading to pillaging.
Most historians believe that England suffered more from the Vikings than other European countries. In the first recorded attack, in A.D. 793, Vikings raided an undefended monastic community at Lindisfarne in the northeast. Alcuin of York, an Anglo-Saxon scholar, recorded the onslaught: “We and our fathers have now lived in this fair land for nearly three hundred and fifty years, and never before has such a terror been seen in Britain as we have now suffered at the hands of a pagan people. Such a voyage was not thought possible. The church of St. Cuthbert is spattered with the blood of the priests of God.”
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a contemporary historical account, records that the Vikings waged some 50 battles and destroyed or ravaged scores of settlements. Dublin, one of the largest Viking cities in the British Isles, became a major European slave-trading center, where, historians estimate, tens of thousands of kidnapped Irishmen, Scotsmen, Anglo-Saxons and others were bought and sold.
“In many respects the Vikings were the medieval equivalent of organized crime,” says Simon Keynes, a professor of Anglo-Saxon history at Cambridge University. “They engaged in extortion on a massive scale, using the threat of violence to extract vast quantities of silver from England and some other vulnerable western European states.”
“Certainly the Vikings did all these things, but so did everyone else,” says Dagfinn Skre, a professor of archaeology at the University of Oslo. “Although admittedly, the Vikings did it on a grander scale.”
Martin Carver, an emeritus professor of archaeology at the University of York, characterizes the antagonism between the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians as part of a wider clash of ideologies. Between the sixth and ninth centuries, Vikings in Scandinavia preferred to be organized “in loose confederations, favoring enterprise,” says Carver. But other parts of Europe, such as Britain, yearned for a more orderly, centralized government—and looked to the Roman Empire as a model.
Only one Anglo-Saxon kingdom—Wessex, ruled by Alfred the Great—is known to have withstood the Viking invasion. Alfred and his son, Edward, built up an army and navy and constructed a network of fortifications; then Edward and his successors wrested back control of those areas the Vikings had taken over, thus paving the way for English unification.
After decades of peace, Vikings again raided England, in A.D. 980. At the time, the Anglo-Saxon ruler was King Aethelred the Unraed (literally “the ill-advised”). As his name suggests, popular history has portrayed him as a mediocre successor to Alfred the Great and Edgar the Peaceful. The 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury wrote that Aethelred “occupied rather than governed” the kingdom. “The career of his life was said to have been cruel in the beginning, wretched in the middle and disgraceful in the end.”
To avert war, Aethelred paid the Vikings some 26,000 pounds in silver between A.D. 991 and 994. In the years that followed, the king employed many of them as mercenaries to discourage other Vikings from attacking England.
But, in A.D. 997, some of the mercenaries turned on their royal employer and attacked the Anglo-Saxon southern counties. In early A.D. 1002, Aethelred again tried to buy off the Vikings—this time with 24,000 pounds in silver.
The geopolitical situation changed in England’s favor only when Aethelred made an alliance with Normandy and sealed the deal by marrying the Duke of Normandy’s sister in A.D. 1002. Possibly emboldened by the support of a powerful ally, Aethelred decided to take pre-emptive action before the Danes again broke the truce.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Aethelred was “informed” that Danish mercenaries intended to “beguile him out of his life.” (It is unknown whether an informer learned of an actual plot, or if Aethelred and his council fabricated the threat.) Aethelred then set in motion one of the most heinous acts of mass murder in English history, committed on St. Brice’s Day, November 13, 1002. As he himself recounted in a charter written two years later, “a decree was sent out by me, with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle [weeds] amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination.”
Prior to 2008, the only known inhabitants of the St. John’s College garden had been the songbirds and squirrels that darted across the neatly cropped lawn and hid in an ancient beech tree. Generations of dons and students had strolled across that greenery, unsuspecting of what lay beneath.
The lab data indicating that the men buried there for 1,000 years had eaten lots of seafood, plus the burn markings and other evidence, convinced the archaeologists that the grave probably held victims of the St. Brice’s Day massacre. Aethelred himself recounted exactly how the residents of Oxford killed the Danes in a local church: “Striving to escape death, [the Danes] entered [a] sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make a refuge and defence for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs; but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the [building’s] timbers and burnt [it] down.”
Wallis, the archaeologist in charge at Oxford, surmises that the townspeople loaded the corpses onto a cart and drove out through the north gate of the city, past land that today encompasses the Oxford colleges of Balliol and most of St. John’s, then threw the Vikings into the prehistoric henge—the largest ditch nearest the city’s northern exit.
A year after this discovery, another team of investigators, from the company Oxford Archaeology, were looking for evidence of prehistoric activity at a site 90 miles to the southwest in the English county of Dorset, near Weymouth, when they discovered a second mass grave. This one held the skeletons of 54 well-built, fighting-age males, all of whom had been decapitated with sharp weapons, most likely swords. Lab tests of the teeth suggested the men were Scandinavians. The ratio between various types of oxygen atoms in the skeletons’ tooth enamel indicates the victims came from a cold region (one man from inside the Arctic Circle). Radiocarbon dating placed the victims’ deaths between A.D. 910 and 1030; historical records of Viking activities in England narrow that to between A.D. 980 and 1009. The corpses had been unceremoniously dumped in a chalk and flint quarry that had been dug hundreds of years earlier, possibly during Roman times. Although no historical account of the massacre exists, the archaeologists believe the Vikings were apprehended and brought to the site to be executed.
The discovery of the two mass graves may resolve a question that has long vexed historians. In the centuries following the St. Brice’s Day massacre, many chroniclers believed that the Danish community in England (a substantial percentage of the population) was targeted for mass murder, akin to a pogrom. Certainly there was undisguised hatred for the Scandinavians, who were described by contemporary writers as “a most vile people,” “a filthy pestilence” and “the hated ones.” But more recently, the massacre has been seen more as a police action against only those who posed a military threat to the government. The discovery of the two mass graves supports this view, since victims were found where the rebellious mercenaries would have been stationed: close to royal administrative centers (usually towns or important royal estates) on or near England’s south coast and in the Thames Valley. By contrast, no such graves have been found in the region of eastern England once known as the Danelaw, which was populated by descendants of Scandinavian settlers. “I would estimate that out of a total population of around two million in England, perhaps half were of Scandinavian or partly Scandinavian origin—most of whom were loyal subjects,” says Ian Howard, a historian writing a biography of Aethelred. “I think it inherently unlikely that the king ever intended to kill them all, as it would obviously have been impossible to do so.”
Far from being just a ghoulish footnote to medieval history, Aethelred’s massacre of the Danes likely reinforced Danish determination to attack England and set in motion a chain of events that would change the course of England’s future. In A.D. 1003, the year after the massacres, King Svein of Denmark launched his own assault against a much wider swath of Anglo-Saxon England. This renewed aggression continued off and on for more than a decade, inspiring a level of terror the Anglo-Saxons had not faced since the first Viking invasions a century and a half earlier. An Anglo-Danish text, the Encomium Emmae Reginae, written around A.D. 1041 or 1042, described the Danish war fleet of 1016: “What adversary could gaze upon the lions, terrible in the glitter of their gold...all these on the ships, and not feel dread and fear in the face of a king with so great a fighting force?”
Both circumstantial and historical evidence suggests that revenge was at least part of the motivation for Svein’s invasions. There were almost certainly blood ties between Aethelred’s victims and Danish nobility. According to medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury, Svein’s sister (or, possibly, half sister) Gunnhild was a victim of the St. Brice’s Day massacre (although her body has never been found). Neither her gender nor her royal blood saved her, probably because she was the wife of Pallig, one of the turncoat mercenaries. Wrote William of Malmesbury: “[She was] beheaded with the other Danes, though she declared plainly that the shedding of her blood would cost all England dear.”
Gunnhild’s words proved prophetic. The Danes ultimately conquered England, in A.D. 1016, and Canute, the son of Svein, was crowned the nation’s king in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral in January 1017. Twenty-five years later, the Anglo-Saxons would regain the crown, but only for a generation. The Scandinavians, who had refused to renounce the throne, embarked on yet another onslaught against England in September 1066—less than a fortnight before William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, launched his own invasion of the country.
Although the English pushed back the Scandinavian invaders, the effort so weakened the Anglo-Saxons that they were defeated by William at the Battle of Hastings, also in 1066. The Norman Conquest consolidated the unification of England, as the new rulers introduced a more centralized, hierarchal government. The Anglo-Saxons would rise again, their culture and language merging with that of their oppressors to produce a new nation—the predecessor of modern England, and eventually an empire that would span half the globe.
David Keys is The Independent’s archaeology correspondent.Preview | Recap | Notebook
Bobcats-Rockets Preview
Posted Oct 29 2013 1:02PM The addition of James Harden helped make the Houston Rockets a playoff team. They hope the arrival of Dwight Howard brings even more success. Wednesday night's opener in Houston against the inferior Charlotte Bobcats should provide a good chance to start in winning fashion. Just over a year ago, the Rockets had Jeremy Lin and not much else in terms of star power or even recognizable names on a young and inexperienced team. Houston traded for Harden just before the start of last season and he helped the Rockets return to the playoffs for the first time since 2009. Their offseason acquisition of Howard, combined with Harden's development, has catapulted the Rockets (45-37) from an afterthought in the Western Conference to a contender quicker than most anyone expected. The challenge, of course, is for the Rockets to live up to expectations. "We're definitely not going to be the favorite nor should we be, we've proven nothing," general manager Daryl Morey said. "We've got players that if we get them to gel and go the right way we give ourselves a shot to make some noise." Houston signed Howard to a four-year contract worth about $88 million after one season with the Lakers. They're hoping a change of scenery will help Howard re-establish himself as the top center in the NBA. "I'm excited to be here and I just want to win," Howard said. Howard played in 76 games last season, but admitted that he didn't feel right after offseason back surgery. His 17.1 points a game were the lowest he's had since he averaged 15.8 in his second season and the 12.4 rebounds were his fewest since 2006. The Rockets staff put him on a new training regimen and believe he's back to his old self. Harden had to adjust on the fly last season after his last-minute trade from Oklahoma City and is grateful to his teammates and coaching for making his transition easier. He and the rest of the Rockets aim to do the same thing for Howard this year. "We feel the same way about Dwight, making sure he's good and making sure he's in the best situations to be successful," Harden said. "And once we get him going everything will work itself out." Howard presents an immediate challenge for Charlotte ( |
nullify a trade.
You can take your pick, but I imagine most would revisit the decisions to part ways with Joe Thornton (sent to San Jose in 2005 for Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau) or Tyler Seguin (shipped to Dallas in 2013 for Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith, Matt Fraser and Joe Morrow).
Story continues
Waxing either of those deals makes a lot of sense, obviously. Both of those guys were proven offensive stars traded in (or before) their prime. Thornton’s a future Hall of Famer, Seguin’s one of the game’s current elite.
If you look up “bad idea” in the dictionary, one definition is “trading a superstar for two or three good players.” (Find it right next to “pivoting to video.”) Proof of idiocy: Bruins now have exactly zero players in the organization that arrived as a result of those two deals, either directly or indirectly.
I thought about devising an alternate history in which those two trades didn’t happen. Pushing ‘reset’ on Seguin is especially tempting because that wound is fresher and the aftermath is still haunting.
It was the first in a series of moves that caused them to slip from Eastern Conference powerhouse to squatters in league purgatory. After two Cup Final appearances during Seguin’s three seasons in Boston, they have a single playoff series win since.
Yes, Bruins fans might be a happier bunch these days if that trade never happened.
But most Bruins fans have probably already spent way too much time thinking about what life would be like if either No. 19 stuck around in Boston. That fantasyland ticket has been punched over and over and over again.
Instead, I wanted to explore a road less traveled. I thought about other instances – most of them centered around 2013 and everything in its wake — including but not limited to:
What if Jarome Iginla chose Boston instead of Pittsburgh in 2013?
What if Chris Kelly didn’t miss a wide open net and cost the Bruins a big goal in Game 4 of the 2013 SCF?
What if the Blackhawks didn’t score two in 17 seconds?
What if Dennis Seidenberg hadn’t torn his ACL and MCL in ‘13-14?
Toying with any of those outcomes may push the Bruins closer to a second Stanley Cup in three years and lead to a very different series of events in the years following.
But, ultimately, the most thought-provoking reversal I could think of may not result with the Bruins lifting multiple Cups. In fact, it might actually take away the only one they’ve got since the turn of the century.
That brings us to…
WHAT IF MARC SAVARD NEVER GOT HURT?
You likely already know the story, but Bruins center Marc Savard had his playing career cut short thanks to a number of concussions and the scary, lingering effects that terrorized him for years.
Savard’s final concussion came in January of 2011, during a game in Colorado. He was hit clean by Matt Hunwick, his head bounced off the glass, and his career was over at the age of 33.
But, for the purposes of this exercise, that’s not the incident we’ll focus on. Instead, let’s key in on the most notable (and brutal) concussion Savard suffered, the one he says was “the start of some really dark days” — the one handed to him by Matt Cooke 10 months prior.
Though it technically wasn’t a career-ending hit, that incident was the beginning of the end for Savard. He was cleared to play in the second round of the 2010 playoffs (when he famously scored the overtime-winner in his first game back) but he kept battling symptoms of post-concussion syndrome and missed the start of the following season. The follow-up in Colorado sealed the deal.
Here’s how Savard described the aftermath of the Cooke hit in piece he penned for The Players’ Tribune earlier this year:
I had these terrible headaches, and any loud noise or bright light was … I mean, it’s almost indescribable. If you’ve never had a concussion, I don’t know if words can do the feeling justice. Every little noise is like nails on a chalkboard, and you feel this dread so deep down inside your body.
So I pretty much lived a reverse lifestyle. I was in bed all day with the blinds closed, in total darkness, in total silence. Then I would get up at 11 p.m. and watch TV on mute, with the brightness turned way down. If somebody called to check on me, I didn’t want to talk. I can’t really explain it, but everything seemed so….
What’s the word?
I guess the word is daunting. Just the thought of talking to a friend on the phone seemed like a huge mental and almost physical effort. I was so irritable because of my symptoms that it was hard to be around people — even the people I loved. All I wanted to do was rest. And that’s when it becomes a vicious cycle. Because when you can’t get out of bed and do the stuff that makes you happy, you get depressed. And then it’s like you get depressed that you’re depressed. It’s a suffocating feeling.
Savard was never the same player following that incident. With the unfortunate way his career ended, it’s somewhat easy to forget just exactly how great Savard was at his peak, as well as how important he was to the Bruins.
After the Bruins finished last in the Northeast in ’05-’06, Savard came over in free agency (along with Zdeno Chara) and brought promise to a team that hadn’t won a playoff series since 1999.
Savard came to Boston fresh off a career-high 97-point season with Atlanta (RIP) and was regarded as one of the league’s premier playmakers at the time. He didn’t disappoint upon arrival, posting point totals of 96, 78 and 88 in his first three (and only full) seasons with the Bruins. Even with the health issues (he suffered a few lower body injuries in 2009-2010 as well) he finished as a point-per-game player in Boston.
So, what happens if he stays healthy?
Well, consider this: Savard entered 2009-2010 (his age 32 season) with 663 points. That season, he signed a seven-year extension with the Bruins worth $28.05 million (a shade under $4.2 million annually) so let’s assume that contract sticks in the alternate timeline.
In this revised history, Savard doesn’t suffer a concussion in the Pittsburgh game and plays out the remaining 18 games at a point-per-game clip. That puts him at 51 points on the season and 714 for his career.
Savard goes on to play out the remainder of that seven-year contract with the Bruins, retiring after the 2017 season (hey, that’s right now!) at age 39. During that run, he had a couple more 80+ point seasons and All-Star selections and – after being slowed down by a few injuries and good ol’ Father Time – averaged around 60 points per year.
He wraps up his career with 1,124 career points, walking away with a legitimate chance at being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. At the very least, he’s considered one of the greatest playmakers in Bruins history and is beloved by the city for his contributions and passion both on and off the ice.
(That last part still rings true in reality. Boston loved Savard during his time here, and he seemed to love the city and organization as well. If you go to his Twitter page today, his avatar and cover photo are from his time with the Bruins, and the Bruins are the only team he claims in his bio.)
Most importantly, though, Savard hangs up his skates and walks away with his health.
But how does this alternate history affect the Bruins as a whole?
Well, keeping Savard on the roster (and his salary against the cap) likely means that Boston doesn’t trade for Tomas Kaberle at the trade deadline in 2011. It also means that they don’t deal Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart to Atlanta for Rich Peverley (and Boris Valabik…lol) to clear money for Kaberle. It means they may not trade for Chris Kelly, either (though I wouldn’t put it past Peter Chiarelli to go get his mans regardless).
Do the Bruins still win the Cup in ‘11 despite those changes?
That’s the question that tortures me in this alternate reality thought exercise. The Bruins’ top line of Lucic-Krejci-Horton was their most productive that year, so if Savard slots in instead of Krejci, do they find the same success? When Horton goes down in the Cup Final, does a rookie Tyler Seguin slot into that top line and find the same success that Peverley did?
It’s not impossible, especially if Chiarelli still correctly assesses needs at the deadline and Tim Thomas still enters God Mode in the spring. But considering how many close calls the Bruins maneuvered that postseason – and how things seemed to fall perfectly into place — even slightly messing with the composition and chemistry of that team leads way to some doubt.
Still, for the sake of having some fun, let’s say the Bruins trade Wheeler for some defensive help at the deadline, then go into the playoffs with the following top nine forward group:
Lucic-Savard-Horton
Marchand-Bergeron-Recchi
Ryder-Krejci-Seguin
That…that is intriguing.
Okay, I’m going to gather up the chutzpah to say that they still win it all in 2011. Hell, I’ll even say they go on to successfully win another in the next few years.
Not only does Savard get his name on the Cup, he plays a central role in making it happen. He continues to be a clutch postseason performer and is a key offensive contributor on those Cup-winning teams, claiming a piece of hockey immortality in the process.
The guy most affected by Savard’s extended career in this alternate timeline is David Krejci. The Czech center still posts commendable numbers and contributes significantly but he doesn’t play as large of a role in the 2011 postseason. Then, with Savard and Bergeron ahead of him on the depth chart, Krejci grows hungrier for a bigger role and leaves Boston after his contract expires in 2012.
And, as the icing on the cake to Savard finishing out his career happy and healthy, the Bruins don’t have to dump his contract in a Reilly Smith-for-Jimmy Hayes trade conducted to free up money for… Matt Beleskey.
Sigh.
Read more from Peter Blackburn here.
PREVIOUSLY ON NHL ALTERNATE HISTORY
What if … the Islanders never hired Mike Milbury?
What if … Dallas drafted the other Lundqvist brother?
What if … Jonathan Drouin’s Tampa time wasn’t so chaotic?
What if … Minnesota Wild hired Pierre McGuire as GM?
What if … Florida had traded Roberto Luongo for Joe Thornton?
What if … the Martin Gelinas goal counted for Calgary?
What if … the Oilers never traded for Chris Pronger?
What if … the Blues had drafted Jonathan Toews instead?
MORE FROM YAHOO SPORTSWe turn now to discussion of the four key issues we described briefly in the beginning of this article. For each issue, we start with a general introduction and then discuss how each of the three systems—ICD-11, DSM-5, and RDoC—addresses the topic.
As awareness has grown that virtually all mental disorders result from many different factors, ICD and DSM have both acknowledged this complexity and moved to incorporate etiological factors in the relatively few instances in which they are known. In contrast, RDoC was developed in large part to support research into the etiologies of mental disorder. Its ambitious goal is to understand how functional deviations in various brain and behavioral response systems interact to result in mental disorder, while emphasizing that these processes are developmental rather than static and that they occur in the context of individuals’ interpersonal, social, and cultural environments.
Although these reports focused on schizophrenia, a recent groundbreaking study suggests a broader and more nuanced picture. The Bipolar and Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes is investigating patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, psychotic bipolar disorder, or schizoaffective disorder, an intermediate category between the other two disorders ( Clementz et al., 2016 ). Rather than comparing the three disorders against one another, the investigators set aside the patients’ different diagnoses and sought other measures that could sort them in novel ways. A clustering analysis returned two major factors of “cognitive control” (cognitive and self-regulatory functioning) and “sensorimotor reactivity” (brain activity in response to simple stimuli such as tones and lights). Various combinations of these two factors resulted in three groups, labeled “biotypes,” each of which included patients from all three diagnostic groups. The amount of gray-matter loss differed systematically across the three biotypes, but not as a function of their DSM diagnostic categories, and one biotype was associated with increased use of marijuana. Of course, no one study is conclusive, but these data illustrate the potential for biological and behavioral measures to identify intermediate phenotypes more directly related to interacting neurodevelopmental and environmental factors relevant for etiology.
Recent studies on psychosis provide an example of an RDoC-themed approach to identifying and understanding etiological factors in a particular disorder spectrum. Schizophrenia has for some time been recognized as a neurodevelopmental disorder, with the overt symptoms of psychosis being the end state of an extended process ( Rapoport, Giedd, & Gogtay, 2012 ). Various lines of investigation have explored possible avenues to understanding the aberrant development that leads to psychosis. One long-standing hypothesis is that synaptic pruning—the reduction in cortical synapses that occurs as a part of normal development across adolescence (e.g., Feinberg, 1982 )—is excessive in schizophrenia, such that there is an aberrant reduction in these synapses. Support for this hypothesis is accumulating: Cannon et al. (2015) found accelerated loss of gray matter in the years leading up to an overt episode of psychosis (i.e., the schizophrenia prodrome) was a critical factor in disease onset, and a genetics study has provided evidence for one mechanism by which this excessive pruning may occur ( Sekar et al., 2016 ).
RDoC is based in etiological thinking. Indeed, a major emphasis of the project is to learn more about the causes and mechanisms of mental illness, ultimately integrating knowledge relating to all four of its components (i.e., functional domains and units of analysis in the contexts of neurodevelopment and all that “the environment” encompasses).
In sum, as knowledge on the causes of mental disorders has advanced, DSM-5 has been able to progress from the atheoretical stance of DSM-III. To the extent allowed by current knowledge, it describes biological (e.g., genetics, neurodevelopment) and both general (e.g., culture) and specific (e.g., traumatic events) environmental factors that play a role in the onset and prognosis of mental illness. It also acknowledges the complexity of these causal factors, stating “the range of genetic/environmental interactions over the course of human development affecting cognitive, emotional and behavioral function is virtually limitless” ( APA, 2013, p. 19) and cautions that “a diagnosis does not carry any necessary implications regarding the etiology or causes of the individual’s mental disorder” ( APA, 2013, p. 25).
Beginning with DSM-IV, etiological considerations were introduced into descriptive text sections devoted to risk and prognostic factors and culture- and gender-related issues. The sections on risk and prognostic factors include explicit references to environmental causation when appropriate (e.g., the relevant section on PTSD references the severity of the trauma, personal injury, etc.) but typically indicate more general risk factors (e.g., season of birth and urban rearing in schizophrenia). The culture section includes discussion of the causal contribution of cultural systems. For example, the relevant PTSD section states the following:
By relying on a mix of etiological views that incorporate both biological and psychodynamic factors, pre– DSM-II U.S. classification explicitly acknowledged multiple causal factors in the development of mental disorders. A major emphasis in developing DSM-III was to be atheoretical with regard to etiology or pathophysiological process unless one or both of these were well established (e.g., in the “Organic Mental Disorders” section for adjustment disorder, which stated “the disturbance is a reaction to psychosocial stress”; APA, 1980, pp. 6–7). This stance was taken partly to shed earlier references to psychodynamic causation, as well as to acknowledge that the cause of most mental disorders was unknown. Moreover, the possibility of multicausality was acknowledged: “Undoubtedly, with time, some of the disorders of unknown etiology will be found to have specific biological etiologies, others to have specific psychological causes, and still others to result mainly from a particular interplay of psychological, social and biological factors” ( APA, 1980, p. 7). Identifying either specific biological causes or a particular interplay of psychological, sociocultural, and biological factors has proved to be difficult, although there are a few disorders in DSM-5 that have subtypes with specific, identifiable causes (e.g., narcolepsy, major and mild neurocognitive disorders).
In sum, WHO classifications offer a relatively comprehensive framework for identifying factors that may contribute to the etiology and expression of mental disorders and other health conditions. These categories could be used as a framework for additional epidemiological and clinical research and further refined on this basis, but national health-data systems and reimbursement policies generally do not facilitate systematic collection and reporting of this type of information (e.g., by reimbursing health professionals to record it as a part of standard health-encounter documentation), so the availability of these data for analysis on a global level is extremely limited. In general, WHO classification systems do not restrict the range of causes and contributory factors that may be considered in conceptualizing mental disorder. Rather, a specific subset of factors is prioritized in allocating resources for public-health data collection, research, and health-service reimbursement. These decisions are most frequently made at the level of national governments.
Further, as a broad classification of health conditions, ICD encompasses a variety of ways in which causal influences in mental disorders can be recorded. For example, one may note toxic environmental factors using categories from the chapter on “Injury, Poisoning and Certain Other Consequences of External Causes.” The chapter “Factors Influencing Health Status and Contact With Health Services” contains a wide range of categories for documenting contributory factors to an individual’s illness, including potential health hazards related to socioeconomic and psychosocial circumstances such as education and literacy, unemployment, problems related to the physical environment (e.g., occupational exposure, noise, pollution), the social environment (e.g., acculturation difficulty, social exclusion), housing, and negative events in childhood ( WHO, 2016b ). Further expansion of these categories has been proposed for ICD-11 (WHO, 2017). Moreover, ICD ’s sibling classification, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health ( WHO, 2001 ), contains a comprehensive classification of environmental factors that may affect functioning and disability in the context of a given health condition, such as human-made environmental changes, supportive or nonsupportive relationships, and services, systems, and policies. The categories of the two classifications were designed to be used together to provide a more comprehensive picture of individuals’ health status and functioning ( Reed, Spaulding, & Bufka, 2009 ).
In some areas, the classification proposed for ICD-11 goes considerably further than that of ICD-10 in incorporating etiology. For example, the ICD-10 classification of sexual dysfunctions relies on an artificial dichotomy between “organic” sexual dysfunctions, classified mostly in the chapter “Diseases of the Genitourinary System,” and “nonorganic sexual dysfunctions,” classified under mental and behavioral disorders. This mind-body split is not consistent with either current research or best practices, which are based on a view of sexual response as a complex interaction of psychological, interpersonal, social, cultural, physiological, and gender-influenced processes, any or all of which may contribute to the development of sexual dysfunctions. For ICD-11, an integrated classification of sexual dysfunctions has been proposed and a system of etiological qualifiers provided because of their relevance to treatment selection ( Reed et al., 2016 ).
Like ICD-10, ICD-11 will incorporate the classification of specific causal factors when they are clearly relevant to treatment strategies. For example, separate categories are provided for mental and behavioral syndromes that are symptomatically similar but caused by substances (illicit or prescribed) or an underlying medical condition (e.g., a brain tumor). Delirium is classified according to its etiology because the particular cause of a patient’s delirium is a critical factor in the immediately necessary treatment response; likewise with dementia and other neurocognitive disorders, in that etiology guides the prediction of a case’s course and outcome and the selection of management strategies.
Further, the “Mental and Behavioural Disorders” chapter in ICD-10 is one of those with multiple organization schemes. Whereas some groupings are based on causation (e.g., mental and behavioral disorders due to psychoactive substance use), most are based on similarity of symptoms and evidence of shared validators such as familiality (the tendency for mental disorders to run in families) and temperamental antecedents. Thus, mood disorders form one grouping, whereas schizophrenia, schizotypal, and delusional disorders constitute another. Still others are now seen as unhelpful conglomerations of entities based on outdated theoretical perspectives and will be reorganized in ICD-11. For example, ICD-10 ’s grouping of neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders is proposed in ICD-11 to be reorganized into several narrower groupings, none of which is referred to as “neurotic.”
Many diseases and health conditions in ICD are characterized, like mental and behavioral disorders, by multiple, interacting causes (e.g., acute myocardial infarction, type 2 diabetes mellitus). Where they are placed in ICD may reflect only one of those causal factors or another organizing principle that is considered to be clinically important. For example, diabetic retinopathy is classified with other forms of retinopathy under diseases of the visual system, even though it is known to be a consequence of diabetes mellitus, which is classified under endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases. In fact, type 2 diabetes itself, even though insulin resistance is essential in its etiology, has treatment ramifications that resemble those of cardiovascular disease. Given our considerable knowledge of the mechanisms or pathophysiology of many of these disorders, however, their placement causes little to no difficulty in ICD. In contrast, even though we understand that mental processes and mental events all have substrates in the brain, the chapters on “Mental, Behavioural, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders” and “Diseases of the Nervous System” are separate in ICD, likely for two main reasons: First, brain substrates are only one aspect of the etiology and phenomenology of these disorders, which primarily involve impairments in the higher order functions of cognition, emotion, and behavior and are influenced by interpersonal, social, and cultural factors; and second, our understanding of their causal mechanisms is still rudimentary.
For the most part, the organization of ICD across all health conditions is not based on etiology. Rather, most of its chapters are organized according to organ systems (e.g., diseases of the circulatory system, diseases of the respiratory system) or their most characteristic symptoms (e.g., sleep-wake disorders, mental and behavioral disorders). Some chapters have multiple organization schemes. For example, the “Infectious Diseases” chapter contains groupings of disease categories based on the types of organisms that cause them (e.g., bacteria, viruses, fungi), their mode of transmission (e.g., predominantly sexually transmitted infections), the organ system they primarily affect (e.g., viral infections of the central nervous system), or their presenting symptoms (e.g., viral infections characterized by skin and mucous-membrane lesions).
Another proposed revision for ICD-11 is elimination of the problematic organic/psychogenic dichotomy for sexual dysfunctions, which partly involved moving these to a separate chapter on “Conditions Related to Sexual Health.” DSM-5 made similar changes within the limits of the fact that it remains a classification of mental disorders. Each classification implemented an approach that recognizes the potential role of many factors in contributing to the development and maintenance of sexual dysfunctions. Likewise, ICD-11 and DSM-5 share an emphasis on the importance of illicit substances, prescribed medications, and general medical conditions in the causation of mental disorders, and practitioners should consider these factors as causes before making a definitive diagnosis and commencing treatment, because substance intoxication and withdrawal, adverse reactions to medication, and general medical conditions can result in symptoms indistinguishable from those of “primary” mental disorders.
In addition, in recent versions of ICD and DSM-III to - IV, environmental causation in the form of exposure to one or more stressful life circumstances or traumatic events is a required part of several diagnoses (e.g., PTSD, acute stress disorder). Both ICD-11 and DSM-5 have taken this criterion a step further and include a new section devoted to disorders specifically related to stress (trauma- and stressor-related disorders), which also includes adjustment disorder, reactive attachment disorder, and disinhibited social engagement disorder and, in ICD-11, complex PTSD and prolonged grief disorder. Exposure to a traumatic event or a stressor is a diagnostic requirement for these disorders and therefore a necessary element in their etiology. However, how the stress or trauma fits into a larger etiological framework that includes both pathophysiological processes and cultural factors requires further investigation, as do relations among the various disorders specifically associated with stress, and even certain disorders for which stress is not a diagnostic requirement but that have overlapping phenomenology (e.g., mood and anxiety disorders). In contrast to the relatively few diagnoses that include explicit psychological or environmental etiologies, ICD-11 and DSM-5 contain multiple examples of etiological thinking based on biological causation. The specific ways in which these are organized are somewhat different in the two manuals, so we discuss them separately below.
Both the third and fourth editions of the DSM and the eighth through tenth editions of the ICD included a few disorders for which evidence of a psychological causation was required. For example, conversion disorder was based on the psychoanalytic concept of defense mechanisms and involved the expression of unconscious psychological conflicts as somatic symptoms (e.g., paralysis). The DSM-IV required that “psychological factors are judged to be associated with the symptom or deficit because the initiation or exacerbation of the symptom or deficit is preceded by conflicts or other stressors” ( APA, 2000, p. 492), whereas ICD-10 was even more direct, requiring for a definitive diagnosis of dissociative (conversion) disorders “evidence for psychological causation, in the form of clear association in time with stressful events and problems or disturbed relationships (even if denied by the individual)” ( WHO, 1992b, p. 123). This criterion for conversion disorder was rewritten in DSM-5 to eliminate one of the last remaining vestiges of “purely” psychologically defined etiology, now requiring simply that “clinical findings provide evidence of incompatibility between the symptom and recognized neurological or medical conditions” ( APA, 2013, p. 318). Similar changes are proposed for ICD-11.
Thus, the significance of the multicausality of mental disorders is not that it marks a point of difference between mental disorders and many other health conditions. Rather, it is important to raise issues of multicausality because of continuing concerns that biological causes and treatments for mental disorders receive disproportionate attention and resources, whereas psychological, social, and cultural factors are relatively unaddressed, despite compelling evidence for their importance. Therefore, the multicausality issue in relation to mental-disorder classification might be reframed as being about the ways in which these classifications offer systematic opportunities to note and record the influences of psycho-socio-cultural factors, thereby providing a basis for more research into them and for the development of additional assessment and intervention strategies. The three institutions discussed in this article tackle the problem of etiology in different ways; however, the efforts to harmonize DSM and ICD that have occurred since DSM-III have resulted in quite similar approaches to etiology, so we first discuss their shared aspects.
For example, intellectual disability can be caused by a wide variety of infections, chromosomal abnormalities, environmental insults, metabolic diseases, nutritional deficiencies, toxins, or traumatic injuries. In most cases, the specific cause is never clearly identified. Prevention or reversal of these cases would obviously require their specific identification, but the fact that we cannot currently offer cures for them does not suggest that etiological research on intellectual ability is unimportant. Of equal importance, the fact that the cause of a particular case of intellectual disability is unknown does not mean that the disability itself cannot be validly and reliably assessed or that there are not effective and cost-effective interventions that could enhance the individual’s functioning, autonomy, and quality of life. These assessment and intervention strategies are generally unrelated to the cause of the disability. Likewise, the fact that cognitive-behavioral therapy is an effective treatment for a variety of mental and behavioral disorders does not mean that the maladaptive thought patterns targeted by such therapy constitute the cause of these disorders; for example, contrary to the cognitive model of depression ( D. A. Clark, Beck, & Alford, 1999 ), which posits that depressive affect arises, at least in part, from maladaptive cognitions, there is evidence that cognitive change does not mediate symptom change in major depression ( Vittengl, Clark, Thase, & Jarrett, 2014 ).
The fact that we do not fully understand the causes of most mental disorders is sometimes used to question the entire diagnostic enterprise, even though mental disorders are not different from many medical conditions (e.g., hypertension, migraine, myocardial infarction) whose risk factors are well established but whose cause at the individual level can rarely be determined with certainty. Moreover, currently available treatment strategies for mental disorders are often connected only loosely to their proposed causes.
For many years, a diathesis–stress framework was the dominant model for understanding the interplay between individuals’ genetic/biological factors and other, primarily environmental, forces that resulted in psychopathology (e.g., Ingram & Luxton, 2005 ; Rende & Plomin, 1992 ). According to this model, the onset of psychopathology was related to the interaction between a person’s underlying vulnerability (diathesis) and the degree of disruption produced by a disturbing event or condition (stress). The vulnerability factor could be a specific gene or set of genes, a temperamental variable, or even an event or set of events (e.g., certain early-life experiences, such as the death of a parent, appear to increase vulnerability for later depression). However, recent developmental psychopathology research has shown that many genes previously thought to be risk factors are better conceptualized as “plasticity genes” ( Belsky, Jonassaint, Pluess, Brummett, & Williams, 2009 ). That is, certain variants of these genes are more reactive than other variants, not only to adverse environmental effects but also to supportive or even simply benign environments. As a result, depending on whether their experiences are adverse or are supportive or benign, individuals with such gene variants have either worse or actually better outcomes, respectively, than those who have less reactive variants of the same genes. This new framework is known as the differential-susceptibility hypothesis. Much more knowledge than we currently have is needed to determine the relative contributions of each type of factor (i.e., genetics, individual life history, social structure, and cultural systems) to the onset and form of mental illness and, more importantly, how these factors interact to result in psychopathology.
The multicausality of mental illness means that disorders do not have a single origin. As a general principle, for example, genetics has no more causal primacy than people’s experiences or the totality of their environments. Rather, those who suffer from mental illness are at the nexus of multiple forces—contributions not only from their biology and personal life history but also from factors that transcend them as individuals, such as social structures and cultural systems. The influence of these various forces on individuals’ health and well-being is constantly in flux, given that individuals, families, and societies not only “inherit” them, both biologically and socioculturally, but also reconfigure and recreate them in different ways throughout their lives.
Individuals’ social position often plays a substantial role by aiding or hindering their access to key goods and services, including health-promoting resources, or, conversely, channeling individuals toward illness-producing life circumstances ( Metzl & Hansen, 2014 ). MDD, for example, is much more common among people of lower socioeconomic status ( Lorant et al., 2003 ), and changes in socioeconomic status can prompt changes in depression ( Lorant et al., 2007 ). Moreover, changes in social position can have serious consequences related to mental disorder. For example, although overall mortality rates in affluent countries worldwide fell from 2000 to 2015, those of less-educated, middle-aged non-Hispanic Whites in the United States increased, primarily because of increases in drug- and alcohol-related problems and in suicides ( Case & Deaton, 2015 ). The authors hypothesized that the observed increases were related to economic insecurity among members of this demographic group in the context of rising income inequality in the United States. Finally, the meaning of events and expectations of mental illness within a culture also influence the risk and form of psychopathology ( Kleinman, 1977 ). Among Tibetan refugees, for example, having experienced torture was no more likely to be associated with mental illness than witnessing the intentional destruction of religious symbols ( Sachs, Rosenfeld, Lhewa, Rasmussen, & Keller, 2008 ).
In contrast, the RDoC system represents a fundamentally different approach to mental illness, with the goal of identifying the basic brain and behavioral processes that, together with sociocultural forces, give rise to multiple dimensions that may become dysfunctional and constitute psychopathology. It seeks deeper understanding of the scientific basis of psychopathology through the integration of biological and behavioral measurements, while also recognizing that these processes are developmental and embedded in interpersonal, social, and cultural contexts. NIMH’s overarching goal is to serve the public’s mental health care needs; with the RDoC system, it is pursuing this goal with a longer time horizon. Given the complexity of mental illness, the RDoC initiative sets forth a research program that may require many years before its findings materially affect current diagnostic and classification systems.
Both ICD and DSM, each in its own way, have made modifications to acknowledge the existence of dimensional features that are relevant to mental disorder and to incorporate dimensional features into their diagnostic and classification systems. For example, DSM-5 incorporated the concept of severity consistently across its classification system and added a set of cross-cutting symptom dimensions that can be used to provide a more complete clinical picture without using additional diagnoses that increase spurious comorbidity. Likewise, the developers of ICD-11 have taken steps toward abandoning artificial subtypes by, for example, proposing a severity dimension as the primary basis for classifying PD, with trait dimensions as specifiers. They have also proposed to implement a more dimensional system of symptom expression in schizophrenia and other primary psychotic disorders. And yet both systems remain fundamentally categorical for reasons that are germane to the various purposes for which they were developed and still are primarily used: compilation of health statistics, allocation of mental-health resources, clinical communication, and decision making in regulatory, legal, and health-insurance systems, all of which ultimately serve public mental health care needs. Providing a basis for decisions about what constitutes a case of mental disorder is a fundamental requirement of these systems, and such decisions are inevitably categorical.
An early example of the potential for this approach to mental disorders with respect to cognitive domains is provided by data from the Pennsylvania Neurodevelopmental Cohort study, in which children admitted to a hospital for a variety of reasons were given a large battery of neuroimaging and cognitive tasks and followed for several years. A retrospective analysis of the youths who later developed psychotic symptoms showed that their cognitive functioning fell behind that of typically developing children at about 9 years of age and stayed about 1 year behind normal cognitive development for the rest of the study ( Gur et al., 2014 ). Studies aimed at understanding the nature of such developmental delays, and more precise means of identifying individuals at particular risk for psychosis, could eventually lead to targeted prevention interventions.
Second, RDoC’s focus on dimensions of mental and behavioral functioning provides a more quantitative basis for prevention research. Scales that have been validated for various mental functions and behaviors can help identify individuals who are beginning to trend toward dysfunction that, if the trend were to continue, could eventuate in disorder. This approach is directly comparable to approaches in other areas of medicine, such as the measurement of blood sugar, in which progressive divergence from normal levels prompts increasingly aggressive treatment options—from lifestyle changes to medication or other, more intensive interventions. Thus, as with the rest of medicine, assessment of symptom levels across the full normal-to-abnormal spectrum is fundamental to the development of preventive interventions.
For instance, large community studies have shown that hallucinations and delusions are distributed continuously in the population ( van Os, Linscott, Myin-Germeys, Delespaul, & Krabbendam, 2009 ) and that the need for services is more correlated with the extent of these phenomena than with their simple presence versus absence ( Kaymaz & van Os, 2010 ). Research also suggests that genetic loads may be continuous across clinical and nonclinical populations. For instance, parents with a child diagnosed with ASD who had one or more unaffected siblings were asked to report on the psychosocial functioning of all their children, and they reported considerable overlap in the functioning levels of those with and without the disorder. Within the range of overlap, the relation between genetic loading and functioning level was virtually identical in both groups. These data suggest that the same genetic factors are operative in both typically developing and diagnosed children ( Robinson et al., 2016 ).
There are multiple reasons for taking this approach. First, given RDoC’s emphasis on etiology, its near-term goal is not to improve current diagnoses or develop an alternative clinical nosology but rather to direct the research community toward a more comprehensive understanding of how a variety of factors intersect over time and across different contexts to yield various types and degrees of psychopathology. It is becoming increasingly clear that most mental and behavioral functions in psychopathology are on continuous dimensions with functioning in the general population rather than qualitatively distinct. The pathological trait criteria of PD provide a clear elaboration of this continuity, as do some criteria of MDD (e.g., diminished interest or pleasure in activities) and GAD (e.g., excessive |
-carbon fuels, such as renewables and nuclear - particularly in the wake of the incident at Fukushima and the likelihood of a reduced role for nuclear in some countries. An expansion of gas use alone is no panacea for climate change.”
So, if natural gas does erode support for renewables, it could delay the cost reductions that come with it, making it even harder for renewable power to compete.
Natural gas could, however, be good for energy security, since natural gas is widely distributed around the world, the report said. If production were developed around the world, it would make it less necessary to rely on sometimes fickle suppliers, which in particular have left Europe vulnerable to supply disruptions.
The report notes that demand for natural gas is expected to be particular strong in China, which in its 12th Five-Year Plan called for the tripling of natural gas consumption.Pin 2K Shares
(ANTIMEDIA) — The 2017 hurricane season has wrought more damage on the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast of the United States than any season in the last decade. Tropical Storm Harvey smashed into the Gulf, temporarily swallowing Houston and other low lying areas. Meanwhile, Hurricane Irma caused millions of dollars in damage to Florida, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean islands, leaving millions without power and water.
Along with the gusts of wind, property damage, and loss of life, this hurricane season also sparked a wide range of conspiracy theories regarding the possibility that the U.S. government or some other government could be manipulating the weather to strengthen hurricanes. These theories range from the idea that planes were spraying before and during the storms in order to help them grow and/or direct them at specific targets to others who believe the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), or a similar device, was used to heat up the ionosphere and “charge” the storms to cause more destruction.
There are dozens of YouTube channels where individuals focus specifically on weather manipulation and modification. They claim to have the expertise to study radar images and determine whether artificial elements were added to developing hurricanes. If you are interested in that type of research, see this. However, I will not be addressing the issue of whether or not the U.S. is currently manipulating hurricanes. I do not have the technical background to accurately report in that area. Instead, I will focus on the history of weather modification as it pertains to hurricanes. If you have limited knowledge on weather modification — or, perhaps, you even think it is a hoax — I encourage you to read on. If you are familiar with the history or science of weather modification, I also encourage you to read on, as I have included details I have not seen covered elsewhere.
The theories surrounding possible hurricane manipulation have grown to the point that the “mainstream” media has been forced to respond. In early September, Space.com released an article titled “No, We Can’t Control Hurricanes from Space,” which attempted to debunk these theories. “The short answer is that we can’t control weather at any scale, and hurricanes are no exception,” Space.com wrote. Nevertheless, if we go back to 2015, we find an article from Popular Mechanics matter-of-factly stating, “We Could Reduce the Number of Hurricanes By Injecting Particles Into the Atmosphere.” The article discusses research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that concluded sulfates could be spread into the Earth’s stratosphere to “dampen” hurricanes over the next 50 years. The scientists do not claim to be able to “steer” or direct hurricanes, but they do say they have the power to slow them down by 50 percent.
A (Brief) History of Weather Modification
Despite these modest statements, the history of weather modification and the desire to manipulate hurricanes has a history stretching back at least 100 years to people often known as “rainmakers.” The rainmakers were men who studied “pluviculture,” or the act of attempting to artificially create rain, usually to fight drought. Most of these men were seen as scammers, traveling salesman pitching fantasy ideas to the gullible about creating rain. However, one of the most successful rainmakers was Charles Hatfield. Born in 1875, Hatfield migrated to Southern California and studied pluviculture, eventually creating a secret mixture of 23 chemicals he said could induce rain. Using his secret mixture, Hatfield successfully created storms several times and began to find work creating rain.
In 1915, Hatfield began working for the San Diego city council to produce enough rain to fill the Morena Dam reservoir. Hatfield was told he would receive $10,000 once the reservoir was filled. In early January 1915, rain began pouring down over the dam, growing heavier with each day that passed. On January 20, the dam broke, causing mass flooding that led to an estimated 20 deaths. Hatfield told the press he was not to blame, stating the city should have taken precautions. The city refused to pay Hatfield unless he also accepted liability for the damage and deaths. After legal battles ensued, Hatfield was absolved of any wrongdoing when the storm was officially ruled an act of God. However, due to the ruling, Hatfield’s work was seen as a failure, and he was (mostly) relegated to forgotten pages of history.
Beginning in 1947, General Electric, the U.S. Army Corps, the U.S. Air Force, and the Office of Naval Research began attempting to modify hurricanes. The main scientist behind the research was a Nobel Peace Prize-winning chemist named Irving Langmuir. While working as a chemist with GE, Langmuir began to hypothesize about manipulating hurricanes. In October 1947, the researchers decided to seed a hurricane with ice pellets. The hurricane had been drifting to the northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, but after being seeded, the hurricane grew stronger and crashed into Savannah, Georgia.
There was a public backlash and threats of lawsuits against Langmuir and the research team. Despite Langmuir claiming responsibility for affecting the storm, researchers concluded his work did not cause the change in direction. The lawsuits were dropped, but Langmuir continued to work on weather modification. It’s not hard to imagine the U.S. military and General Electric wanting to distance themselves from the destruction by calling their own project a failure. Interestingly, Wikipedia references a 1965 article from the Sun-Sentinel titled “Betsy’s Turnaround Stirs Big Question.” (Betsy was another hurricane reported to have been modified.) The article, written more than a decade later, apparently reports that a hurricane in 1947 “went whacky” and that “[t]welve years later it was admitted the storm had in fact been seeded.” Unfortunately, there is not a digital copy of the article available to verify the claims on Wikipedia.
Most reports on Project Cirrus claim the 1947 hurricane was the only attempt, but a look at records maintained by General Electric indicate there were several more tests on hurricanes. The records list Albuquerque, New Mexico; Mt. Washington, New Hampshire; Burbank, California; and several locations in New York as test sites for cloud seeding with silver iodide. Another section lists cloud seeding attempts in Honduras by Langmuir. The report stated:
“In 1948 and 1949, Langmuir visited Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica to study tropical cloud formations, and particularly to learn what was being done by Joe Silverthorne, a commercial cloud seeder, in seeding clouds for the United Fruit Company. The work was being
Conducted for the purpose of testing out the possibility of controlling rainfall, and particularly in the hope of stopping blow-downs that result from winds associated with thunderstorms, which occasionally destroy large stands of fruit trees.”
The GE report is well worth your time and attention. It details the contracts between the U.S. military and GE, as well as other historical details regarding GE’s attempts to modify weather.
More recent examples of attempts at weather modification involve programs known as Project Stormfury, Project Cirrus, and Operation Popeye. Project Stormfury was a U.S. government project aimed at weakening Tropical Cyclones by seeding them with silver iodide. From 1961 to 1971, researchers sprayed silver iodide into hurricanes, believing the supercooled water might disrupt the structure of the storm. Officially, the project has been ruled a failure, but it was not the only attempt to manipulate weather in this time period.
One example of seeding a hurricane that may have actually been successful was Hurricane Betsy in 1965. As the Sun-Sentinel reported in 1965:
“Hurricane Betsy was building strength; it looked like it was aiming for South Carolina, posing no threat to South Florida. But on Saturday, Sept. 4, the storm whirled to a stop, about 350 miles east of Jacksonville. When Betsy started moving again on Sunday, she had changed directions. The storm plowed through the Bahamas Monday night, then mauled South Florida a day later.”
Officially, the U.S. government says Hurricane Betsy was designated to be seeded but that apparently, that decision was changed at the last moment. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recalled the event on the 50th anniversary:
“Dr. Joanne Simpson, Project Director, had ordered the fleet of Navy and Weather Bureau research aircraft to deploy to Puerto Rico on August 28th. Over the next two days, the planes monitored the storm’s slow progress toward the designated part of the ocean where they could carry out their weather modification experiments. By August 31st, Betsy had just managed to crawl into the area as a hurricane, so a seeding experiment was scheduled for the next day. The first aircraft had already taken off from Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station, PR the morning of September 1st when word came from the National Hurricane Center that overnight Betsy had completed a loop in its track and was now headed southward and out of the allowed seeding area. The seeding experiments were called off and the mission changed to a ‘dry run’, where the same patterns were flown but no silver iodide was released into the storm. Unfortunately, no one informed the press which had been alerted to STORMFURY’s seeding intentions the previous day.”
The press and the public blamed the researchers for the 138 mph winds and destruction from Betsy. Congress was skeptical of further programs until the researchers were able to smooth things over. “I was totally unaware of the level of emotion and hostility that was directed against anything that had to do with cloud seeding,” Joanne Simpson, one time head of Project Stormfury, told NASA. Simpson would go on to work on a cloud-seeding project called FACE (the Florida Area Cumulus Experiment).
With Hurricane Betsy and the 1947 hurricane, we have two situations where cloud-seeding was reportedly happening, and we have two disastrous outcomes. In both situations, the scientists claimed no responsibility, and no one was held accountable. Again, is it that hard to imagine a government official (or a scientist under government contract) lying about the nature of the work? Especially if that work resulted in millions of dollars in property damage and deaths?
The NOAA even acknowledges that “[s]ince no one at Project STORMFURY nor in the Weather Bureau had advised the public or the press that the actual seeding of the storm had been scrubbed, many people believed it had been carried out and the link to its odd path seemed plausible. Although attempts to clarify the facts about STORMFURY and Betsy were made after the fact, the notion of a link persists to the present.”
Weather as a Weapon of War
Operation Popeye was a now-declassified attempt by the U.S. military to modify the weather in Southeast Asia from 1967 to 1972. The U.S. military conducted cloud-seeding operations over the Ho-Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War. Cloud-seeding typically involves planes flying overhead and spraying silver iodide into the air. The goal in Vietnam was to extend monsoon season and flood out the enemy. It was reported that the operations were “tightly controlled” by Henry Kissinger, who was serving as Secretary of State at the time. Operation Popeye is the first modern example (that we know of) where attempts were made to use weather as a weapon of war.
In April 1976, the New York Times wrote about the situation and the challenges weather modification created:
“Can a nation that tampers with natural balances deny responsibility for what follows? This question, together with recognition that United States policy condemns warfare aimed at civilians, prompted Senator Claiborne Pell in 1973 to introduce a resolution calling for an international treaty to prohibit environmental warfare ‘or the carrying out of any research or experimentation directed thereto.’ The Senate voted 82 to 10 to approve the resolution, which lacks force of law.”
The international treaty referred to is the Environmental Modification Treaty implemented and signed by the United States and other nations to halt global weather modification in the wake of the bad publicity. The Times noted:
“Unfortunately it is far weaker than the Senate resolution. For example, it fails to prohibit military research or development of environmental‐modification techniques, and allows all ‘peaceful’ work on such things.”
So as long as a nation claims they are conducting peaceful weather modification, they are not violating the treaty. Further, there is no international body to enforce and punish violations of the treaty.
The Times also mentions the Department of Defense’s “Climate Dynamics” program, formerly known as Project Nile Blue. A 1976 report from Milton Leitenberg for the Federation of Scientists elaborates on the origins of Nile Blue. “Beginning in 1969, ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the U.S. Department of Defense, began funding a project called “Nile Blue (Climate Modification Research),” Leitenberg wrote.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was the predecessor to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a secretive agency within the Department of Defense. DARPA is known for developing exotic and emerging technologies for the military. These reports listed above indicated that Project STORMFURY and Project Nile Blue were some of the earliest known military operations conducted in the name of manipulating the weather, including hurricanes.
Leitenberg also noted two examples of times the U.S. has been accused of using weather modification on other nations. The was first related to alleged cloud seeding over Cuba in 1969 and 1970 in an alleged effort to destroy the sugar crops. In the second case, the director of the geographical research center of the University of Mexico implied that the United States was to blame for the effects of Hurricane Fifi over Honduras in 1974. A story from The Naples Daily News on July 15, 1975, expanded upon this claim:
“Dr. Jorge Vivo, director of the Geographic Research Center of the University of Mexico, said Monday the United States ‘artificially detoured’ the hurricane to Honduras to save Florida’s tourist industry. But Neil Frank, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Monday night U.S. officials did nothing to alter the hurricane’s path. Vivo told the newspaper El Sol de Mexico he held the United States responsible for 10,000 deaths and millions of dollars in damage caused by Fifi in the Central American nation. He said he believed U.S. weather authorities used silver iodide against Fifi as part of what he called ‘a systematic action’ to change its course.”
More recently, we have seen accusations that the CIA is manipulating the weather. In February 2015, while speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, California, Professor Alan Robock discussed the possibility that the CIA is using the weather as a weapon of war. Robock has conducted research for the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) in the past. Robock said he was phoned by two men claiming to be from the CIA and asking whether or not it was possible for hostile governments to use geoengineering against the United States. Geoengineering is another form of weather modification that involves a range of different proposals for combatting climate change.
Despite a lack of concrete evidence to back these claims, we know the military has a history of testing weather modification and has specifically mentioned using the weather as a weapon. For example, In a 1996 document entitled “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather by 2025” the U.S. Air Force discussed a number of proposals for using the weather as a weapon.
Whatever view you take of these projects, the fact remains that they helped spur the movement towards using computer models to attempt to predict the weather. Quite simply, the history of computer model weather prediction is intertwined with the military’s attempts to modify the weather. Weather historian James Fleming writes that the two men largely responsible for computer modeling are Vladimir Zworykin, an RCA engineer noted for his early work in television technology, and John von Neumann, a mathematician with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1945, Zworykin was promoting the idea that electronic computers could process and analyze mass amounts of meteorological data and issue accurate forecasts.
“The eventual goal to be attained is the international organization of means to study weather phenomena as global phenomena and to channel the world’s weather, as far as possible, in such a way as to minimize the damage from catastrophic disturbances, and otherwise to benefit the world to the greatest extent by improved climatic conditions where possible,” Zworykin wrote. According to Fleming, Neumann agreed with this outlook, stating, “I agree with you completely. This would provide a basis for scientific approach[es] to influencing the weather.”
Modern Hurricane Modification
In 2005, following the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina, USA Today wrote:
“In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.”
On November 10, 2005, Dr. Joseph Golden, former manager of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and veteran of Project STORMFURY, testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Prediction & Prevention, warning about the need for hurricane modification.
“After the horrendous devastation and loss of life from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, I have been asked several times about the possibility of hurricane modification,” Golden stated. “I firmly believe that we are in a much better position, both with the science and the undergirding technology, than we were when Project STORMFURY was terminated. The need for a renewed national commitment and funding for weather modification research has become more urgent.”
Golden is also involved the Hurricane Aerosol and Microphysics Program (HAMP). In 2010, he gave a presentation discussing how the Department of Homeland Security asked the NOAA to organize a workshop on possible new scientific theory and approaches to hurricane modification in February 2008.
It seems likely that various agencies of the U.S. government began heavily investing in studying weather modification following the destructive hurricane seasons of 2005 and 2008. The idea that the U.S. government could be experimenting with controlling or steering hurricanes may sound like fantasy, but the fact of the matter is the government continues to invest in hurricane modification research. Is it possible that the U.S. government, under the direction of the CIA or the DOD, is working with private industries like General Electric to continue experimenting with weather modification technology? Should the public trust that government officials would fess up to secret experiments?
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Pin 2K SharesPolice cannot surreptitiously stick a GPS unit on your car and track your movements without a warrant, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled. In an opinion published Friday, the court said that police use of GPS evidence to convict two individuals was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to their movements over an extended period of time.
Warrantless GPS tracking has always been a contentious issue, with supporters arguing that an individual can make similar observations about the location of your car just by driving around town and noting that you're at home, you're at the grocery store, you're at the strip club, and so on.
Detractors, which include the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that it's one thing to note someone's car location and another to keep hourly data on every single stop you make along a specific route for days or months on end.
In this particular case, two nightclub owners, Antoine Jones and Lawrence Maynard, had been convicted on narcotics charges in part due to police-collected GPS data. Police had planted* the GPS unit on a car that was parked on private property, then tracked its whereabouts for a month. The government argued that the suspects had no reasonable expectation of privacy because their movements took place out in public.
The appeals court disagreed. "Society recognizes Jones‘ expectation of privacy in his movements over the course of a month as reasonable, and the use of the GPS device to monitor those movements defeated that reasonable expectation," wrote the court.
Both the ACLU and EFF applauded the decision, saying that the Supreme Court had not considered location tracking in such depth and for such a long period of time.
"GPS tracking enables the police to know when you visit your doctor, your lawyer, your church, or your lover," ACLU-NCA Legal Director Arthur Spitzer said in a statement. "And if many people are tracked, GPS data will show when and where they cross paths. Judicial supervision of this powerful technology is essential if we are to preserve individual liberty. Today's decision helps brings the Fourth Amendment into the 21st Century."
The decision does indeed help set a precedent for future cases, though similar decisions vary by state. In 2009, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled that warrantless GPS tracking did not violate an individual's Fourth Amendment rights, while the New York Court of Appeals said that it did.
In Jones' case, his conviction was heavily dependent upon the GPS data collected by police; as a result, the court reversed his conviction. (Maynard wasn't so lucky, as there was other convincing evidence against him.)
* The court documents don't say what police used in this specific situation, but the court's opinion includes a description of a miniature GPS dart, a radio transmitter, and a battery in "a sticky compound material" that will stick to a vehicle when fired. Perhaps we're late to the party, but this is some serious Spiderman tech going on here.The Chrysler Crossfire is a rear-wheel drive, two-seat sports car that was sold by Chrysler and built by Karmann of Germany for the 2004 to 2008 model years.
Developed during the union of Daimler and Chrysler, the two-seater is based on the Mercedes-Benz R170 platform and shares 80% of its components with the first generation SLK. The second generation SLK was built on a new R171 platform starting in the 2005 model year; the R170 platform was essentially handed down to Chrysler for use in building the Crossfire. Having initially arrived in 2001 as a concept car styled by Eric Stoddard,[3] the Chrysler was further refined by Andrew Dyson[4] before production began in 2003 for 2004 model year sales.
Design [ edit ]
The name "Crossfire" refers to the two character lines that run from front to rear along the body sides — their crease directions cross below the mirrors on the door panels.[5] Conceived during the period of Chrysler's ownership by Daimler-Benz, the name also refers to the collaboration of the two companies.
The "crossfire" character lines of the bodyside change direction of their creases on the door
The Chrysler Crossfire concept car was introduced at the 2001 North American International Auto Show and the production version unveiled at the 2002 Los Angeles Auto Show as a 2004 model "is as faithful a translation from concept to production as any in recent memory."[6][7] The concept car was made "to evoke a strong, passionate, emotional response. We had to retain that. We want to polarize our audience—we want people to love it or hate it."[6] Conceived to be a two-seat image building or halo car for the Chrysler brand, the marketing objective was also to make use of available components using a two-seat roadster chassis. The production car shares about 39% of its parts with Mercedes-Benz vehicles and Chrysler dealers were required to invest in special equipment, tools, and parts to be able to sell the new luxury model.[8] The rear-wheel-drive Crossfire coupe design objective was to make an "impression" with looks that are "unique, almost sculptural."[9]
The Crossfire's visual presence includes a wide body raked over relatively huge 19-inch rear wheels and 18-inch front wheels.[10] The most distinctive design element is the fastback roof and broad rear fenders made for a rear end design that prompted automotive journalists and writers to compare the new car to American Motors' 1965–1967 AMC Marlin.[11] The "distinctive boat-tail rear end that reminds more than one observer of the old Rambler Marlin."[12] For example, Rob Rothwell wrote "... when I first espied the rear lines of the Chrysler Crossfire I was instantly transported back to 1965 and my favorite car of that year, the Rambler Marlin."[13] Motor Trend also compared the "provocative boattail theme" of the 2004 Crossfire's sheetmetal to that of the AMC Marlin fastback.[14] Likewise, the new Chrysler's boat-tail is "formed as the edges of the roof converge into a kind of teardrop shape, leaving the rear fenders to flare out over the rear wheels."[10]
Construction and features [ edit ]
Roadster with the top down
Chrysler executed the interior and exterior styling. All other elements of the car such as wheelbase, track, engine, transmission, chassis structure, suspension components, are shared with the R170 platform.[15] An example of this is the engine bay of the Crossfire, which is virtually identical to the Mercedes-Benz SLK320 on the R170 platform. The seats from the Mercedes-Benz SLK320 would bolt directly into the Crossfire chassis. The dashboard layout, controls and instruments are also similar to those on the Mercedes-Benz SLK320.
The standard transmission is a 6-speed manual with an optional 5-speed automatic. Base (Standard) and Limited models, originally sold beginning in the 2004 model year, are equipped with a Mercedes-Benz M112 3.2 L, 18-valve, SOHC V6 engine which produced 215 hp (160 kW) and 229 pound force-feet (310 N⋅m) of torque. SRT-6 models were equipped with a supercharged version of the M112 engine built by Mercedes' performance branch, AMG. SRT-6 models came only with the 5-speed automatic transmission, consistent with AMG cars of the same era. The 6-speed transmission used by the Chrysler Crossfire is a variant of the Mercedes sourced NSG-370. The 5-speed automatic transmission in the Crossfire (known as 5G-Tronic) is also Mercedes sourced and a variant of the 722.6 family. The automatic achieves a better EPA fuel efficiency rating over the 6MT, mostly due to the difference in gear ratios.
Unlike most cars of its time, the Crossfire does not use a rack and pinion steering system; instead, it utilizes a recirculating ball system as employed on the donor R170 platform.[15] Front suspension is unequal length (SLA) double wishbone suspension with 5 point multi link in the rear.[16] Just like the concept car, all Crossfire models were built with two different wheel sizes measuring 18x7.5-inch on the front and 19x9-inch on the rear.[17] Standard all-season tires were 225/40R18 on the front and 255/35R19 on the rear.
The first production Crossfire was driven off the assembly line on 3 February 2003, by Chrysler Group's COO Wolfgang Bernhard in Germany.[18]
Chrysler Crossfire 2005 SRT-6 with Mercedes-AMG Engine
Equipment [ edit ]
The Chrysler Crossfire's standard features included large alloy wheels with performance-rated tires, a Becker (part of Harman/Kardon)–sourced AM/FM stereo with anti-theft system and a single-disc CD player, keyless entry with security alarm, a power-retractable rear wing spoiler, leather-trimmed seating surfaces, dual power front sports bucket seats, full instrumentation, a 3.2L V6 engine with manual transmission, rear-wheel-drive (RWD), a leather-wrapped and stitched steering wheel, a power-retractable cloth convertible roof (for convertible models), front floor mats, and air conditioning.
Optional features on the Chrysler Crossfire included an automatic transmission, a six-speaker premium Infinity sound system with two "subwoofers" mounted directly behind each seat, a CD-based GPS navigational system, exterior paint colors, and additional interior color choices.
Sales and production numbers [ edit ]
The original contract with Karmann to build the Crossfire was for about five years with an annual sales target of 20,000 units in the United States.[19] Sales of the Crossfire were slow, with an average 230-day supply of the vehicles during November 2005. A small number of Crossfires were imported to the United States and Mexico for 2006 (and almost all of these were roadsters).[20]
Chrysler discontinued the Crossfire after the 2008 model year, as part of its restructuring plans.[21] The last Crossfire rolled off of the assembly line on December 17, 2007.
Officially recognized production numbers by model year by
Chrysler and Crossfire International Car Club Incorporated[22] Model Type Model Year
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Grand Total Crossfire Coupe 0 1807 770 434 0 3011 Crossfire Limited Coupe 22801 9027 2155 1063 826 35872 Crossfire Limited Coupe (RHD) 2322 983 591 128 0 4024 Crossfire Limited Roadster (both LHD and RHD) 0 18501 4281 1905 960 25647 Crossfire Roadster 0 1806 780 803 0 3389 Crossfire SRT-6 Coupe 0 2419 47 0 0 2466 Crossfire SRT-6 Coupe (RHD) 0 26 79 0 0 105 Crossfire SRT-6 Roadster 0 1252 69 0 0 1321 Crossfire SRT-6 Roadster (RHD) 0 78 101 0 0 179 Grand Total 25123 35899 8873 4333 1786 76014
Notes: LHD = Left hand drive (or steering wheel on the left side) RHD = Right hand drive (or steering wheel on the right side) Crossfire Coupe and Crossfire Roadster refer to the "Base" model
Year[23][24] 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Production 35,700 28,000 12,500 4,805 2,000
Note: Cars produced in one calendar year may be marketed as the following model year.
Models [ edit ]
Model Years Engine Displacement Power Torque Handling 0-60 mph (97 km/h) Top Speed Limited 2004–2008 3.2 V6 195.2 cu in (3199 cc)[1] 215 hp (160 kW; 218 PS)[1] 229 lb⋅ft (310 N⋅m)[1] Skid pad 1.0g 70 – 0 mph in 161 ft.[25] 6.4 sec (6-speed manual)[26] 155 mph (electronically limited) Base (Standard) 2005–2008 SRT-6 2005–2006 3.2 Supercharged V6 330 hp (246 kW; 335 PS)[2] 310 lb⋅ft (420 N⋅m) Skid pad 1.0g 70 – 0 mph in 157 ft.[25] 4.8 sec (5-speed automatic)[27] 155 mph (electronically limited)
Base and Limited [ edit ]
For the first model year (2004), only the coupe was offered (with no trim levels), equipped quite similarly to the next year's Limited model. In model year 2005, there were two models available; Coupe and Roadster, each with three trim levels: Base (with fewer amenities), Limited, and SRT-6 (supercharged). There was an SE Roadster model (essentially a base model) in 2006-2007 available only in Blaze Red Crystal Pearl and with black accented 15-spoke SRT-6 style wheels. Base Crossfire models, both Coupe and Roadster, have black painted windshield frames, black filler plugs (in place of fog-lights) in the front fascia, and fabric seats with separate, movable headrests. Limited and SRT-6 models, both Coupe and Roadster, all have silver painted windshield frames and are equipped with fog lights. The Limited has leather upholstery. The SRT-6 model has unique Leather/Alcantara upholstery.
2005 Crossfire SRT-6 Coupe in Aero Blue
The SRT-6 trim level, as both coupe and convertible, featured an AMG supercharged engine delivering 330 hp (246 kW) and 310 lb⋅ft (420 N⋅m) of torque.[2] Other SRT-6 model-specific features included suspension and brake modifications, a front fascia air dam and a fixed rear spoiler. The Crossfire SRT-6 model used the same drivetrain, suspension, and braking components as those used on the Mercedes-Benz SLK 32 AMG. The standard tires were upgraded to Z-rated Michelin Pilot Sports, sized 225/40R18 on the front and 255/35R19s in back.[28]
In 2006, the SRT-6 was changed to special order only.
Notes [ edit ]Germany's regional intelligence agencies the Verfassungsschutz have admitted that some 400 neo-Nazis had legal access to firearms in 2014, even though gun laws state that anyone who has actively supported far-right extremism in the past five years should have their licenses withdrawn.
As part of a documentary entitled "Terror from the right - the new threat," state broadcaster SWR focused on the story of Thomas B, a neo-Nazi arrested by police in 2009 who was found to be in possession of a handgun, an assault rifle, and 22 kilos of chemicals that could have been used to build a bomb.
It emerged that the then 22-year-old, a member of a local National Democratic Party youth organization, had been talking to friends about potential targets in the city of Freiburg. His trial, which ended in 2012, also uncovered that he had a gun license, and that he was a member of a local hunting club that entitled him to it.
The Ceska gun used by the NSU
'A little careless'
As part of the report, SWR asked the regional Verfassungsschutz agencies for information on the number of far-right extremists who have gun licenses. In Saxony, which has become notorious for a string of far-right crimes, and where the police were recently openly accused of having sympathy with the scene, 25 people had their right to a license re-assessed in 2015, and only three licenses were withdrawn.
The German government played down the new figures. Emily Haber, state secretary at the Interior Ministry, insisted that Germany has "one of the strictest weapons laws in the world." "If the intelligence agencies become aware of a recognized far-right extremist, who is applying for gun ownership, then that will be immediately reported," she told SWR. Despite the documentary's findings, she insisted that in such cases officials would either deny or withdraw the license.
Hans Vorländer, political scientist at the University of Dresden and expert on right-wing extremism in Germany, said he was fairly shocked by the report. "It seems you have to conclude that [the authorities] have been a little careless," he told DW.
Germany's gun law allows authorities to withdraw a gun license if the owner has been classified as "unreliable," a category that includes active support of the far-right in the past five years. Since the surveillance of the far-right scene is normally the remit of the local Verfassungsschutz, police would rely on intelligence reports for such information.
"Of course if someone really wants a weapon, they'll always get one," Vorländer added. "But on the other hand since there is a strict process for the issue of a weapons license and if there are points that make clear that an individual is known in National Socialist circles, then you should expect the authorities not to hand out the license. So yes, I would say this is a failure."
Extremist threat
Ralf Wohlleben is thought to have supplied the NSU with their murder weapon
The timing of the SWR documentary is particularly sensitive in Germany because of the ongoing trial in Munich of Beate Zschäpe, a member of the terrorist cell National Socialist Underground (NSU). One of the group's murder weapons, a Ceska 7.65 mm handgun, is thought to have been supplied to the group by Ralf Wohlleben, a member of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) and also a defendant in the trial.
Given this ongoing case - and the suspicion of complicity among some Verfassungsschutz informants in the NSU's crimes - Vorländer said the authorities ought to be "particularly cautious."
The far-right represents the biggest extremist threat in Germany. In its latest report - covering 2014 - the federal Verfassungsschutz said there were some 21,000 people "with right-wing extremist potential" in Germany, of whom 10,500 were "violence-orientated." By contrast, the intelligence agency put some 1,100 Islamist extremists in the same category, and about 7,600 left-wing extremists.
Meanwhile, Germany's gun laws has been in the news in recent weeks, after police in Cologne reported an increase in the number of applications for so-called "small weapons licenses" following the mass sexual assaults in that city on New Year's Eve. These licenses allow people to carry gas cartridge guns, flares and signal pistols outside their homes.Samsung is all set to unveil its flagship phablet Note 6 -- or will it be called Note 7 -- this year. According to recent reports, the Note 7 will be launched in August. While currently all the buzz, as far as Samsung's Galaxy is concerned, is about the leaked images and specifications of the Note 7, rumours about the Galaxy S8, which should come in first quarter of next year have also started doing rounds.
A report by Android Headlines suggests that Samsung will launch Galaxy S8 at |
mobile device.
In their response to federal regulators, California water officials said in November that the state’s efforts to build a more durable spillway caused the cracks, which were anticipated.
“The hairline cracks are a result of some of the design elements included to restrain the slabs and produce a robust and durable structure,” the letter read, adding that the cracking “was anticipated and is not expected to affect the integrity of the slabs.”
The evidence for and reasoning behind DWR’s statements about the cause of the cracking is not available for independent assessment, the station reported.
University of California civil engineering professor Robert Bea, a veteran analyst of structure failures, said cracking in high-strength reinforced concrete structures is never expected.
The cracking “develops paths for water to reach the steel elements embedded in the concrete and accelerate corrosion,” Bea wrote in an email. “Such corrosion was responsible for the degradation and ultimate failure of the steel reinforcing in parts of the original gated spillway.”This author has not credited anyone else in this file
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Contents
Overview Installation and Options Compatibility Characters
Overview
The intent of this mod isn't just to allow women to romance Morrigan and men to romance Alistair, it's to add everything missing in these romances to make them as immersive as possible. Whenever there's an opportunity to flirt with an npc that was gender restricted, I made it open for gay/bi wardens as well (cause let's be real, the only gender restrictions were in favour of straight flirting). This involved a ton of dialogue and audio editing, along with constructing brand new dialogue.
What this mod includes:
Characters won't misgender the Warden. This applies to every time the Warden's relationship with Alistair or Morrigan is acknowledged.
Any gendered dialogue has been edited.
Added new banter for characters so that they'll acknowledge the gay relationships.
Added jealousy dialogues for Alistair and Morrigan if the Warden is cheating on either of them with the other.
Women can do the dark ritual with Morrigan.
Women can marry Anora.
Men can marry Alistair.
Previously dude exlusive flirting options for Leliana are now open to women.
Removed unnecessary gender restrictions on the Warden's dialogue options.
Any bugs that I encountered have been fixed.
V (3.0.0): Alistair will no longer refer to himself as king when he isn't. I added new dialogue and audio for this.
Installation and Packages
Please always download the most recent versions of the packages and patches that you use. I often miss a bug here and there and patch it accordingly.
Core package
Download the main package and drop it into "Dragon Age/packages/core/override/".
The core package and all the patches is/are compatible with ejoslin's ZDF Dialog Fix. Just be sure to remove the following files from ZDF:
alistair_main.dlg/dlb
arl110cr_kaitlyn.dlg/dlb
arl230cr_eamon.dlg/dlb
den200_isabela.dlg/dlb
epi_alistair.dlg/dlb
epi_leliana.dlg/dlb
leliana.dlg/dlb
party_ran_banter.dlg
zevran_main.dlg/dlb
Important: If you are using a.dazip version of ZDF or any mod, you do not need to replace any files from that mod. Simply drop the core package (my mod) into the override folder. This applies to all my packages and patches.
Due to issues with the 4.0 package, it has been temporarily removed and this mod is no longer compatible with DAO Fixpack.
Flirt With Me You Coward Package
These files are for Gorim, Cullen, Daveth, and the prisoner in Ostegar. Unlike most other characters, they will always have a crush/flirt with a lady character, regardless of whether you want them to. So download this package if you want these characters to hit on your dude wardens as well.
If you're using ZDF, remove the following files from its package:
cir230_cullen.dlg/dlb
Cool Your Jets My Dude Package
Download this package if you don't want Gorim, Cullen, Daveth, and the prisoner in Ostegar to hit on you at all. Not picking either package will just mean these characters will continue to hit on solely lady wardens.
If you're using ZDF, remove the following files from its package:
cir230_cullen.dlg/dlb
All Origins Marriage Package
*added 4/15/2017
Download this package if you want your wardens to marry either Alistair or Anora regardless of their race and origin.
To install, replace the following files in the core package with the versions in this package:
den510_anora.dlg/dlb
den600_landsmeet.dlg/dlb
No Alistair Foursome Package
*added 5/14/17
Use this package if you don't think it's in character for Zevran to join in the Alistair threesome. Replace the den200_isabela.dlg/dlb files with the one in this package.
Morrigan Restoration Patch Patch
*added 4/26/17
Use this package if you have TerraEx's Morrigan Restoration Patch. Download the file and replace the morrigan_main.dlg/dlb files with the ones in this package. Make sure nothing overwrites the newly added cir200_greagoir.dlg/dlb files as well.
One last thing I want to mention is that this also restores the cat fight banter between Morrigan and Leliana. All but two of them were heavily gendered so only those two are available to women and all are available to men. Imo Bioware cutting this dialogue was one of the few things they did right so if you're like me and have love for yourself you can skip this additional banter by removing the party_ran_banter.dlg file from this package. If you want to keep this new banter just replace the file of the same name in the core package with this one.
If you decide to uninstall MRP, be sure to uninstall this package as well
ZevRing Patch
*added 4/27/17
Use this package if you have charsen's ZevRing. Just replace the zevran_main.dlg/dlb files with the ones in this package.
If you decide to uninstall ZevRing, remove this package as well.
Improved Romance Scenes Patch
*added 5/03/17
Use this package if you have cmessaz7's Improved Romance Scenes. Replace the alistair_main.dlg/dlb with the version in this package.
*Yup. You're no longer dependent on IRS's dlb file. God bless.
If you uninstall Improved Romance Scenes, remove this package as well.
Improved Atmosphere Patch
*added 5/07/17
Use this package if you have SpaceAlex's Improved Atmosphere. Replace the following files of the core package and IA's with the ones in this package:
arl110cr_kaitlyn.dlg/dlb
arl150cr_bella.dlg/dlb
arl230cr_eamon.dlg
bhm100_jowan.dlg/dlb
den200_gorim.dlg/dlb
den200_isabela.dlg/dlb
den510_anora.dlg/dlb
party_camp.dlg/dlb
arl110cr_teagan.dlg/dlb
arl110cr_teagan.fev/fsb
And remove the core version of the following files (IA already implements the changes I made to them so you should just use theirs):
ntb100cr_cammen.dlg/dlb
ntb100cr_gheyna.dlg/dlb
bed100cr_tamlen.dlg/dlb
You can still use this package if you uninstall Improved Atmosphere.
All Origins Marriage + Improved Atmosphere Package
*added 5/08/2017
Replace the den510_anora.dlg file with the one in this package.
Mild Romance Scenes Patch
*added 5/10/2017
Use this package if you use tmp7704's Mild Romance Scenes. Replace the leliana_main.dlg/dlb and alistair_main.dlg/dlb files with the ones in here.
If you uninstall Mild Romance Scenes, uninstall this package as well.
*No one actually asked for this but I really like this mod so this was a personal gift that y'all can have too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cullen romance option - Mage Origin Patch
*added 5/10/2017
Use this package if you use cmessaz7's Cullen romance option - Mage Origin. Replace the bhm300_cullen.dlg and the cir230_cullen.dlg files in the Flirt With Me You Coward package with the versions in this package.
If you uninstall Cullen romance option, uninstall this package as well.
And, Yes. There are clipping issues but there isn't a single thing I can do about that because I have no way to edit the cutscenes.
Revenge of the Cousland Patch
*added 5/11/2017
Use this package if you use Cullenite's Revenge of the Cousland. Replace the howe_script.ncs files from the Alistair and Morrigan versions with the ones from the respective folders of mine.
Uninstall this package if you uninstall RotC.
There are clipping issues but I can't edit the cutscenes so I can't fix them.
LRS Leliana Romance Scenes Patch
*added 5/17/2017
Use this package if you use nancyferg's LRS Leliana Romance Scenes. Replace the following files with the versions in this package:
den300_shianni.dlg/dlb
epi_leliana.dlg/dlb
leliana.dlg/dlb
morrigan_main.dlg/dlb
If you uninstall LRS, uninstall this package as well.
LRS + MRP Patch
*added 5/17/2017
Use this package if you're using both LRS Leliana Romance Scenes and the Morrigan Restoration Patch. Replace the morrigan_main.dlg/dlb files with the one in the this package.
No Ninjamancing Patch
*added 5/20/2017
Use this package if you're using my No Ninjamancing. Replace the following files with the ones in this package:
alistair_main.dlg/dlb
arl100cr_alistair_origin.dlg/dlb
leliana.dlg/dlb
morrigan_main.dlg/dlb
party_camp.dlg/dlb
party_events.dlg/dlb
party_events.dlg/dlb
zevran_main.dlg/dlb
No Alistair Foursome Package + Improved Atmosphere Patch
*added 5/21/17
Use this is you use the Improved Atmosphere Patch and the No Alistair Foursome Package. Replace the den200_isabela.dlg/dlb files with the ones in this package.
Zevran Romance Scenes Patch
*added 5/22/17
Use this package if you use sanchia's Zevran Romance Scenes. Replace the zevran_main.dlb/dlg files with the ones in this package.
Uninstall this package if you uninstall Zevran Romance Scenes.
No Ninjamancing + ZevRing Patch
*added 5/25/17
Use this package if you use both No Ninjamancing and ZevRing. Replace the zevran_main.dlb/dlg files with the one in this package.
Dahlialynn's Alistair Epilogues - The Royal Wedding Patch
*added 5/25/17
Use this package if you use Dahlialynn's Alistair Epilogues - The Royal Wedding. Replace their alistair_scenes_main.ncs file with the one in this package.
No Ninjamancing + Improved Romance Scenes Patch
*added 5/29/17
Use this package if you use both No Ninjamancing and Improved Romance Scenes. Replace the alistair_main.dlb/dlg files with the one in this package.
No Ninjamancing + LRS Leliana Romance Scenes Patch
*added 6/07/17
Use this package if you use both No Ninjamancing and LRS Leliana Romance Scenes. Replace the leliana.dlg/dlb and morrigan_main.dlb/dlg files with the one in this package.
No Ninjamancing + MRP Patch
*added 6/12/17
Use this package if you use both No Ninjamancing and the Morrigan Restoration Patch. Replace the morrigan_main.dlb/dlg files with the one in this package.
No Ninjamancing + MRP + LRS Patch
*added 6/12/17
Use this package if you use No Ninjamancing, LRS Leliana Romance Scenes, and the Morrigan Restoration Patch. Replace the morrigan_main.dlb/dlg files with the one in this package.
Dialogue Tweaks Patch
*added 6/18/17
Use this package if you use Vaire's Dialogue Tweaks. Replace the following files with the ones in this package:
bhm100_jowan.dlg/dlb
leliana.dlg/dlb
zevran_main.dlg/dlb
leliana.fev/fsb
zevran_main.fev/fsb
For all packages, you can edit which characters this mod affects by removing their appropriate folders. And you can uninstall any package, including the core, just by deleting the folders.
Compatibility
I have made patches for many conflicting mods and will do so for any other ones if it's within my ability.
Known Compatibility
It's Just Not Happening
Ser Gilmore companion NPC - Fully Voiced. This mod changes the den200_isabela.dlg/dlb file and the kinds of changes that it makes would require me to have the builder to builder resources which I don't have access to. You'll need to pick mine or theirs when you speak to Isabela.
Gatekisses. Requires staging files that I don't have access to.
Alistair Male Romance and Marriage (with edited VO and fixes). We accomplish the same thing with our Alistairs but we go about it differently.
Equal Love. My mod accomplishes everything this one does and so much more.
* Version 2.0.0+ no longer overwrite the vanilla plo and ncs files.
Below is the list of every single file I changed:
arl100cr_alistair_origin.dlb
arl100cr_alistair_origin.dlg
arl110cr_kaitlyn.dlb
arl110cr_kaitlyn.dlg
arl110cr_teagan.dlb
arl110cr_teagan.dlg
arl130cr_dwyn.dlb
arl130cr_dwyn.dlg
arl150cr_bella.dlb
arl150cr_bella.dlg
arl150cr_berwick.dlb
arl150cr_berwick.dlg
arl230cr_eamon.dlb
arl230cr_eamon.dlg
alistair_main.dlb
alistair_main.dlg
bdc200_leske.dlb
bdc200_leske.dlg
bdc100_unna.dlb
bdc100_unna.dlg
bdn120_gorim.dlb
bdn120_gorim.dlg
bed100cr_tamlen.dlb
bed100cr_tamlen.dlg
bhm100_jowan.dlb
bhm100_jowan.dlg
bhm300_cullen.dlb
bhm300_cullen.dlg
bhn100cr_duncan.dlb
bhn100cr_duncan.dlg
cir230_cullen.dlb
cir230_cullen.dlg
cutscene_funeral.dlb
cutscene_funeral.dlg
cutscene_postcoronation.dlb
cutscene_postcoronation.dlg
cutscene_slideshow.dlg
den200_isabela.dlb
den200_isabela.dlg
den200_gorim.dlb
den200_gorim.dlg
den300_shianni.dlb
den300_shianni.dlg
den510_anora.dlb
den510_anora.dlg
den511_vaughan.db
den511_vaughan.dlg
den600_landsmeet.dlb
den600_landsmeet.dlg
epi_alistair.dlb
epi_alistair.dlg
epi_fergus.dlb
epi_fergus.dlg
epi_leliana.dlb
epi_leliana.dlg
epi_loghain.dlb
epi_loghain.dlg
ntb100cr_cammen.dlb
ntb100cr_cammen.dlg
ntb100cr_gheyna.dlb
ntb100cr_gheyna.dlg
orz530_ruck.dlb
orz530_ruck.dlg
party_camp.dlb
party_camp.dlg
party_events.dlb
party_events.dlg
party_ran_banter.dlg
pre100_daveth.dlb
pre100_daveth.dlg
pre100_duncan.dlb
pre100_duncan.dlg
pre100_prisoner.dlb
pre100_prisoner.dlg
leliana.dlb
leliana.dlg
morrigan_main.dlb
morrigan_main.dlg
shale_new.dlb
shale_new.dlg
zevran_main.dlb
zevran_main.dlg
Characters
Below are some video examples of the changes in the dialogue for the characters. If you want a far more in depth look at every single change (and I do mean every single one) look at the Readme.
Morrigan
Morrigan had the most changes out of all the characters. Mostly because she calls you a dude so many times and those were fun to edit. I decided to allow lady wardens to do the dark ritual with her because:
Trans women exist It's magic you will deal
Below is her friendship talk with the Warden and she will now ask a lady warden if they would like to be together, which was something that she would ask guy wardens. * There's also her jealousy dialogue involving Alistair, which was a bear and a half to do let me tell you.
* Fun fact: this is my favourite scene that I made
Alistair
Below is Alistair's rose gift scene and his jealousy dialogue involving Morrigan, which was a lot easier to do then Morrigan's might I just say.
Leliana
Yes, Leliana is already bi, so what could I possibly need to change? A. Lot. It's frankly unbelievable how much the game favours the dude romance; there's more banter that acknowledges it along with the fact that dudes are the only ones that are allowed to hit on her in any capacity. So I made sure to take care of that mess.
Below is the Warden asking her about the seductive wiles of bards along with a flirt option.
Zevran
Zev thankfully only required a small number of changes, the biggest ones acknowledging a guy Warden marrying Alistair and a lady Warden marrying Anora, which are shown below.
Anora
At last, your lady Warden can marry Anora and be the most badass ruling couple. Below is the Warden proposing the idea to her.
Shale
Shale had a couple of gender restricted dialogue that I hated so I removed those. Now dudes can comment on how pretty their crystals are and one-sidedly gush over guys with them. And ladies can call them cute. Shale will respond pretty much how you would expect.
Isabela
You look me dead in the eye and tell me that Zev would turn down a foursome with Isabela just because Alistair is part of it. Didn't think so. This involved making a completely new cutscene shown below.
Bella
Ladies can now kiss Bella.
Teagan
Dudes can now ask Teagan about his marital status and flirt with him accordingly.
Kaitlyn
Ladies can now kiss Kaitlyn.
Jowan
Now dudes can also make Jowan uncomfortable by asking him if they ever had a chance with him while his love is standing right there.
Cammen
Guy wardens can now teach this poor elf about the birds and the bees.
Gheyna
Now Gheyna can regret sleeping with lady Wardens too. Why does Bioware like to add scenes like this, the world may never know.
Gorim
Gorim is now the try too hard bi he was always meant to be.
Leske
This is one of my favourite edits because I was able to completely skip over Leske asking dudes if they fantasize about their sister. Because apparently Bioware would rather have incest then gay.
Cullen
Now dudes can have Cullen pine after them and hear him voice these regrets in front of their entire party. You're embarrassing me indeed.
Characters that I didn't record include Tamlen, Berwick, Duncan, Dywn, Ruck, and Unna. I went through every single dialogue file in the game, trust me when I say that I covered everyone outside of two character for reasons that are explained in the Readme (they are extremely minor characters I promise that you won't miss them).Make no mistake, the Australian Government is currently being held to ransom by billionaire media moguls and the hostage is Channel Ten.
As IA's Dave Donovan has already pointed out, Channel Ten is not actually insolvent.
It has borrowed only around a third of the total available from its bankers and has another six months to pay back debt. Yet its board pulled the trigger on entering voluntary administration, angering smaller shareholders and causing confusion among analysts.
The current “crisis” at Ten is entirely aimed at pressuring the Senate to pass the Turnbull Government’s media reform legislation, which includes measures to repeal the 75 per cent "reach rule" that stops metropolitan broadcasters merging with regional players; and the "two out of three rule", which prevents any one proprietor owning more than two of the three services – TV, radio and print – in any one market.
Brought to you courtesy of the Murdochracy: Media reform and the Murdoch mafia's Ch 10 con @davrosz https://t.co/x5oxJ93qVC @IndependentAus — Michelle Pini (@vmp9) June 15, 2017
Ten has been here before. It was rescued from administration in the early 1990s by a team including Malcolm Turnbull and returned to be a highly profitable business for more than 20 years.
The broadcast media sector has been pushing for these reforms for more than a decade. They were close to getting the 75 per cent rule – which the internet has rendered obsolete – repealed in March 2013. It failed because it was part of the ill-fated media reform package that Stephen Conroy tried to ram through the Parliament in the dying days of the Gillard Government, and which crashed and burned spectacularly due to a relentless misinformation campaign led by News Corp.
I was an advisor to Conroy for almost five years until January 2013. I dealt with the TV networks on a wide range of policy and legislation, including the switch to digital television, equalisation of services for regional and rural Australia, anti-siphoning, local content regulation — anything in the portfolio that wasn’t related to the NBN, basically.
Mostly, my interactions with the folk from media peak bodies and individual broadcasters were productive. The switch to digital TV went so smoothly hardly anyone heard about it. We passed a lot of legislation with agreement from all parties and worked cooperatively to get some good stuff done.
The media reform package, though, was fraught. It’s virtually impossible to get the free-to-air networks and their pay TV counterparts to agree on the necessary reforms to update Australia’s woefully anachronistic legislative framework. It’s been endlessly tinkered with – only the IncomeTax Assessment Act has more appendices than the Broadcasting Services Act – but even after a significant and serious independent review of the rules, agreement on the way ahead was impossible to achieve.
So, the fact that current Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield has stitched together a fragile consensus in support of his current package of legislative reforms is, on the face of it, impressive and would seem to be a rare opportunity for the Parliament to pass laws the whole industry supports.
.@SenatorFifield: I think that if you've got all media on board a proposition, it should be seriously considered. https://t.co/j3HeLaUtwT pic.twitter.com/IF8jpawvmW — Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) June 1, 2017
The problem, though, is no-one involved in that consensus has the public interest at heart.
And you’ll be hard-pressed to find any discussion of this issue that prioritises the public interest argument of protecting a diversity of media in this country. Media coverage has been focussed on the damage to shareholders if Ten collapses and the Prime Minister himself is on the record saying the two out of three rule isn’t needed because we have the ACCC. Sure, the ACCC will assess mergers and acquisitions based on a lessening of market competition, but they give no regard to the impact on the public of reducing the number of voices in our public debate. Just take a look at Brisbane or Adelaide, where the only daily papers in town are News Corp publications — developments that caused the ACCC not a skerrick of concern.
It’s true that free-to-air broadcasting is under incredible pressure. There is good reason to question whether a country with Australia’s small population and resulting limited advertising revenue can continue to support three entirely advertising-funded TV networks. Yet the pressures of the internet have been evident for decades, but the broadcasting barons have consistently failed to innovate or adapt their business models to take on the challenge. That’s not how big business operates in Australia; rather, they come cap-in-hand to Canberra seeking “regulatory relief” that will allow them to make money from more favourable conditions. As Dave Donovan said last week, read Cameron Murray’s Game of Mates to understand the playbook.
The media industry is incredibly powerful, politically. While people with a deep interest in politics get their information from a variety of sources, those who are only marginally engaged – the voters who tend to swing elections – continue to get their impressions of daily politics from short grabs on the nightly TV news. It’s a brave politician indeed who risks the wrath of those who control the means of communication with the public.
So, Fifield and Prime Minister Turnbull are, predictably, trying to give the moguls what they want. And what they want – particularly Lachlan Murdoch and, potentially, Bruce Gordon – is to buy Network Ten at a rock bottom price.
Government announces abolishment of TV Network licence fees within 24 hours of Turnbull meeting with Rupert Murdoch.in New York. #auspol pic.twitter.com/cn3d2WgSaI — Frantic Fred (@actualfredsmith) May 7, 2017
While Conroy’s reform package would have removed the legislative restriction on Gordon buying the network, it would not have repealed the two out of three rule that blocks Murdoch. In fact, Conroy proposed extending that legislation to become a “two out of four rule” — it would have included, for the first time, pay TV. This would have prevented the owner of Foxtel from ever buying a free-to-air network in Australia.
Well before this ill-fated package hit the Parliament, the interests of News Corp and Foxtel were affecting the fate of Network Ten. When Murdoch took over as Chair and CEO, he almost immediately changed the networks’ first digital multi-channel, One, from a sports channel to general programming. One had been performing quite well by multichannel standards and had the advantage of first rights under the anti-siphoning scheme that is so loathed by Foxtel. It had to go — in the interests of Fox Sports.
There’s now credible talk of Sky News taking over Ten’s news production as well.
But small programming changes aren’t enough. It’s apparent that News Corp wants complete control of Network Ten and, in order to get it, is willing to threaten the livelihoods of Ten’s employees by entering into voluntary and unnecessary administration in a bid to pressure Parliament to pass Fifield’s package.
They are making good on a long-standing threat. No-one wants to be the politician responsible for the loss of a free-to-air network. Which Senator will put up their hand and say “I killed Offspring, The Project and Masterchef”? That’s the implied threat to every member of the Senate the moment. It’s not new – it’s a line I heard repeatedly in my time in Conroy’s office – but the sector has, after finding a tenuous consensus on the Fifield package, ramped up the tactics and is now holding Ten hostage to its game of parliamentary ransom. These people play politics hard, and they are willing to risk the jobs of thousands of employees at the network and its affiliated companies to get what they want.
They know this is their last best chance for a good while. Labor won’t back repealing the two out of three rule, so it has to be done before their possible comeback at the next election. Doubtless, the moguls have also been told by the Prime Minister that this is a one-shot deal — no prime minister wants to head into an election year with media reform still on the table. Gillard rolled the dice because she had little left to lose.
So now the media moguls are holding a gun to the head of every senator.
The Senate must block the repeal of two out of three. It’s not an ideal rule to protect media diversity by any measure but it’s all we currently have. Labor and the Greens appear to be standing firm, so this will not be a pleasant week to be a crossbench senator — the pressure on them to give the moguls what they want will be immense.
Every Australian who cares about media diversity and doesn’t want to see Network Ten become “Fox News Lite” must contact every crossbench senator and tell them not to cave. Our democracy can’t afford it.
Emma Dawson is the executive director of independent progressive think tank Per Capita. She was a policy adviser to former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. You can follow Emma on Twitter @DawsonEJ.
'Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism' trailer.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
When too much media reform is barely enough https://t.co/iVCcQDMBXh "entire printing staff at the Sunday Times are about to lose their jobs" — Shirley Green (@ShirleyGreen11) October 20, 2016
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Could it be that Murdoch gave Turnbull an ultimatum in NY?
Media reform....OR we reinstal the mad monk as PM#auspol#insiders — Rod Moffatt (@Ozlandscapes) May 6, 2017
Get the whole story. Subscribe to IA for just $5.Chris Quartuccio and his team must deal with ocean acidification—and plenty of naysayers—to try to ensure that Long Island remains an important point for oyster harvesting.
Chris Quartuccio, center, and the rest of the Blue Island Shellfish team. (Photo: Doug Young)
The man at the helm of Blue Island Shellfish, Chris Quartuccio, wants to make sure I see Blue Point, home of the most famous oysters in the world. At least, it used to be. Dressed in jeans and a gray and red striped sweater, with his gold wedding band catching the weak March light, Quartuccio is giving me a tour of his oyster farm. We climb into his navy blue four-door truck, still spattered with the white salt of wintertime road slush, and pull out of the oyster company’s muddy drive. Keenan Boyle, Blue Island’s traveling oyster bar manager and oyster shucker extraordinaire, comes along for the ride.
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As we drive through the neighboring towns of Sayville and West Sayville, Long Island, Quartuccio points out businesses that were once named for a then-booming local oyster industry. The bank, he says, was called the “Oysterman’s Bank,” and the volunteer fire department, “the flying Dutchmen,” after the Dutch families that once flocked to the bay to harvest oysters, and so on. Years ago, four trains a day would carry the brimming barrels of live oysters in seawater to New York and its harbor, to be sold in city restaurants or shipped as far away as Europe. But all that has faded.
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“Now it’s an oyster ghost town,” Quartuccio says. “We’re trying to keep it alive.”
Oyster farms have experienced a renaissance of late, as their popularity continues to grow and price points climb, turning a once floundering industry profitable again. Between the years 2000 and 2008, the number of aquaculture leases in the New York area alone jumped from 38 to 51, and harvests at individual farms doubled. The celebrated shellfish are now commercially grown in every coastal American state except Delaware. But oysters everywhere are increasingly threatened. Ocean acidification has wreaked havoc on oyster hatcheries on the West Coast, causing some operations to move their nurseries as far away as Hawaii. On the East Coast, from Virginia to Maine, ecologists and oyster farmers alike are trying to restore native oyster beds using a variety of methods, in the hope of bringing life back to aquatic ecosystems decimated by centuries of over-harvesting and pollution. The goal is also to try to mitigate the effects of climate change and rising sea levels on shorelines, with oyster reefs acting as buffers. But these efforts now face challenges from a different type of ocean acidification; one that could even put an end to shellfish growing outside the reach of acidic upwelling events: eutrophication, or rapid acidification from within, caused by massive algae bloom die-offs.
Oystering has been prevalent in the Great South Bay—the body of water between the southern shore of Long Island and Fire Island—since the early 1800s. European-Americans first harvested oysters there near a little bump of land they named Blue Point which, when viewed against the Atlantic at certain times of day, appeared to be shrouded in a blue haze. The public went crazy for the new oysters, and they were among the first food products in the United States to be advertised nationally. The Blue Point logo was stamped on posters, coasters, and matchbooks from Boston to St. Louis. The bay was busy with oystermen until 1938, when a hurricane blew through and buried the already-over-harvested beds in silt and sand. With the natural hard substrate gone, the native oyster population could not re-establish itself and was eventually extinguished.
Chris Quartuccio grading baby Blue Island oysters on the Great South Bay. (Photo: Lauren Barton)
This all predates Chris Quartuccio. Born and raised in Sayville, Quartuccio started harvesting oysters from Long Island Sound in 1996, when he was 30, but he was a recreational clammer long before that, beginning at the age of 12. (Unlike oysters, clams flourish in soft-bottom bays, and don’t need to be suspended in bags or grown on hard surfaces.) After the 1930s, the Great South Bay became prime habitat for hard-shell, soft-shell, and cherrystone clams. There’s a large framed photo in Quartuccio’s office of the bay at the height of its clamming industry, in the mid-'70s, decades after the old oysters had vanished. It is crowded with small boats manned by shirtless men, the poles of their yards-long clamming tongs submerged in the water. But all of the clams were mostly dug up by the early 1980s, and besides, the price for clams had plummeted.
“You can’t make a living on the bay, this bay, digging clams anymore,” Quartuccio says.
Oysters, however, are a different story.
Back at Blue Island’s headquarters, Quartuccio and Boyle walked me through the warehouse where harvested oysters and those bought wholesale for distribution are processed and packed into the appropriate mesh bags. The unused bags sit in fat stacks of different colors: white, orange, red, Kelly green, and dark purple. Some oysters were already bagged up with their brand names stamped on, including plump Blue Whales from Long Island Sound and dark Black Duck Salts from Virginia. Blue Island has three large walk-in coolers for shellfish storage, nicknamed Larry, Curly, and Moe. Normally, the coolers are packed with different varieties, but in late winter, with much of the local shoreline still locked in ice, the rooms were sparse and echoey. Inside the wet storage facility, called “the pool room,” are two wide concrete tubs about 15 feet square and three feet deep, with drains in the floor and faucets that connect to a saltwater well. During my visit, one of the tanks was nearly empty while the other was stocked with crates of longneck soft-shell clams, nicknamed “piss clams.” Quartuccio picked up one of the crates and jostled it against the edge of the tank |
Nile river flooding was the likely cause of any water weathering of the Sphinx and its enclosure. Schoch determined, however, that flood levels were not high enough to produce the erosion visible on the Sphinx and its walls. The exposed surface rock, with its deep roundedness and fissuring (Fig. 3.1 below), suggested to Schoch instead that the Sphinx and its walls had eroded from rainfall.
Fig. 3.1. The western end of the south wall of the Sphinx enclosure. Courtesy and copyright of John Anthony West.
In their survey of the enclosure floor (Fig. 3.2 below), Schoch and Dobecki took soundings along four lines: one parallel to the north side of the Sphinx body (S1), one parallel to the south side (S2), one behind the monument and perpendicular to the first two (S3), and one in front of the Sphinx (S4) parallel to the one in back. A sledgehammer striking a metal plate at shotpoints along each line produced the sound waves, and monitoring equipment recorded the wave velocities (in meters per second) as they bounced back from the rock below.
Fig. 3.2. Overview of the four sounding lines (in red) that Schoch and Dobecki took in 1991 around the Sphinx.
The soundings disclosed a region of lower velocities between 1.0-1.5 meters deep along the S3 line and 2.0-2.5 meters in depth along the S1 and S2 lines, falling to 3-4 meters deep along the S4 line (Fig. 3.3 below). Below this region lay bedrock that returned higher velocities.
Fig. 3.3. Graphs showing the depths of velocities in the subsurface rock recorded by Schoch and Dobecki. The green line in each diagram is the ground surface. Lower-velocity rock lay between the ground level and the red line in each diagram. Higher-velocity rock lay below the red line. Source: Thomas L. Dobecki and Robert M. Schoch, "Seismic Investigations in the Vicinity of the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt," Geoarchaeology, Vol. 7, No. 6 (1992), p. 534.
Schoch believed that the region of lower velocities did not follow the natural bedding of the rock. Since unweathered rock returns higher velocities than weathered rock, Schoch interpreted the lower-velocity region as weathered.
Neither the erosion to the Sphinx and its walls, nor the lower velocities in the rock below the enclosure floor, suggested when the floor was first exposed. But the lower-velocity region measured by the S3 line in back was only half as deep as the regions measured by the two flank lines, and the transition to the flank lines was relatively abrupt. To Schoch, this suggested that the area behind the Sphinx was cut back at a later time.
Fig. 3.4. The back terrace shelf of the Sphinx enclosure below the western wall. Schoch believed that the passageway behind the Sphinx was a later cutback of this shelf. Courtesy and copyright of Jon Bodsworth
On the assumption that the back was cleared by Khafra, Schoch estimated that the rest of the floor was between 50 and 100 percent as old, or excavated between 7000 and 4750 BCE. Schoch noted that the Sphinx could have dated before 7000 if the rate of weathering was non-linear, meaning that weathering might have taken longer to penetrate the subsurface as the mass of overhead rock increased.
In a 1992 article for KMT, a magazine reporting developments in Egyptology to a general audience, Schoch summarized his surface and subsurface findings. He also addressed the conventional view of how the Sphinx had weathered, agreeing that salt exfoliation induced by moisture in the atmosphere was a factor in the past, although modern air pollution had probably accelerated the process. Wind-blown sand was also a factor in weathering. But Schoch argued that wind-blown sand typically produces a kind of erosion characterized by sharper lines and jaggedness, not by the smoothness or rounding visible on the Sphinx and its walls. As an example of wind weathering, he pointed to the tomb of Debehen, four hundred yards southwest of the Sphinx (Fig. 3.5).
Fig. 3.5. Debehen's Tomb. Sharp jagged weathering can be seen on the rock face above the entrance. Courtesy and copyright of Jon Bodsworth
If the Sphinx was no older than the Old Kingdom, Schoch believed, it should display a more jagged appearance and not the more rounded weathering profile visible on the western enclosure wall (Fig. 3.4 above) and on the western end of the southern enclosure wall (Fig. 3.1 above). Schoch believed that the heavy rains at the end of the prehistoric period had produced the rounded profiles on the Sphinx and its enclosure walls.
Schoch also suggested some other evidence to date the monument to an earlier time. Parts of the Khafra Valley Temple showed weathered limestone core blocks behind harder granite facing. Schoch argued that the granite facing stones had been fitted to the eroded profile of the core blocks; if the facing stones were of Old Kingdom origin, the core blocks were much older. To the objection that there was no known civilization in Egypt before 4000 BCE, he pointed to Jericho and other sites in the wider region that had stone architecture as early as the ninth millennium BCE.
Launching a Controversy
At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February 1992, Schoch and Dobecki debated Mark Lehner and K. Lal Gauri before an audience of several hundred.[3] Lehner underlined the absence of any evidence of civilization or complex society in Egypt during the millennia proposed by Schoch and West for the original carving of the Sphinx. But Lehner and Gauri did not more fully engage West and Schoch; they would do so only in later publications after having had more time to consider the geological and archaeological evidence for dating the Sphinx to Khafra.
In an hour-long privately-produced documentary, "The Mystery of the Sphinx", broadcast on the American NBC television network on November 10, 1993, West and Schoch presented the geological evidence in favor of their earlier dating to an audience of about thirty million people. During the program, West also presented the work of Detective Frank Domingo, a senior forensic artist for the New York City Police Department, who compared the face on the Sphinx with the face on the statue of Khafra in the Cairo Museum. Domingo determined that the face on the Sphinx was not the face of Khafra; the Sphinx had a prognathic jaw more typical of an African from farther south. The "Mystery of the Sphinx" program received an Emmy Award for Research and brought the West-Schoch findings to public notice. Controversy followed.
Notes
1. Mark Lehner with James P. Allen and K. Lal Gauri, "The ARCE Sphinx Project: A Preliminary Report," The ARCE Newsletter, No. 112 (1980), pp. 17-18.
2. At the time, however, one scholar who did not accept Schwaller's larger conclusions credited him with insights missed by other scholars. See the review by Bernard V. Bothmer of the abridged version of Schwaller's book in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (April 1952), pp. 151-152.
3. For a brief report of the AAAS exchange, see Elizabeth Culotta, "Sphinx Riddle Put to Rest?" Science, Vol. 255, No. 5046 (14 February 1992), p. 793. For a more detailed account by an eyewitness in the audience, see Paul William Roberts, River in the Desert (New York: Random House, 1993), pp. 127-135.
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Go to index page.Conserving water must be made an urgent national priority to cope with a water shortage crisis expected to hit Thailand after Songkran if precautions are not taken, a consultancy firm says.
Water stocks in four major reservoirs which are the main sources of water in the Chao Phraya River basin currently stand at half of what they were in the same period last year, said Chawalit Chantararat, chief executive officer for the international sector of TEAM Group of Companies.
As of Sunday, he said, the combined water level in the Bhumibol, Sirikit, Kwai Noi Bamrung Dan and Pasak Jolasid dams stood at about 3.6 billion cubic metres, compared with 6.5 billion cu/m this time last year.
So if people, especially householders, do not sharply reduce water usage, they will experience salt water intrusion in the Chao Phraya and Thachin rivers after the Songkran festival in mid-April, which will consequently affect farming and tap water production, said Mr Chawalit.
A more emotive water-saving campaign is needed to make people see the problem clearly because now "what they see is water whenever they turn on taps", he noted.
He suggested the government announce drought and possible water shortages as a national priority to increase awareness.
If each person in Bangkok can reduce their daily water usage by 20%, the country will save up to one million cu/m of water, he said.
This amount of water can be used to help farmers in rice-belt provinces or be kept in reservoirs during the dry season, which will last until May, he said.
"Farmers should not be left to bear the burden alone," Mr Chawalit said, referring to recent pressure after the government implemented a policy November last year to limit their rice crops, which require lots of water.
However, the policy did not work effectively because many farmers could not shift to alternative crops.
These farming areas cover more than 2 million rai, while the government can supply water to only 330,000 rai of farmland, he said.
If the government cannot handle the situation, which could lead to severe quarrels over water usage next month, and is consequently forced to allocate more water, it will be put at risk of lacking enough fresh water to push out salty water, Mr Chawalit said.
So far the most concrete state water-saving campaign outcome was the move to encourage people to save at least 10% of water in return for cheaper water bills last year.
More than 420,000 people in Bangkok, Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan joined the campaign, helping reduce consumption by nearly 9 million cu/m, said Metropolitan Waterworks Authority governor Thanasak Watanathana.
In another development, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has worked to establish 4,000 artesian wells to deal with the drought crisis, saying the ministry will closely monitor the effectiveness and transparency of the project as many complaints have been made.
Gen Surasak Karnjanarat, minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, said in a news conference that the ministry has already prepared a map of artesian wells to identify the exact areas that need to have the wells for daily water consumption as the first priority.
He said Kamphaeng Phet, Nakhon Sawan, Phichit and Uthai Thani provinces were the top priority.Whales swimming in the ocean are never really alone. Even if one swims by itself with no other whales for miles around, it still has company—the tiny microbes that live on its skin. For a long time, these microbes went unnoticed or ignored. What scientists knew about skin microbes on whales was limited to studies on stranded or deceased animals, and virtually nothing was known about the microbes residing on healthy, free-ranging whales. But as links are now emerging between the microbiology of human skin and health, immunity and skin disorders, I realized that it could also be possible to learn about the health of marine mammals by studying the microbes on their skin.
We first examined the skin bacteria of North Pacific humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) breeding in Hawaiian waters. Humpbacks are migratory animals that feed up north in the Arctic and make one of the longest migrations of any mammal to lower latitudes for birthing and mating. How on earth do you take a sample of their skin bacteria? Lucky for me, my marine mammal colleagues were already permitted for and skilled at collecting skin from these animals for a population genetics project. I sub-sampled skin from small biopsies already being taken for their project, and also skimmed floating skin off the ocean's surface after whales leapt out of the water, a behavior known as breaching. Back at the laboratory, we analyzed the skin using genetic techniques focused on bacteria. We found, to our surprise, similarities in the types of bacteria hosted by the various North Pacific humpback whales we sampled. We also observed some differences in the bacterial communities on the skin of whales that were mildly health-compromised, like those entangled in fishing gear, compared to samples from healthy whales. This implication for health was very preliminary, but still pretty exciting.
“This humpback uses its lower jaw to strain fish off the water’s surface as sea birds snatch their own meals right out of the whale’s open mouth.” - Nature's Best photographer, Bryce Flynn (Bryce Flynn/Nature’s Best Photography)
We realized that we needed to see whether the same bacterial species occur on the skin on other populations of humpbacks, or if the specific ocean environment that the whales inhabited in Hawaiian waters biased the composition of the skin-bacteria. In order to tackle this global question, I teamed up with marine mammal scientists from many institutions to embark on a study of different populations of humpback whales. Strikingly, skin examined from 56 individual whales from populations in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and South Pacific oceans all harbored, and were generally dominated by, the same two groups of bacteria. Regardless of population, age or sex, all animals had bacteria on their skins belonging to the Flavobacteria (Tenacibaculum) and the Gammaproteobacteria (Psychrobacter). These groups are marine bacteria previously found in association with marine animals, and but the types on the humpback whales’ skin hadn't been seen together before.
The discovery of this core bacterial community on the skin of healthy humpbacks allowed us to follow up on the other important question from our first results: if and how the bacteria residing on a whale's skin may reflect its overall health. In collaboration with scientists that respond to whales in crises, we compared the skin bacteria of healthy whales to those exhibiting potentially health-compromised conditions, including animals entangled in fishing gear, or those recently beach-stranded or deceased. The abnormal whales hosted fewer of the healthy core bacteria (Tenacibaculum and Psychrobater), and we also found the potential disease-causing bacteria. While only based on a few samples, this research does suggest that the skin-bacteria may be connected to humpback health.
Before we can begin using skin-bacteria to diagnose whale health, scientists need to understand better how these bacteria are interacting with the whales and their potential role in keeping the whales healthy. For example, it is possible that Tenacibaculum and Psychrobacter are prohibiting the colonization of larger fouling organisms that might slow the whales' swimming speeds, like barnacles and phytoplankton, or even disease-causing bacteria. Bacteria can secrete antibiotics and other compounds that are detrimental to their fellow bacteria as well as other organisms, and this might be an important aspect of this relationship. Though we still need to learn more, the implications of this research are exciting and suggest that monitoring the skin-associated bacteria may provide a useful way to monitor the health of threatened and endangered marine mammals. This is important because it is a lot easier to sample the skin of whales than it is to bring a whale to the vet!
Editor's note: You can read her paper at PLOS ONE. Dr. Apprill wants to acknowledge the many other scientists involved in the work: her PhD advisor Michael Rappé (University of Hawaii, UH); Marc Lammers (Oceanwide Science Institute), Edward Lyman (Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, HIHWNMS), T. Aran Mooney (formerly UH, presently at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, WHOI) and Alison Stimpert (formerly UH, presently at Moss Landings Marine Laboratory), who let her use their whale skin samples and helped her with collecting additional samples; her post-doc advisorTracy Mincer (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) and marine mammal scientists Jooke Robbins (Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies), Adam Pack (University of Hawaii, Hilo) and David Mattila (HIHWNMS), with whom she conducted the study of 56 humpback whales; and Michael Moore (WHOI) and Katie Moore and Misty Niemeyer (International Federation for Animal Welfare) who helped with the whales in crises.Four years ago, LeBron James shifted the balance of power in the NBA and set off a huge wave of interest in the league with his infamous decision to "take his talents to South Beach." James once again holds the future of the league in his hands as a free agent with his plans to opt of the last two years of his current Miami Heat contract. James' power across the sporting landscape is unquestioned. No individual athlete in major team sports has wielded such influence since Michael Jordan roamed the courts more than a decade ago. James' influence lands him as the top athlete on Forbes' Celebrity 100. The only celebrity across all categories to finish in front of King James on Forbes' annual tally is musician Beyonce.
We estimate James earned $72 million over the past year. His Heat salary was $19.3 million this past season and we figure his off-court earnings from endorsements and the sale of Beats Electronics generated $53 million in income. James' significant endorsements earnings give him the ability to accept a lower salary from an NBA team in exchange for surrounding himself with the best possible team under the NBA salary cap rules with a chance to win a third NBA title.
Apple announced in May that it would purchase Beats in a cash and stock deal worth $3 billion. Published reports put James take from the sale at more than $30 million, but our sources say the final number was much lower (James camp would not comment on his stake). James partnered with the high-end headphones maker in 2008 when he outfitted his teammates with Beats by Dre at the Beijing Summer Olympics. Pictures of the U.S. team wearing the headphones were splashed across the globe. The move helped make the headphones a must-have accessory and James has been collecting royalty checks ever since before cashing in big this year with the sale.
James is the NBA's top pitchman with endorsement deals with McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Upper Deck and Tencent. His biggest partner is Nike, which originally signed James out of high school in 2003 to a seven-year, $90 million contract. James re-signed with the Swoosh in 2010 in a deal that pays upwards of $20 million a year, including royalties. Sales of James' signature Nike shoes were tops among active players at $300 million in the U.S. during 2013, according to research firm SportsOneSource. His jersey was also the NBA’s best-seller.
Forbes' Celebrity list ranks the top stars from the worlds of music, movies, sports, TV, books and modelling based on a mix of money and fame. The fame quotient is based on mentions in the media, social media prowess and overall impact. Our athlete earnings estimates include salaries, bonuses, prize money and appearance fees, as well as licensing and endorsement income paid out during the 12 months between June 1, 2013 and June 1, 2014. We do not deduct for taxes or agents’ fees. We also do not include investment income unless it is a stake in a company tied to a sponsorship like James’ small equity stake in Beats.
Floyd Mayweather ranks second among athletes and No.7 overall on the Celebrity 100. The boxing universe revolves around Mayweather and that was never more apparent than last year. He earned $105 million over the past 12 months thanks to a pair of fights against Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Marcos Maidana. He is only the second athlete to ever bank $100 million in a year after Tiger Woods, who turned the trick on multiple occasions. The only celebrities on our list that earned more than Mayweather over the past year were Beyonce and Dr. Dre. Mayweather's fight against Alvarez in September set records for highest pay-per-view gross ($150 million), live gate ($20 million) and total revenue (roughly $200 million). The Canelo fight marked the second bout in the 30-month, six-fight deal Mayweather signed with Showtime last year. Mayweather is next scheduled to fight in September in the fourth bout under his lucrative pact with Showtime.
Rounding out the top five is a trio of athletes who have each been at the top of their respective sport for more than a decade. Kobe Bryant ranks No. 15 overall on the Celeb 100 and is followed by Roger Federer (No. 16) and Woods (No. 21). Each of these stars banked at least $55 million from prize money, salary and endorsements.
A total of 16 athletes made the cut for the Celebrity 100. They hail from eight different countries and play six sports. Three female athletes appear on the list led by Maria Sharapova (No. 66) who is joined by fellow tennis stars Serena Williams (No. 70) and Li Na (No. 85). The threesome collectively earned $70 million over the past year.Welcome to the 2nd part of “Democratic Party 101”, where we help you get up-to-speed with things you need to know about the Democratic Party in order to participate within it. This article will focus on three things: Caucuses, Primaries, and what I call the “Independent Question”. Ready? Let’s get started!
Caucuses and Primaries Defined
On their most basic level, Caucuses and Primaries serve largely the same purpose, but they do have fundamental differences and fundamental pros-and-cons.
Caucuses are scheduled meetings of the general voting membership of the Party by precinct. You and your neighbors who are members of the Democratic Party (or affiliate with them in areas that don’t conduct party registration) gather at a location and proceed through a laundry list of party business: you elect your Precinct Officers, you elect Delegates from your precinct to attend the County Convention and represent the candidate(s) chosen, and you vote for who will represent the party in the office or offices in question. The pros of this method is that it gets you and your fellow Democrats face-to-face, it forces you to participate in the Party as membership was meant to be. It also allows people to stump for their chosen candidate and try to win others over, as well as voting for representatives for your precinct at the county level. The con of this of course is that it’s time consuming and sometimes impossible for certain people to participate in.
Primaries on the other hand are your standard passive ballot system. You get a ballot by mail or go to your polling station, you cast your ballot, and you’re done. Sometimes this is an all day thing, sometimes there is a range of days you can vote, but either way the entire process will take a matter of minutes and provides people a flexible schedule. The pro of this method is exactly that: it allows more people to participate. The con of this though is that it does not allow for interaction and participation, nor does it allow for ready voting of delegates or Precinct leadership. In short, you lose a lot of control by gaining convenience.
Personally, I’m in favor of a mixed system, where ballots are mailed out to all registered party members. Party members may vote and turn them in by mail OR may take them to their precinct on Caucus Night. People who want to join the party may do so on Caucus Night but have to participate in the Caucus. Having lived in states that do both primaries and caucuses, I personally have a preference for caucuses over primaries by themselves, and others disagree.
Types of Primaries
Within primaries there are subsets of primaries. Non-partisan primaries can happen for non-partisan positions to whittle down the number of candidates.
Blanket primaries
Blanket primaries are *quasi-partisan* in that the parties are represented but everyone votes the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. The top-two winners, regardless of party affiliation, go on to the General Election. Blanket primaries have the potential to completely shut out other parties out of an election.
Open primaries
Open primaries exist in some states where you get a single-party ballot but you get the ballot based off of what party you wish to participate in, not the party you belong to. So, a Democratic Party member can request a ballot for the Republicans, and vice versa, and their selections will influence who represents that party in the general election. The pro of this is that independents get an opportunity to have a voice, but the con is that it does allow for ‘brigading’, by promoting a bad candidate for the opposition party through participation by non-affiliated or opposition voters.
Closed primaries
Closed primaries require an individual to not only be a registered voter, but a registered party member, and they must only receive the ballot for their registered party. Many people will argue that closed primaries are bad for democracy as they shut out independents and prevent ‘party jumping’ to follow a specific candidate.
Before I continue, let me take a moment to remind people what a political party is:
A political party is a federation of *like minded voters* seeing to promote their ideological platform through elected officials and activism.
The “Independent Question”
Americans have in recent years lauded “party independence”, or purposefully withdrawing from party participation. Many see this as a way to be ‘free of influence’, and not having to tow the ‘party line’. However, what this ultimately does is create a gulf between voters and political parties: political parties represent their active and engaged membership, but voters expect their candidates to represent everyone. As a result we consistently are seeing elected officials that do not represent the views of the majority of their constituents.
If no political party represents the majority of your viewpoints, it would make sense to be an independent voter. However, for the vast majority of independent voters, a party does represent the majority of their viewpoints, whether it be Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, etc.. It is also worth noting that party membership does *not* prevent anyone from voting their conscience in the general election.
The “Independent Question” is then about how to handle independent or unaffiliated voters in the primary/caucus process. If we go back to our definition of a political party, being a federation of like minded voters, and the purpose of the primary/caucus is to choose the candidates that will represent the party, we should conclude that closed primaries would be the only way to go: only party members participate in choosing party candidates, anyone else need not apply.
For the most part, I would agree with this and do think that closed primary/caucus systems are the way to go. As a Democratic Party member, I absolutely would not want the future of my party decided by Republicans or fly-by-night participants. However, there should be processes in place to allow people to participate. Same-day party registration for unaffiliated voters would be one such answer, with a 9-month lock-in (or gestation period), meaning you cannot change your party affiliation for 9-months. The purpose of this lock-in would to still allow for same-day registration of independents but prevent someone from party-hopping or brigading. Party changes should still be able to happen, but with a bit more strict control such as 60 day blackouts prior to a primary or caucus.
For some reading this, these suggestions sound awful (and possibly undemocratic or authoritarian). However, we need to come back for a second and realize we do not have any right to affect the future of an organization we’re not part of. You or I cannot go and vote in a shareholder meeting of a company just because we buy their products, we have to become a shareholder. Likewise, I can’t vote in Minneapolis just because I’m progressive, I have to vote where I live: in the largely conservative suburban Scott County. Parties are like that: the only people participating in party business (including what candidates make the cut) should be members of the party.
Overall there is no benefit to being an unaffiliated voter. Being an unaffiliated voter removes your voice in the political party that closely aligns to your ideals and does not allow you to help shape its destiny. We don’t need to agree 100% with our political parties, but where we don’t agree we can shape that change through participation.
Despite my personal views on primaries and caucuses, I hope this article has educated you in the difference of these systems and why political party membership matters. I hope it has encouraged you to register or affiliate with a party that most closely matches your worldview and encouraged you to participate in shaping it’s future.
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Omar Triggs had already given up his eyeglasses and about $600 to a pair of armed robbers last fall when one of them said, "You got more," Triggs told a jury Tuesday.
"I told them, 'Hold on, I'll give you what's in my wallet.'" he said. "I forgot I even had my gun on me. I felt it when I went for my wallet. Instead of pulling my wallet, I pulled my gun."
And in an instant, he and a robber exchanged shots, as Triggs scrambled out of and away from his car, where his 5-year-old son was sleeping in the passenger seat.
Triggs fired all 11 rounds from his gun, hitting Zaire Burris, 18, five times, killing him.
Triggs told his story Tuesday at the trial of Jovan Williams, 19. Although Willliams didn't directly cause Burris' death, he is charged with felony murder because prosecutors say he participated in the armed robbery.
Cool at times, excited and speaking rapidly at others, Triggs, 23, described the Oct. 19 event he says still plays every day in his head.
He was in his car near N. 27th St. and W. Auer Ave. looking at his cellphone, while his uncle took a possible buyer for a test drive in a car Triggs was selling. Suddenly, he said, he heard a tap on the window and saw a large handgun.
"It was big, not a fake," he said. "It was real, it was serious. It was in my face."
The men opened his door. Triggs said Williams had the gun, and grabbed Triggs' prescription glasses from his face, before Burris took money from Triggs' left pocket. Triggs said his own gun was in a holster on his right hip, under his shirt. He said he had a concealed carry permit but never thought of using the gun, only giving the robbers whatever they wanted — until Burris said they'd have to kill Triggs because he'd seen his assailants' faces.
In that second, Triggs said, as he was reaching for his wallet, he decided he had no choice but to use his gun.
"I felt I was going to die," he said. "If not me, my son. Maybe both of us."
Triggs was shot once in the elbow, but Burris'.45-caliber semiautomatic handgun jammed after one shot. Triggs said he fired until he saw Burris fall to the ground and Williams was gone, then ran back to his car to grab his son.
Running with the boy toward his uncle's candy shop, Triggs testified, he fell, and yelled for a bystander to help him. Someone took his son, and Triggs continued across the street to the shop yelling he'd been robbed and to have someone call police.
By the time he walked back toward his car a few minutes later, Triggs said, police were pulling up. Triggs had found a full magazine from a.45 on the ground where Burris had fallen earlier, and handed it and his own gun to officers.
Triggs was arrested himself at first but was later released and never charged. He identified Burris from photos, and Williams later in a live lineup. He told jurors he thought he saw a third man running up toward his car just as the shooting started.
His son was not injured in the shooting, Triggs said.DJI Phantom 2 drones are once again free to fly over restricted areas — at least temporarily. The Chinese drone maker has been forced to roll back its latest firmware update — also known as the "White House patch" — after reports that the update caused "unanticipated flight behavior."
The patch was quickly shipped out following a high-profile incident that saw one of the company's drones crash land on the White House grounds in Washington DC. The accident led to renewed demands for comprehensive new FAA regulation over amateur drone flight. DJI did its part by releasing new firmware that used geofencing to block its Phantom 2 drones from flying over restricted areas like sensitive spots in DC. The update included an expansion of an existing feature that blocked flight in airport areas.
But a separate issue with the update, version 3.10, has led the company to revert the software back to 3.08. If you already updated to the newer version, the company is asking that you plug in your drone and update again — it will automatically roll back to the stable version.
Verge Video from CES 2015: Hands-on with the DJI Inspire One Cam MountDrug Dealer Ordered to Write 5,000-Word Essay
Convicted drug dealer Terry Bennett has a choice: write a 5,000-word essay on the "dangers" of marijuana, or go to jail for a year. The 32-year-old from Gloucestershire, England, was caught with over two pounds of marijuana and admitted possession with intent to supply. He was originally sentenced to 240 hours of community service, but was unable to complete the work because of a snowboarding injury. The judge offered him the essay as an alternative. “I asked the judge if I could write a balanced argument for and against cannabis, but he said that since it’s illegal, I should only write about the bad things," says Bennett. “I’m just going to write about certain dangers caused by cannabis that people might not necessarily know.” To avoid jail time, he hopes to finish the essay by his April 4th deadline. Bennett, who says he has not written an essay in "ages," has chosen to interpret "dangers of marijuana" in his own way. "I'm going to approach it from a different angle, writing about the dangers that come about because it is illegal, rather than the nature of weed itself," he says. "Weed often causes more problems because of the social inertia and stigma that surrounds it." In addition to the essay, Bennett was also ordered to obey a four-month 8 pm curfew, along with drug testing, which he says could prove useful for him. "I've got a drugs conviction so for me to take on a more serious role in society it is imperative that I prove I am clean and steering clear of cannabis," he says, adding: "purely because it is illegal.”For decades, the threat continued to grow: The protective ozone layer 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) above the planet was thinning, opening a path for exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Even though experts are not in agreement today on the extent of the problem, it is certain that the radiation increased the risk of skin cancer.
The sustained damage to the ozone layer had been caused by aerosol spray cans and refrigerators emitting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). In 1987, the United Nations responded, banning the manufacture and use of CFCs and other substances under the Montreal Protocol. Since then, the hole in the ozone layer has been shrinking.
In autumn 2010, scientists reported the first success, saying the ozone layer had begun to heal. Now a new study shows for the first time that the healing of the ozone layer is also actually improving the health situation for people. Carcinogenic UV rays on the ground have also been diminishing in recent years, researchers led by Christos Zerefos at the Research Centers for Atmospheric Physics and Climatology at the Academy of Athens in Greece conclude in their study, published by the scientific publication Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
"The results are encouraging," said Markus Rex, a respected ozone expert at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam. The fact that the ozone layer in the regions researched has become thicker is a result of the successful Montreal Protocol, he added.
Cleaner Air Means Greater UV Exposure
The study findings are based on data collected between 1990 and 2011 at 12 measuring stations located in Europe, Canada and Japan. The stations measured the intensity of solar rays in numerous wavelengths and at a number of altitudes. Zerefos said it was good news that fewer dangerous UV rays were now beaming down on heavily populated areas, adding that the data also applied to regions where the measuring stations are not located.
The scientists have concluded that the ozone already began healing slightly in 1995. Ironically, during the same period, the fact that more stringent environmental protection measures were implemented in many countries led to cleaner air, thus opening the way for people to be exposed to greater amounts of dangerous UV rays.
But since 2007, that effect of cleaner air and greater exposure to UV rays has been surpassed by a healing ozone layer, Zerefos and his colleagues concluded. They believe 2007 marked a turning point for the protective layer in the atmosphere. Compared to that year, today there is between two and four percent less UV B exposure on the ground. UV B rays can penetrate deeply into the skin and, in high doses, are considered particularly dangerous.
Threat of Exposure Persists
But even if the danger has been reduced, the all-clear signal hasn't been given yet. Ozone expert Rex warns that dangerous exposure is still possible in Europe and in the northern parts of Asia and North America, particularly during the spring. In recent years, the unusually strong cooling of higher levels of the atmosphere has in several instances led to an extreme, but temporary loss of ozone in the higher latitudes. And in 2011, the areas where the ozone layer had disappeared lurked several times over Europe.
In 2011, scientists spoke for the first time of an ozone hole in the north that was five-times the size of Germany. Until then, ozone depletion had been primarily isolated to the South Pole. It's colder above the snowy wasteland of the Antarctic, and at minus 78 degrees Celsius (-108 degrees Fahrenheit), the ozone begins to recede. Below this threshold the CFC destruction begins, accelerated by the springtime sun.
Researchers are baffled as to why the upper atmospheric layers are now also cooling off so quickly in the north too. It seems certain that exhaust from cars and factories have contributed to the temperature drop: Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which |
behind Sina in microblog and NetEase.com (NASDAQ: NTES) in online games, what I think sets Sohu apart from the competition is its online video portal. The company focuses on longer video streams, usually entire movies, rather than short clips. The business model here is closer to Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) than YouTube, and users have to pay per view or buy a Sohu membership to watch a movie online. In fact, Sohu’s focus on the online video market has helped take its market share from 3.4% a year ago to 13.4% today.
And Sohu is directly competing with recent IPO Youku.com (NASDAQ: YOKU), a Chinese online video provider that soared more than 160% on the first day of trading. However, Yoku’s current market cap at $5.3 billion is almost 50% greater than the highly profitable Sohu. And even if Youku delivers on its 100%-plus expected revenue growth and becomes profitable, at its current share price it would still trade at a P/E ratio in the hundreds, if not closer to a thousand!
In addition, Sohu has other profitable businesses to fall back and fund its online video ventures, including search, online gaming and advertising. So if online video becomes a moon shot, then Sohu is well-positioned to capitalize and dominate the sector.
Overall, Chinese Internet stocks are not created equal. While some may be overpriced, others offer real potential in the intermediate and long term. The opportunity here is extraordinary, and we’re capturing outsized gains in the China Strategy portfolio as we invest in the best opportunities in the Chinese Internet space.The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached properties worth Rs58.16 crore of a diamond trader and his aide for allegedly laundering Rs1,478 crore through a web of shell companies.
Ritesh Jain of Rajeshwar Exports and his aide Amritlal Jain deposited Rs100 crore in shell companies after demonetisation, revealed investigation.
“The ED provisionally attached 10 immovable properties, gold jewellery and diamonds worth Rs. 58.16 crores. The belong to Ritesh and Amritlal,” said an ED officer.
ED had earlier registered a case against Ritesh for allegedly opening bank accounts in the name of dummy companies. The case was registered under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 after an FIR registered by the Mumbai police last December.
He allegedly collected money through a web of shell companies.
As much as Rs1,478 crore was routed to Rajeshwar Exports and later remitted to HongKong in the guise of payments for import of diamonds and jewellery, which were found to be overvalued, said an ED official.
First Published: Dec 20, 2017 01:07 ISTCoroner offers condolences to families as court hears details of how five of the eight victims died in terrorist attack
One of London’s senior coroners has expressed his deepest sympathies to the families of the victims of the London Bridge terrorist attack, saying it was “the most horrible thing” to hear of their violent deaths in a court room.
As the mother of one of the victims, Australian nanny Sara Zelenak, sat before him at Southwark coroner’s court on Tuesday, Andrew Harris formally opened the inquests into the deaths of five of the eight victims killed in the attack.
The hearings were quickly suspended while police continue extensive investigations into the attack that killed eight people and injured 48.
Harris offered his condolences to the families of the victims, who were killed on Saturday 3 June when three men, Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba, unleashed terror on London Bridge and nearby Borough Market in central London.
Just before 10pm, the terrorists shattered the bustling atmosphere in one of London’s favourite nightspots. Driving a hired van, they ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge, veering across the road wildly and mounting the kerb, according to witnesses. When it came to a stop they jumped out of the van and – armed with knives – stabbed people indiscriminately in and around bars and restaurants in Borough Market.
Three French citizens, two Australians, one Canadian, a Spanish national and one Briton died that night, with a further 48 injured, some needing life-saving operations in the days that followed.
Those who died were: Canadian Christine Archibald, 30, British business owner James McMullan, 32, Spaniard Ignacio Echeverría, 39, Australian nanny Sara Zelenak, 21, Australian nurse Kirsty Boden, 28, and Frenchmen Xavier Thomas, 45, chef Sebastien Belanger, 36, and Alexandre Pigeard, 27.
In Southwark coroner’s court on Tuesday, Harris offered his condolences to Julie Wallace, the mother of Zelenak. “All of our thoughts and condolences are with you at this terrible time,” he said. “One of the most horrible things is for parents to be in court hearing the details of a death, particularly a violent one, of their children.”
Representatives from the Spanish consulate also attended on behalf of the family of Ignacio Echeverría. The inquests into the deaths of the remaining three victims – Archibald, Thomas, and Pigeard – will open on Wednesday.
The court heard that Zelenak, who is believed to have become separated from friends in the chaos, was killed by a “stab wound to the neck” on Borough High Street.
Kirsty Louise Boden, a senior staff nurse, was killed in Montague Close after she ran towards the danger to help people. The coroner said she was killed in the vicinity of Southwark Cathedral by an “incised wound to the chest”.
Banker Ignacio Echeverría, from As Pontes a Coruña in north-west Spain, was killed on London Bridge after trying to defend a wounded police officer with his skateboard. He was killed by a “stab wound to the back”.
Frenchman Sebastien Belanger, originally from Angers, western France, was drinking at the nearby Boro Bistro when the attackers struck. He was killed by “stab wounds to the chest”, the coroner said.
James McMullan, 32, from Brent, north-west London, was last seen outside the Barrowboy and Banker pub and was killed by a haemorrhage caused by a knife wound to his chest in Borough Market.
In the hours – and in some cases days – following the attack, families and friends desperately tried to find out what had happened to their loved ones. The Metropolitan police said the formal identification process was painstaking, and said they were “liaising with the families and hope to formally confirm the victims as soon as we can”.
Seven men remain in custody in connection with the London Bridge attack. A 19-year-old man is being held on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts following a raid at an address in Barking, east London, at 9.50pm on Sunday, bringing the total number of arrests in the investigation to 21.
The inquest is using the victims’ birthplace rather than last address.
Christine Archibald, 30, from British Columbia, Canada
A social worker from British Columbia, Canada, 30-year-old Christine Archibald was the first victim to be named by her family. Archibald, who worked in a homeless shelter, would have “no understanding of the callous cruelty that caused her death”, said her family. It is believed she was struck by the speeding van while with her fiance, Tyler Ferguson.
His sister wrote on Facebook: “Last night in London, my baby brother lost the love of his life on the London Bridge. In a split second his entire life was ripped away from him. Hearing his painful sobs on the phone while he’s alone trying to deal with this tears me apart.
“I have no words. If you know Tyler, please be there for him now, and later when what happened sinks in, he’s going to need us all.”
Archibald’s family said she had “room in her heart for everyone and believed strongly that every person was to be valued and respected”.
“She lived this belief working in a shelter for the homeless until she moved to Europe to be with her fiance. She would have had no understanding of the callous cruelty that caused her death,” they said. “Please honour her by making your community a better place. Volunteer your time and labour or donate to a homeless shelter. Tell them Chrissy sent you.”
James McMullan, 32, from Brent, north London
Londoner James McMullan, 32, who lived in Hackney, was about to launch an e-learning business and was on a night out with old school friends when he was killed by the London Bridge attackers. His sister, Melissa, said: “There will only ever be one James. Nowhere else will you find such humour and unique personality with someone who puts friends and family above all else. He was an inspiration.”
Paying tribute to him, she said: “While our pain will never diminish, it is important for us all to carry on with our lives in direct opposition to those who would try to destroy us and remember their hatred is the refuge of small-minded individuals and will only bring more. This is not a course we will follow, despite our loss.”
McMullan was working on a web-based business to “revolutionise education”, according to his father, who called him an “exceptional man”.
Sara Zelenak, 21, from Brisbane, Australia
Australian nanny Sara Zelenak is believed to have been separated from friends in the chaos. In a statement, her family, who had been “bracing for the worst”, said: “We are deeply saddened at the tragic loss of our beautiful daughter and sister of Harrison and Scott. Sara’s family and friends are devastated.”
Zelenak would call her mother every day, but had not answered calls or texts since the moment she became parted from friends. Her mother, Julie Wallace, wrote on Facebook: “Sara Zelenak is confirmed dead, they found her body and has DNA tests confirmed. Thank you for all the overwhelming love and support from everyone.”
Kirsty Boden, 28, from Loxton, Australia
Australian nurse Kirsty Boden from Loxton, in South Australia, was attacked by the knife-wielding terrorists while coming to the aid of other injured people. Her family said her actions demonstrated “how selfless, caring and heroic she was”.
“As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life,” they said. “We are so proud of Kirsty’s brave actions, which demonstrate how selfless, caring and heroic she was, not only on that night, but throughout all of her life.”
Boden worked in theatre recovery at Guy’s hospital in London, where she was described as “one in a million”. She was an avid traveller and wrote a blog detailing her love of adventure and discovery. “I’m just your average dreamer, with a full-time job and a constant longing to go where I haven’t been,” Boden wrote on her blog. “I have big travel dreams but I am realistic. I recognise that I might not go everywhere but I should definitely go everywhere I can, and so should you!.” In another post she wrote: “At risk of sounding cliche, life is short and we should all use the time we have wisely.”
Responding to news of her death, Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “It is truly humbling that bright, hard-working people like Kirsty were brave enough to run towards danger in aid of victims lying helpless on the bridge following such a barbaric attack.”
Ignacio Echeverría, 39, from As Pontes a Coruña, north-west Spain
Spaniard Ignacio Echeverría was hailed as a hero after it emerged that he used his skateboard to take on the attackers. The London-based HSBC worker, who lived in Poplar, east London, was reported missing after he was last seen on Saturday night lying on the pavement near London Bridge. A lack of information from British authorities left his family and Spanish authorities angry, but on Wednesday his family said he had died. Echeverría’s family revealed on Tuesday that he had not died going to the aid of an injured woman, but was in fact killed trying to defend a wounded policeman from the attackers.
Echeverría’s brother, Joaquín, told the Spanish news agency Efe that the family had decided to stick with the original, if incorrect, version of events to protect him from “future reprisals”. “We were worried that, if he was still alive, the jihadists might go and look for him at home or at work.”
In a Facebook post, his sister Isabel wrote: “My brother Ignacio tried to stop the terrorists and lost his own life trying to save others. [Ignacio] we love you and we will never forget you.” Another sister, Ana, posted: “Ignacio didn’t survive the moment of the attack. Thank you to all those who love and cared about him. We know we are not the only ones saddened. Relative and journalist Isabel Durán confirmed he had died and that he was ‘in heaven with his inseparable skateboard’.” She tweeted: “Ignacio Echeverría attacked the terrorists to try to save a woman. He is in heaven with his inseparable skateboard #héroeespañol”.
Sebastien Belanger, 36, from Angers, France
Frenchman Sebastien Belanger, who worked at the Coq d’Argent restaurant in the City, had been living in London for seven years, and was reported missing by his girlfriend, Gerda Bennet. He had been watching the football Champions League final and was in Boro Bistro in Borough Market when the terrorists attacked.
Alexandre Pigeard, 27, from Normandy, France
French national Alexandre Pigeard was a waiter at the Boro Bistro and is believed to have died after being stabbed in front of friends. The restaurant’s manager, Vincent Le Berre, from Brittany, described how one of the attackers had jumped on to the roof of the bar before making his way down on to the terrace with a knife.
“One of the attackers got on to the roof of the bar and jumped on the parasol on the terrace, wounding one of my colleagues,” he told French news organisation Le Telegramme. “He immediately attacked a client who was killed. I managed to escape, but my friend Alexandre did not have a chance. He was stabbed in the neck with a knife.”
Originally from Caen, Pigeard was a fan of electronic music and organised gigs for Cargo, the Caen music venue, and the Nordik Impakt electronic music festival. Pigeard had been living in London for two and a half years after moving from Colleville-Montgomery, a small town near Caen.
Xavier Thomas, 45, from Loire-Atlantique, France
Frenchman Xavier Thomas was the final victim to be named after his body was found in the river Thames four miles from London Bridge near Limehouse last Wednesday. The 45-year-old was walking south on the bridge with his girlfriend, Christine Delcros – who is recovering in hospital after an operation on injuries sustained in the attack – when it is believed he was hit and thrown into the river by the terrorists’ van.
Loved ones appealed for information about the 45-year-old when he could not be found. By Tuesday afternoon, his girlfriend’s sister said the family had still not had any news. “My sister has tried to remember every instant of the drama... we don’t understand why he hasn’t been found in the hospitals despite the photograph that has been circulated to help identify him. That adds to the worries we have. We fear that the collision with the terrorists’ van may have thrown him into the Thames. The more time that passes the more we fear the worst and our hopes dwindle.”Photo by Shervin Lainez
CoSigned songwriter Aly Spaltro, a.k.a. Lady Lamb, has announced the release of a brand new EP, which she’ll support with an extensive “Living Room Tour” starting early next year.
The EP is titled Tender Warriors Club and is set for release on December 1st through Mom + Pop Records (a physcial release will follow on January 13th). Described as her “attempt to focus on intimacy and vulnerability, both musically and thematically,” the EP was written in her native Maine, her current hometown of Brooklyn, and in a home studio in rural Sweden, where it was also recorded.
Spaltro expanded on the EP’s themes in an issued statement, writing:
“These songs served as a path for myself that making a conscious effort to stay tender, and be kind and patient towards myself when handling my own fears is the most fruitful way to maneuver them in personal relationships. Tender Warriors Club is not just a collection of songs. It is meant to serve as an emblematic space for people to relate in the shared interest of emotional vulnerability, using music as the collective form of self-expression. It is my hope that this work and concept can be a reminder to both myself and others to find the courage to remain sensitive through emotional challenges. I’d like to bring these themes into intimate spaces musically, without amplification or a traditional stage, as a means to connect through the aforementioned concept that striving to express oneself with tenderness is ultimately a strength.”
Listen to the EP’s lead single, “See You”, below.
Beginning on January 12th, Lady Lamb will embark on a Living Room Tour. Over the course of three months, she’ll play intimate shows presented in houses, art galleries, community spaces, recording studios, coffee shops, or other spaces that can comfortably hold 40-75 people. The location of each show will be revealed upon the purchase of tickets, which go on sale December 1st. Fans can also submit to host their own show; click here for more info.
Lady Lamb Living 2016 Tour Dates:
01/12 – Charlottesville, VA
01/13 – Raleigh, NC
01/14 – Asheville, NC
01/15 – Atlanta, GA
01/17 – Florida
01/18 – Florida
01/20 – Nashville, TN
01/21 – Louisville, KY
01/22 – St Louis, MO
01/24 – Minneapolis, MN
01/25 – Chicago, IL *
01/26 – Milwaukee, WI
01/27 – Cleveland, OH
01/28 – Detroit, MI
01/30 – Toronto, ON
01/31 – Montreal, QC
02/01 – Burlington, VT
02/02 – Harpswell, ME *
02/03 – Portland, ME *
02/04 – Portsmouth, NH *
02/06 – Providence, RI
02/07 – Northampton, MA
02/09 – Hartford, CT
02/10 – Boston, MA *
02/11 – Brooklyn, NY *
02/12 – Washington, DC *
02/13 – Philadelphia, PA
03/01 – New Orleans, LA
03/02 – Houston, TX
03/03 – Austin, TX
03/04 – Dallas, TX
03/07 – Albuquerque, NM
03/08 – Phoenix, AZ
03/10 – Los Angeles, CA *
03/11 – San Francisco CA *
03/12 – Petaluma, CA
03/14 – Portland, OR
03/15 – Vancouver, BC
03/16 – Seattle, WA
03/17 – Spokane, WA
03/18 – Missoula, MT
03/20 – Boise, ID
03/21 – Salt Lake City, UT
03/23 – Denver, CO
03/24 – Omaha, NE
03/25 – Kansas City, MO
03/26 – Tulsa, OK
* = Proper club showIn the TOS blog, Michael A. LaFerrera has a post titled, “Where does Valid Law End and Regulation Begin?” It is a relevant question with an easy answer, but the post’s analysis totally misses the mark in my opinion.
The post’s conclusion is that government regulation per se is inherently illegitimate; I find that conclusion to be untenable. To illustrate, let me point to a couple examples of legitimate regulations:
There is a body of regulations related to the process for filing a patent which establish the procedures for executing relevant statutes.
There is a body of regulations related to executing multiple statutes covering the administration of government contracting.
Some regulations protect an individual’s due process rights by establishing procedures to challenge executive decisions.
Perhaps there is some context that should be explicit in LaFerrera’s post; however, the title of the post makes its intent seem to be a broad evaluation of government regulation.
Looking at problems that are actually happening with government regulations in reality, the following broad criticisms of federal regulation could be made correctly:
Congress by statute delegates too much regulatory discretion to the executive branch,
Congress fails to exercise sufficient oversight, including making statutory reforms, related to executive rule making and implementation,
Congress fails during statutory reauthorization to make sufficient investigation of and corrections to regulatory excesses,
the Supreme Court, through its decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), defaulted on its responsibility to extend individuals judicial protection from executive abuses by regulation and bureaucracy, and
statutory waiver discretion granted to the executive by Congress moves us from the rule of law toward the rule of men.
Based upon the specific examples cited in LaFerrera’s post, it seems that the issue he is attempting to identify relates to government regulations implementing non-objective laws; if so, the non-objective laws are to blame and not the regulations. This error misses the cause while focusing on an effect, which obstructs from actually solving the problem.
AdvertisementsThis article is about the Nuu-chah-nulth language, often called Nootka. For other uses of the word Nootka, see Nootka (disambiguation)
Nuu-chah-nulth (nuučaan̓uɫ),[3] also known as Nootka,[4] is a Wakashan language spoken in the Pacific Northwest of North America on the west coast of Vancouver Island, from Barkley Sound to Quatsino Sound in British Columbia by the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples. Nuu-chah-nulth is a Southern Wakashan language related to Nitinaht and Makah.
It is the first language of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast to have documentary written materials describing it. In the 1780s, Captains Vancouver, Quadra, and other European explorers and traders frequented Nootka Sound and the other Nuu-chah-nulth communities, making reports of their voyages. From 1803–1805 John R. Jewitt, an English blacksmith, was held captive by chief Maquinna at Nootka Sound. He made an effort to learn the language, and in 1815 published a memoir with a brief glossary of its terms.
Name [ edit ]
The provenance of the term "Nuu-chah-nulth", meaning "along the outside [of Vancouver Island]" dates from the 1970s, when the various groups of speakers of this language joined together, disliking the term "Nootka" (which means "go around" and was mistakenly understood to be the name of a place, which was actually called Yuquot). The name given by earlier sources for this language is Tahkaht; that name was used also to refer to themselves (the root aht means "people").[5]
Sounds [ edit ]
Consonants [ edit ]
The 35 consonants of Nuu-chah-nulth:
Consonants[6] Bilabial Alveolar1 Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn-
geal Glottal central lateral plain labial plain labial Nasal plain m n glottalized2 ˀm ˀn Stop plain p t k kʷ q qʷ ʔ ejective pʼ tʼ kʼ kʷʼ Affricate plain t͡s t͡ɬ t͡ʃ ejective t͡sʼ t͡ɬʼ t͡ʃʼ Fricative s ɬ ʃ x xʷ χ χʷ ħ h Approximant plain j w ʕ 3 glottalized2 ˀj ˀw
Of the alveolar consonants, nasal and laterals are apico-alveolar while the rest are denti-alveolar. Glottalized sonorants (nasals and approximants) are realized as sonorants with pre-glottalization. They are arguably conceptually[ vague ] the same as ejective consonants, though a preglottalized labial nasal could be analyzed as the stop–nasal sequence /ʔm/, as a nasal preceded by a creaky voiced (glottalized) vowel, or a combination of the two.[ citation needed ] The approximant /ʕ/ is more often epiglottal and functions phonologically as a stop.
The pharyngeal consonants developed from mergers of uvular sounds; /ħ/ derives from a merger of /χ/ and /χʷ/ (which are now comparatively rare) while /ʕ/ came about from a merger of /qʼ/ and /qʷʼ/ (which are now absent from the language).[7]
Vowels [ edit ]
Nuu-chah-nulth vowels are influenced by surrounding consonants with certain "back" consonants conditioning lower, more back vowel allophones
Vowels Front Central Back long short long short long short Close iː i uː u Mid1 ( ɛː ) ( ə ) ( ɔː ) Open aː a
The mid vowels [ɛː] and [ɔː] appear in vocative forms and in ceremonial expressions. [ə] is a possible realization of /a/ after a glottalized sonorant.[7]
In the environment of glottalized resonants as well as ejective and pharyngeal consonants, vowels can be "laryngealized" which often means creaky voice.[7]
In general, syllable weight determines stress placement; short vowels followed by non-glottalized consonants and long vowels are heavy. In sequences where there are no heavy syllables or only heavy syllables, the first syllable is stressed.[7]
Nuu-chah-nulth has phonemic short and long vowels. Traditionally, a third class of vowels, known as "variable length" vowels, is recognized. These are vowels that are long when they are found within the first two syllables of a word, and short elsewhere.
Grammar [ edit ]
Vocabulary [ edit ]
The Nuu-chah-nulth language contributed much of the vocabulary of the Chinook Jargon. It is thought that oceanic commerce and exchanges between the Nuu-chah-nulth and other Southern Wakashan speakers with the Chinookan-speaking peoples of the lower Columbia River led to the foundations of the trade jargon that became known as Chinook. Nootkan words in Chinook Jargon include hiyu ("many"), from Nuu-chah-nulth for "ten", siah ("far"), from the Nuu-chah-nulth for "sky".
A dictionary of the language, with some 7,500 entries, was created after 15 years of research. It is based on both work with current speakers and notes from linguist Edward Sapir, taken almost a century ago. The dictionary, however, is a subject of controversy, with a number of Nuu-chah-nulth elders questioning the accuracy of the terminology, and the author's right to represent their language.
Dialects [ edit ]
Nuu-chah-nulth has 12 different dialects:
Ahousaht [ʕaːħuːsʔatħ]
Ehattesaht ( AKA Ehattisaht) [ʔiːħatisʔatħ]
Ehattisaht) Hesquiat [ħiʃkʷiːʔatħ]
Kyuquot [qaːjʼuːkʼatħ]
Mowachaht [muwat͡ʃʼatħ]
Nuchatlaht [nut͡ʃaːɬʔatħ]
Ohiaht [huːʔiːʔatħ]
Clayoquot ( AKA Tla.o.qui.aht) [taʔuːkʷiʔatħ]
Tla.o.qui.aht) Toquaht [tʼukʼʷaːʔatħ]
Tseshaht ( AKA Sheshaht) [t͡ʃʼiʃaːʔatħ]
Sheshaht) Uchuklesaht ( AKA Uchucklesaht) [ħuːt͡ʃuqtisʔatħ]
Uchucklesaht) Ucluelet [juːɬuʔiɬʔatħ]
Translations of the First Nation names [ edit ]
Nuu-Chah-Nulth - "all along the mountains and sea." Nuu-chah-nulth were formerly known as "Nootka" by colonial settlers (but they prefer not to be called that, rather Nuu-chah-nulth which better explains how each First Nation is connected to the land and the sea). Some of the names following (Ditidaht, Makah) are not part of the Nuu-chah-nulth political organization, however; all are atḥ (people). The term nuučaanułatḥ [8] is also used, meaning "people all along the mountains and the sea."
- "all along the mountains and sea." Nuu-chah-nulth were formerly known as "Nootka" by colonial settlers (but they prefer not to be called that, rather Nuu-chah-nulth which better explains how each First Nation is connected to the land and the sea). Some of the names following (Ditidaht, Makah) are not part of the Nuu-chah-nulth political organization, however; all are (people). The term is also used, meaning "people all along the mountains and the sea." Ahousaht - People living with their backs to the land and mountains.
- People living with their backs to the land and mountains. Ucluelet - People with a safe landing place for canoes.
- People with a safe landing place for canoes. Ehattesaht - People of a tribe with many clans
- People of a tribe with many clans Checkleset – People from the place where you gain strength
– People from the place where you gain strength Hesquiaht - People who tear with their teeth
- People who tear with their teeth Kyuquot - Different people
- Different people Mowachaht - People of the deer
- People of the deer Muchalaht – People who live on the Muchalee river
– People who live on the Muchalee river Nuchatlaht - People of a sheltered bay
- People of a sheltered bay Huu-ay-aht - People who recovered
- People who recovered Tseshaht - People from an island that reeks of whale remains
- People from an island that reeks of whale remains Tla-o-qui-aht - People of other tribes
- People of other tribes Toquaht - People from a situated area
- People from a situated area Uchucklesaht - People of the inside harbour
- People of the inside harbour Ditidaht - People from a place in the forest
- People from a place in the forest Hupacasaht - People living on the edge (of the banks)
- People living on the edge (of the banks) Quidiishdaht (Makah) - People living on the outside
Translations of place names [ edit ]
Nuuchahnulth had a name for each place within their traditional territory. These are just a few still used to this day:
hisaawista (esowista) – Captured by clubbing the people who lived there to death, Esowista Peninsula and Esowista Indian Reserve No. 3.
– Captured by clubbing the people who lived there to death, Esowista Peninsula and Esowista Indian Reserve No. 3. Yuquot (Friendly Cove) – Where they get the north winds, Yuquot
– Where they get the north winds, Yuquot nootk-sitl (Nootka) – Go around.
– Go around. maaqtusiis – A place across the island, Marktosis
– A place across the island, Marktosis kakawis – Fronted by a rock that looks like a container.
– Fronted by a rock that looks like a container. kitsuksis – Log across mouth of creek
– Log across mouth of creek opitsaht – Island that the moon lands on, Opitsaht
– Island that the moon lands on, Opitsaht pacheena – Foamy.
– Foamy. tsu-ma-uss (somass) – Washing, Somass River
– Washing, Somass River tsahaheh – To go up.
– To go up. hitac`u (itatsoo) – Ucluelet Reserve.
– Ucluelet Reserve. t’iipis – Polly’s Point.
– Polly’s Point. Tsaxana – A place close to the river.
– A place close to the river. Cheewat – Pulling tide.[9]
Resources [ edit ]
A Ehattesaht iPhone app was released in January 2012.[10] An online dictionary, phrasebook, and language learning portal is available at the First Voices Ehattesaht Nuchatlaht Community Portal.[11]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Ricardo Vaz Tê has the look of an action hero and his story might have been scripted in Hollywood. The West Ham United forward trades only in the extremes of emotion and he has had it all, lost it and clawed it back again. The 26-year-old knows what it is to hit rock bottom, to seek solace in gambling and nights out, but the frustrations have provided context to the renaissance.
His journey almost ended before it began, with a childhood brush with death, when the pyrotechnics were terrifyingly real. Vaz Tê's escape from civil war-torn Guinea-Bissau in west Africa came in 1998 and on a day that stretched like an eternity. "You're seeing bombs dropping and all you're thinking was … I don't know … just get out of here, perhaps?" he says, with a nonchalance that did not exist as he willed the container ship he had boarded to depart the carnage around the small port.
The Portuguese authorities had diverted the vessel from Senegal to rescue its nationals from the former colony and Vaz Tê was one of them, having been born in Lisbon. His parents had divorced and his mother sent him as a baby to live with his father in Guinea-Bissau. On that day, however, it was a scramble for life jackets, and passports were hardly being checked. The ship's captain was commended for bravery.
"I was with my auntie, her sons and my brother," Vaz Tê says. "It wasn't even a proper boat. It was meant to deliver cargo to Senegal so it had all the containers … the oil on the floor. You had no safety. Kids could fall. It was crazy. It probably took a day [to get out] but it seemed like forever. We went to Senegal and from Senegal we took the plane to Portugal. I had many relatives that lost their legs and some died so I'm very grateful that I was on that boat."
Vaz Tê describes himself as an "explosive mix" of cultures and there is a mercurial quality about his style; Manchester United will need to be wary of him in the FA Cup tie at Upton Park on Saturday. His mother's grandfather was Brazilian and he feels he has "the strength of an African, the intelligence of a European and the flair of a South American".
His career has been scarred by cruel cuts, most recently the dislocated shoulder that he suffered against Arsenal in early October which required surgery, kept him out for nearly three months and checked an encouraging start to the season. To him, it could have been a scratch. Fighting back is in his DNA and he has done so from plenty worse.
Vaz Tê was 16 and on youth terms at Farense in the Algarve when he was put forward by an agent for a trial at Bolton Wanderers, who were then managed by Sam Allardyce. He impressed and, despite the alien surrounds and his lack of English, he made the bold decision to join them. The breakthroughs came quickly. He made his Premier League debut at 17 and his first start at 18, against United at Old Trafford. He was feted; the football world was at his feet.
It only made the fall seem harder. After making regular appearances for Bolton in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons, albeit largely as a substitute, he succumbed to serious knee trouble that wiped out virtually all of the following three campaigns and led specialists to write him off. He had five operations – four to the right knee, one to the left; released by Bolton in 2010, he was forced to cast about for an opportunity at lower levels. He calls it a "ghost period" and its capacity to haunt him endures.
"In football, the only respect you ever get is when you play and you're playing well," Vaz Tê says. "If you don't play, you lose your voice, and it is hard to deal with. I came close to putting my boots on the side and saying: 'Never again.' I told my agent that I didn't want to play.
"I had trials in different places, I failed medicals. I went to trials when I knew I wasn't quite there and the players were looking at me, thinking: 'Who is this guy?' It's horrible. They disrespect you, they look down on you. From being high up there to back at that level … I mean, I'd never been down there. It's crazy, suicidal."
Vaz Tê checks a characteristically passionate monologue. "No, I would never take my own life |
of sorts
Despite this setback, on April 13, 2015, Mr Johnson called for a fresh inquest on the basis of "new evidence".
Later that night, Detective Chief Inspector Young appeared on the ABC's Lateline program, accusing Mr Gallacher of "kowtowing" to the wealthy and influential Steve Johnson and putting pressure on police to prioritise this investigation over hundreds of other unsolved deaths.
Mr Gallacher denied those allegations.
Fearing Young had undermined public confidence in her ability to investigate the matter impartially, Coroner Barnes dismissed her from the case, describing her television interview as "unprecedented".
In December 2016, the third coronial inquest into Scott Johnson's death began. It is thought to be only the second time in Australian history that a third inquest has been ordered in to the death of a single person.
The case of Azaria Chamberlain is the only other known case.
During the inquest the court heard that a group called the Narrabeen Skinheads bragged about assaulting an "American faggot" around the same time Scott Johnson had died.
The inquest also heard that soldiers training at the Army School of Artillery at North Head used to brag about bashing gay men and considered it "fun and games".
In handing down his findings today, Coroner Michael Barnes left one key piece of the puzzle unsolved: who was on that clifftop with Scott?
It is a question Steve Johnson wants answered.
As he told reporters outside the court that "the killers still live among us", it was clear Steve Johnson still has work to do.
Topics: community-and-society, lgbt, crime, law-crime-and-justice, murder-and-manslaughter, sydney-2000
First postedDespite suggesting that you should always shrinkwrap your npm dependencies, I've come to the conclusion that npm-shrinkwrap not only sucks, but is fundamentally broken. It doesn't quite suck as much as having your dependencies update underneath your feet, but it still sucks...
Adding new dependencies is a pain
Adding new dependencies to your project without npm-shrinkwrap is pretty straight forward:
Run npm install --save-dev left-pad Raise a pull request with a 1 line change.
Performing the same task with a shrinkwrap.json file present is a pain...
Run npm install --save-dev left-pad Run npm prune to de-dupe the dependency graph incase one of your existing modules made use of left-pad somewhere otherwise npm shrinkwrap will fail Run npm shrinkwrap --dev to update the shrinkwrap file Raise a pull request, note that hte package.json file has a tonne of unreadable and unexpected changes - enjoy the fact that github refuses to render the diff on the shrinkwrap file...
Sure you could look to use uber's npm-shrinkwrap tool but that's yet another dependency to add.
It's not obvious when things are broken
So this one is not npm-shrinkwrap's fault, but it caused my team to lose some productivity today: our project makes use of 4 (count em!) package.json files, each of which has their own shrinkwrap file - we use these to lock the dependency graph and have a weekly CI task to update everything using npm-check-updates. Somehow one of the npm-shrinkwrap.json files went AWOL; everything carried on working as expected for about two weeks but a chunk of the project's dependencies were being updated with each build. We only found out when a bug in ESLint caused our Pull Request builds to start failing which triggered the obvious question of "Why the hell did ESLint update automatically?!".
So what's the solution?
A co-worker of mine suggested the blindingly obvious approach of just using explicit versions in the package.json file, so instead of declaring:
dependencies: { "left-pad": "^1.0.2" }
You would instead declare:
dependencies: { "left-pad": "1.0.2" }
That's it. npm provides the -E, --save-exact flag to do this for you when installing with --save or --save-dev. npm-check-updates works as expected (suggesting newer versions) and your pull request diffs go back to a single line. To prevent developers accidentally committing a "ranged" dependency we've added the following pre-flight check as part of our CI process:
grep \" [ ~^ ] package.json if [[ $?! = 1 ]] ; then echo "Non-exact dependency version detected, install with --save-exact" exit 1 fi
Having written this, I'm not sure I see any benefits of using npm shrinkwrap instead of enforcing exact dependency versions in your package.json (and using a tool to manually update them on a controlled cadence).Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence wants to repeal Obamacare. But in the meantime, he’ll accept federal funds for the health law’s Medicaid expansion.
Pence announced in a turnaround last week that he would take the expansion money to grow the state’s own program — the Healthy Indiana Plan — to cover low-income individuals who would qualify for traditional Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.
But he wants to make his opposition to the health law — and commitment to repeal — very clear.
“Obamacare needs to be repealed for many reasons, including that it is pushing a massive, flawed Medicaid program onto states,” Pence said at an American Enterprise Institute event Monday. “Once Obamacare is repealed, [Indiana’s] consumer-driven plan will serve as a model for what block-granted Medicaid programs can be in states across the country.”
Obamacare calls for the expansion of Medicaid coverage to all individuals below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, but the Supreme Court left the decision to the states. Twenty-six states plus D.C. have opted into expansion, but a handful of red states have refrained, in protest against the entitlement program and the health care law.
Republican governors have found themselves in sticky territory — wanting to avoid a coverage gap in their state, but more vehemently wanting to avoid giving their implicit stamp of approval to Obamacare.
Some, like Pence, have tried to find workarounds that would take the federal funding and expand coverage to low-income residents, but through a private, market-based approach that is more palatable to Republicans. Arkansas led the way with its “private option” plan, and others, such as Pennsylvania and Indiana, have followed suit.
The Indiana alternative — HIP 2.0 — would expand on the existing state program, and include three different plan options: HIP Link, HIP Plus, and HIP Basic. All include a Personal Wellness and Responsibility, or POWER, account that is intended to function like a Health Savings Account; require a contribution from the patient; and emphasize prevention, with a penalty for unnecessary emergency-room use. They are intended to be temporary plans, until consumers are able to work their way up to transition into the private insurance marketplace, Pence says.
HIP Link is a premium assistance program for people with access to employer-based coverage but who may not be able to afford the plans. HIP Plus is for individuals below 138 percent of the federal poverty level who make their POWER contributions, while HIP Basic is for those below 100 percent FPL who do not make their required contributions. HIP basic includes a less comprehensive benefits package and prescription-drug benefit. Those above 100 percent FPL risk losing their coverage entirely if they don’t make their contribution; those below 100 percent must make co-pays and receive fewer benefits until they are able to contribute again.
Pence insists that his proposed expansion of the Healthy Indiana Plan is not Medicaid expansion, and is not Obamacare. But he is seeking to pay for the program using Obamacare dollars, even as he continues to call for the law’s repeal.
Of course, if Obamacare were repealed, Pence would not have the funding he seeks to implement HIP 2.0.
The Indiana proposal is currently in the comment period, and Pence plans to submit the waiver application to CMS sometime next month. The federal government will need to approve the request in order for the plan to move forward.
“We haven’t shaken hands on this deal yet,” Pence said. “But I’m hopeful.”Brian Babineau/Getty Images
Anthony Davis is a scary player. His mere presence creates a sense of danger and urgency for opposing teams, because all it takes for him to score is a quick move to create space. And on defense, Davis is a tenacious shot-blocker and rebounder. His ability to make electrifying plays and his overall importance to the New Orleans Pelicans have made him the front-runner for the NBA MVP so far.
Frontcourt Superstar
One cannot understate how important Davis has been to the Pelicans offense this season. Averaging 24.1 points per game, fourth-best in the NBA, he has proved this season that he can hurt defenses in a multitude of ways, but his real dominance has been in the paint.
Davis leads the NBA in shots attempted and made, and he makes 56 percent of those shots, which is seventh in the NBA. He's not afraid to take shots, which is totally fine, because he consistently nails them.
Jonathan Bachman/Associated Press
According to TeamRankings.com, Davis and the Pelicans are the best in the NBA at scoring in the paint. Averaging 47.1 points in the paint per game, the Pelicans are nearly unstoppable near the rim. Considering that the Pelicans average 101.3 total points per game, Davis' frontcourt play is essential to the Pelicans scoring 100-plus every game.
Davis' 24.1 points per game make up nearly a fourth of the Pelicans' average points per game. The next highest contributor to the team's total scoring output is shooting guard Tyreke Evans, who is averaging 16.9 points per game, a full seven points below Davis' average.
Finally, an important but understated part of Davis' offensive impact is his ability to get to the line. He's sixth in the NBA in free throws made and attempted, sinking 81.8 percent of them.
Defensive Playmaker
While Davis is an incredible scorer, he's probably more popular for his incredible shot-blocking ability.
He is merciless when it comes to blocking, and his 7'7" wingspan is near impossible to avoid. He averages 2.9 blocks per game, the highest in the NBA. His incredible stature and nose for blocking shots allow him to create momentum for the Pelicans.
A perfect example is his astounding game in the Pelicans' 97-90 win over the San Antonio Spurs, the NBA defending champs, on December 26. His terrifying rejection of Manu Ginobili's shot, as well as blocks on Boris Diaw and Tim Duncan, created a momentum shift to allow the Pelicans to take the lead late in the third quarter and never look back.
He also averages 1.5 steals per game, which is the second in the NBA for power forwards, behind only the Atlanta Hawks' Paul Millsap.
Davis' next incredible defensive stat is his 10.4 rebounds per game, 11th in the NBA. He doesn't dominate offensive rebounds (mostly because he's the one taking the shots), but on defense, he consistently beats big men around the NBA for boards.
In Matthew Way's December 16 article for BBallBreakdown.com, he criticized Davis' defense:
Of the top 15 shot blockers in the league, Anthony Davis ranks second to last in terms of opponent field goal percentage at the rim according to NBA.com’s defensive tracking numbers. Additionally, only two players, Brandan Wright and Rudy Gobert, contest fewer shots at the rim per game. Both Wright and Gobert play significantly less minutes than Davis, greatly affecting their per game numbers.
Way makes a good point. Davis isn't the most consistent defender; however, his role for the Pelicans isn't as a shutdown defender and never will be. The Pelicans brought in Omer Asik last summer to have a big, defensive-minded player. And as for Davis, they turn to him for big plays and a sheer presence more than anything else, and he does that just fine.
Importance to the Pelicans
NBA.com's PIE (player impact estimate) statistic is "an estimate of a player's contributions and impact on a game." The statistic shows what percentage of game events a player has achieved.
What is Davis' percentage? 19.4 percent.
Unsurprisingly, his percentage is the highest in the NBA. It means that he contributes almost one out of every five events in a typical game and make a larger impact than any other player in the league.
The Pelicans' dependence on Davis is monumental. He is the focal point of the offense and a key playmaker on defense. However, he matters even more as a leader.
Davis has taken leadership of the Pelicans at the young age of 21. He's the youngest captain in the NBA, and he's taken the role and run with it.
The fact that he offers more offensive production than any other player, can create huge plays on defense in an offensive-orientated league and is statistically the most impactful player in the NBA has to make him the current top candidate for the NBA MVP.
And if that all wasn't enough, here are the stats that Davis is in the top 10 for:
Minutes Played 35.9 (10th) Points Per Game 24.1 (fourth) Field Goals Attempted Per Game 16.7 (first) Field Goals Made Per Game 9.4 (first) Free Throws Attempted Per Game 6.6 (sixth) Free Throws Made Per Game 5.4 (sixth) Defensive Rebounds Per Game 7.8 (ninth) Blocks Per Game 2.9 (first) Player Impact Percentage 19.4 (first) Field Goal Percentage 56% (seventh)
You can sum up Davis in one word: beast.
Disagree and think someone else is the front-runner instead? Post in the comments below.
All statistics were found at stats.nba.com unless otherwise stated.
Evan Reier is a first-year journalism major at the University of Alabama and a member of Bleacher Report's APSM program. Follow Evan on Twitter and Instagram at @evanreier.Columbus has long been-to a degree of notoriety-a haven for test marketing products. But all the derision about us being the perfect demographic snapshot of middle America isn't what's still driving companies to try their new burgers and coffee drinks on us first. Test marketing has become a lot more sophisticated over the decades-and so has Columbus' population.
Last fall, local caffeine fiends had the opportunity to sample an unusual coffee drink at their corner Starbucks. The Dark Barrel Latte, made with a chocolaty, stout-flavored sauce and topped with whipped cream and a dark caramel drizzle, created buzz when it joined the likes of its Pumpkin Spice and Caramel Macchiato counterparts. Word spread via Twitter, as it often does, and Columbus opined. Reactions were a mix of, "OMG #love @Starbucks new stout latte!" and, "Beer for breakfast? #why?" Columbus was one of a precious few places where you could get your hands on the Guinness-inspired beverage. News outlets in LA and Chicago reported about the drink, wondering when they, too, would get a taste of the intriguing concoction.
Those reactions-and the buzz-were exactly what Starbucks marketers were looking for when they slapped the drink on menus only in Columbus and a handful of locations in Florida. It was being tested in concentrated locations before Starbucks decided whether to introduce it to menus internationally. Early in November, a Starbucks spokeswoman said the jury was still out on how the Dark Barrel Latte had fared in its test. One week later, the drink was pulled from menus in Columbus, just before the latest seasonal offering, the Chestnut Praline Latte, was rolled out.
Testing new products is an essential part of Starbucks' marketing, the spokeswoman continued. It's a common practice for other companies as well, both in the food industry and otherwise.
"It's an early indication of what results might be on a national level," says Shashi Matta, a clinical associate professor of marketing at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business. "It's an extremely important part of marketing."
That we in Columbus often serve as guinea pigs for businesses, especially those in the fast-food industry, is nothing new. (Yet, as we discovered, companies aren't eager to speak candidly about it.) For as long as fast-food restaurants have been expanding their menus, Columbus has been one of the first markets they turn to for the taste test. What has changed over the decades, though, are the reasons we're targeted and the types of products and services coming here first.
Through the 1990s and 2000s, Columbus was a top test market primarily because its demographics closely mirrored the rest of the U.S., Matta says.
"It was a microcosm of the U.S., in that what happens here will probably happen elsewhere," he says. Today, marketers are looking beyond demographics when identifying test markets.
Since it was founded in 1964, Tim Hortons Cafe and Bake Shop offered only its original blend of coffee. In 2013, after nearly 50 years of business, the Ontario-based chain decided to introduce a new roast to their menu. But before rolling out their Dark Roast coffee throughout the U.S. and Canada, Tim Hortons tested it exclusively in Columbus.
For nearly a year, the new roast was offered-in hot and cold options-in all 80 Central Ohio locations before being introduced globally last August. The decision had more to do with the collective tastes of Columbus customers than with its demographics.
"In our other markets, it's coffee first, baked goods second," says Brynn Burton, manager of the chain's U.S. public relations. "In Columbus, they know our coffee but come to us for baked goods first. We took that as an opportunity to introduce people to our coffee through a new blend."
The company regularly considers consumer tastes when determining where to test new products. When they launched a new meatball panini sandwich, they first introduced it in Detroit, where the lunch menu is popular. Buffalo, New York, got first dibs on the chain's Spicy Buffalo Crispy Chicken Sandwich and Buffalo Mac and Cheese.
"We evaluate each market against each product," Burton says. Assigning test locations "has really been on a per-product, per-market basis for us."
Tim Hortons and other companies no longer choose test markets based solely on demographics, she adds. "That's not really relevant anymore. Maybe 10 years ago it was. Now, marketers are more savvy. As a brand, we dig a little deeper."
That's not to say Columbus doesn't still provide a good snapshot of the U.S. as a whole. Each year, WalletHub, a personal-finance social network, compiles socio-demographic data and ranks some of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. by how closely they resemble the rest of the country. Last year, Columbus ranked 15 out of 366, between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Louisville, Kentucky. Still, that rank has become less important to companies in recent years.
"I don't think marketers only look at the most representative demographics anymore," Matta says. "Savvy marketers shouldn't because there are a number of other factors to consider. There are other things that work in [Columbus'] favor."
Our proximity to major universities is a big one. "That's a really strong population here," he says. "There are a lot of young customers who will then be setting trends."
Economist Bill LaFayette points out Columbus stands out from the rest of the U.S. by several measures.
"We are better educated than average; we are somewhat younger than average," says LaFayette, owner of Regionomics, a Columbus-based economic and workforce strategy firm. "Our household composition is somewhat different than average. For example, we have a smaller percentage of family households and more people living on their own."
That's important because marketers aren't always just looking for a market that best resembles the rest of the U.S. They're looking for a certain group of people for whom the product is designed.
"In a broad brush, our market may look unusual," says Paul Carringer of Caring Marketing Solutions. "What you find within that little pie of Columbus is a variety of groups of people that do fit up well with other parts of the nation. That's why marketers lean to target markets. They're not as interested in the broad brush as they are with the specific group."
White Castle tests new products in Columbus often, says vice president Jamie Richardson. Not only does the market here tend to be representative of markets elsewhere in the U.S., but it's also close to home. White Castle has been headquartered in Columbus since the chain moved from Wichita, Kansas, in 1936. Because of the proximity to their corporate offices, "we're able to observe firsthand how well the test might be working," Richardson adds. "It's a bit more cost effective, and we have the ability to adjust quicker." When White Castle tests new menu concepts here in town, Richardson says, they're rolled out in six to eight of the chain's 23 Columbus-area locations.
When the fast-food chain, which pioneered the hamburger slider, began experimenting with veggie burgers, they chose to test them on the East Coast. So which East Coast cities were given first taste of the new veggie burger and why? Richardson says he can't share that information.
But he does share some general insight: "We test different new menu items different places, and there can be a variety of reasons," he says. "It can be related to demographic profile in neighborhoods we're testing. It's always with an eye toward the real-world learning we'll receive."
One thing Richardson can confirm is that we can expect to see those new veggie sliders in Columbus soon. "We're exploring the learning we received from testing [the veggie burger]; it was very favorable," Richardson says. "In the future, I would be surprised if it wasn't at all our locations."
White Castle isn't alone in their clandestine practices. After pictures of a new bacon cheeseburger on a pretzel bun being sold at a Wendy's in Miami surfaced on Twitter in 2010, a Wendy's spokesperson declined to confirm the test or provide details when interviewed for a story in The Plain Dealer. Later that year, Wendy's tested two cheeseburgers that paid homage to the chain's founder: the D.T. Double and Dave's Hot 'N Juicy. In a Columbus Dispatch story, a spokesman was cited acknowledging the D.T. Double was being tested but wouldn't provide more details due to "the company's policy to not divulge details of its product testing." (The Bacon Pretzel Cheeseburger and the Hot 'N Juicy eventually became national menu mainstays.)
Just this summer, two Columbus Wendy's locations were testing a new concept: build-your-own sandwiches and burgers. Customers were able to choose their bun, meat, toppings and sauces. Again, a spokesman confirmed the test but declined to provide more details.
Bob Bertini, a spokesman for The Wendy's Co., says while they test menu concepts in various locations throughout the country, "Columbus is high on the list because of the proximity [to] Wendy's Restaurant Support Center in Dublin," where corporate offices and test kitchens are located. This is especially true, he adds, with what they call "operations testing-making sure that we develop effective restaurant procedures so that our restaurant teams know how to best cook, prepare and serve [food]."
He says the concepts Wendy's develops in Columbus are often replicated in the company's restaurants worldwide. Most recently, Wendy's used Columbus as a test location for their latest restaurant prototype. In 2011, two restaurants were built in Columbus featuring a contemporary design, including a new logo, lounge chairs and high-top tables, a fireplace, free Wi-Fi, flat-screen TVs and digital menu boards.
Bertini says the consumer response to the new concept was so positive that the "restaurant design now is being used for Wendy's new builds and restaurant remodels throughout the U.S. and Canada."
Since the first Giant Eagle grocery store was built in Columbus in 2000, the chain has tested several new products and services in Columbus-area supermarket and convenience store locations, which now number 49.
"The concentration of Giant Eagle's Central Ohio stores has long made the Columbus market ideal for pilot programs," says Dan Donovan, a spokesman for Giant Eagle. He cited the chain's fuel and food discount rewards programs as an example; the program was tested in Columbus in 2007 and 2008.
When the Pittsburgh-based chain opened a Giant Eagle Market District in Upper Arlington in 2010, it was the first specialty grocery store they'd built outside their home market. Now, it's one of 11 across western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Ohio, including new stores in Dublin, Grandview and Powell.
More recently, the Dublin Market District location was used as a test site for Sizzling Wok, an in-store restaurant that makes stir fry, pho and pad Thai dishes to order for customers. It's now in five other Market District locations. Giant Eagle also launched its first Foodie Truck in Columbus in 2012. The food truck serves items like pulled pork and brisket at community events and festivals.
"Giant Eagle continues to review customer feedback and research gathered from the Columbus market to determine the possible expansion into other markets across the chain," Donovan says. The chain plans to expand into the Indianapolis market with Market District and GetGo convenience store locations, he says, and will continue to look toward those stores in Columbus for market insight.
Several companies-including L Brands and Houlihan's, which opened the prototype for their new national menu and restaurant concept in Upper Arlington-declined to discuss their test-marketing strategies.
But it's no secret that companies test new products before they launch them nationwide. And, as any local consumer is well aware, Columbus has been a testing hot spot for decades. So why such tight lips?
Business is, of course, a competition.
"You don't want your competitors knowing that you have something new coming," says Carringer, who teaches marketing courses at Columbus State Community College and Franklin University. "They're very cautious of those things." Fast food and fashion industries are especially secretive, he adds.
For other industries, though, buzz about new concepts is encouraged, and Columbus has become a testing ground for these, too. Take health care, for example.
"[Columbus is] on the front end of the change in health care and health care insurance," Carringer says. "If you look at what's new and coming soon, Columbus is the test market."
It's an ideal city for these leading-edge changes, he says, because it is home to strong health care systems. But also because the population here is diverse-with people who pay for private insurance and those who qualify for government plans.
In this case, buzz is good.
"If it's a consumer-driven product with competition, they're not interested in telling the world about it until they get it right," Carringer says. "In other areas, like health care, we will be a test market that will be wide open for review, comment and discussion."
Technology is another example.
When Zak Dziczkowski co-founded his tech company, Alottazs Labs, their flagship product was Garageio, a garage-opening device that can be controlled by users' smartphones. It didn't take them long to find not only willing, but enthusiastic, beta testers in Columbus.
"Columbus is one of the most supportive cities (of startups) and one of the reasons why we focused here," Dziczkowski says. The other is his company is based here. Columbus is a popular test market for the tech industry, which he attributes, in part, to Columbus' strong information-technology community.
"Columbus has a very strong IT job market," Dziczkowski says. "There are a lot of people stepping forward saying: 'I'm tech savvy. I know what I'm talking about. We want to support you.'"
"There's a variety of both in-your-face consumer goods being tested here and those underlying things that will be the drivers for our economy in the future," Carringer adds.
So if you're downhearted you missed out on Starbucks' latest treat, don't fret. Surely, it won't be long before the next new product pops up on menus and store shelves in this land of experimental opportunity.Wal-Mart workers are speaking out — and walking out — as they last week took part in the first walkouts and strikes in the company’s history. They want fair pay and a right to organize without being retaliated against.
Some apologists for Wal-Mart argues that the chain’s bottom of the barrel wages — the average sales associate there earns $8.80, as opposed to the CEO who earns 1,167 times more — allow it to be successful and that if it paid its workers more, shoppers would stop coming.
But that just isn’t bared out by the facts. One year ago, a UC Berkeley study found that the company passed the entire cost of higher wages onto its consumers, it would cost them very little:
Using Walmart’s figures on U.S. sales and customers, we find that the average customer spendsAi??$43.95 per shopping trip, and makes 27 shopping trips per year,Ai??spending $1,187 annually at theAi??store. The 46 cent increase amounts to a 1.1 percent increase in prices. For the averageAi??shopper, this would result in a price increase of $12.49 a year.
That’s right. Presuming that the company decided to pass on all the costs of higher wages to consumers, it would cost the average shopper only $12.49 a year for all of Wal-Mart’s employees to be paid at least a living wage.
But Wal-Mart shouldn’t have to pass those costs on. It’s the world’s most prosperous employer, and it can easily pocket the cost of $12 per shopper — or an average of 46 cents per shopping trip — to pay its employees living wages without raising prices at all.
So now the ball is Wal-Mart’s court. They have no excuse for not paying their employees fairly.Chip in to keep stories like these coming.
While I was on a television stage August 6 in the Toronto CityTV building on Queen Street West, sparring and trying to get a word in edgewise with the leaders of the Conservative, New Democratic and Liberal parties, south of the border on a more crowded stage stood the seven contenders for the Republican nomination.
It takes a lot to make Stephen Harper look good, but Donald Trump did it. He attacked the one female presence in the whole mess -- a journalist. He was crude and rude and attacked "political correctness" as the source of all America's ills. He has been flailing like a contestant on a reality TV show seeking the title "America's biggest buffoon," and yet he runs first in the polling for the Republican nomination. His publication of a rival's personal cell number, his racist and sexist remarks seem to play to the crowd. That this could possibly be a presidential race is hard to believe.
Yet, when Stephen Harper launched this election campaign from the steps of Rideau Hall, he denounced his opponents as being willing to risk Canada's security for the sake of "political correctness." It remained unspoken that all of the strange non-issues -- the niqab, the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, describing Islam as an "anti-women culture" -- all of these straw men set up to construct an enemy out of prejudice and ignorance are for the use of the grand drama of the election. Those of us who decry the dangerous, anti-democratic, "Anti-Terrorism Act" C-51, are to be pilloried as risking Canada's security for the sake of "political correctness."
Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. C-51 is a dangerous piece of legislation. It is doubly dangerous as it both hinders effective police work and blows a hole a mile wide through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ignoring recommendations from two Royal Commissions -- into the scandalous abuse of the rights of Mahar Arar and our most serious terrorist attack in the bombing of Air India -- C51 is an inexplicably bad law. It sets up a secret police with no oversight; it surrenders basic Canadian privacy laws; it allows for the use of secret evidence obtained by torture. It does all these things while failing to require that the RCMP and CSIS keep each other informed in their inquiries and operations; nor that the Canadian Border Service Agency or CSEC be informed. It is this that makes it likely to trip up investigations and allow terrorists to remain at large and plots to grow.
During the August 6 debate, Stephen Harper made the astonishing claim that there was a board of retired judges to serve in an over-sight role. That is the first time I have heard of such a body. It certainly is not found in C51. C51 provides a new role for a judge -‑ an unprecedented one: one judge of the Federal Court, sitting alone, can preside over a secret hearing where only one side is represented. CSIS, with no appeal or public record, can ask for permission to violate domestic law and violate the Charter rights of an unsuspecting Canadian, with no representation in the secret hearing.
This is similar to the post-9-11 security laws that created security certificates also obtained by secret hearings. However, even those hearings require a slim reed of respect for the rule of law. In those security certificate hearings a special advocate is present to represent the public interest in fairness and justice. No such provision exists in C51 where a warrant will allow a far greater trespass on the Constitution itself. As professors Craig Forcese and Kent Roach testified: no democracy has ever created a warrant for constitutional breach.
The peopling of the lower courts and Federal Court with compliant Conservative-leaning judges makes chilling sense.
And now we hear from the mouth of our prime minister that those of us who will settle for nothing less than C-51's repeal are in the grip of "political correctness." Treating everyone with respect is no rhetorical propriety; it is a course to understanding and open dialogue.
The last bill tabled, hours before the 41st Parliament adjourned, was to ban face coverings in citizenship ceremonies. The act addresses the most absurd non-issue imaginable as no rights or benefits could ever be conferred on someone who takes an oath of citizenship in the place of another person.
The demonization of "political correctness" represents the emergence of a Canadian identity crisis. The civility and respect, the welcoming culture, the rejection of prejudice and nastiness is beginning to fray. There is a fight for the heart and soul of Canada. It will be resolved October 19 when we get our country back.
Chip in to keep stories like these coming.Publishers are terrified of simultaneous releases. Their contracts are saddled with non-compete clauses that prevent authors from “publishing too many books.” Meanwhile, readers are clamoring for more. And most authors can write quicker than they are allowed. This is a policy that helps absolutely no one and hurts absolutely everyone, publishers included.
If more business majors worked in publishing houses, they would know that four gas stations at the same intersection all make more money than the same four stations spread across town. Lowe’s goes up down the road from Home Depot. There’s spillover. And you know what part of town is a great place to get gas.
Here’s a case study for the ridiculousness of non-compete clauses. My novel SAND released on Saturday. My Kindle Worlds fan fic story PEACE IN AMBER hit today. No major publisher would do this. They would sue an author for doing this.
SAND is a mere $5.99 for a full-length novel, full of original artwork from Ben Adams and graced with a sublime cover from Jason Gurley.
PEACE IN AMBER is a mere $1.99, and it’s the first time I’ve tackled the difficult task of writing about my 9/11 experiences.
Both are currently #1 in their respective categories on Amazon.
This makes me happy, less because of the success of these works and more because you have spoken. You are speaking right now. The publishers are wrong. You are looking for something to read, more than just one thing. And you’re happy not to have to drive clear across town to get it.Wrack is an indie, super-retro FPS very much in the high-speed vein of the original Doom, but pin |
Toronto after her husband died in 2007.
Harbel shares an elegant home in Lawrence Park with her son, Wasim Jalal; his wife, Lina Baghdadi; and their six children, ranging from two years old to 20. They all call her Teetay. She still loses track of time crafting meals every single day.
“It’s more than just food,” Jalal says about his mother’s cooking. “It’s an art.”
The kitchen counter is quickly covered in bags of vermicelli, long and short grain rice and two kinds of bulgur (partially-cooked, dried wheat). The finer bulgur is for tabbouleh, while the coarser one is used in mujadara, a rice dish with lentils. Short grain rice is always for stuffing.
Teetay brings out a plate of stuffed eggplant; it’s deep purple with a delicate olive oil glaze. She’s embarrassed because it’s a big American eggplant, the sort she typically roasts for baba ghanoush. This dish is supposed to be made with baby eggplants, but her son bought the wrong one. Teetay cuts into the fruit, which is packed with short grain rice, sautéed onions and garlic, along with tart pomegranate molasses, stewed tomatoes and generous amounts of parsley. You can taste every ingredient in each bite; nothing is hidden under a blanket of spices. It’s hearty, yet tangy and fresh.
These square packages of pastry filled with cheese are known fatayer. (IMAGE: LIBBY ROACH)
She follows the delicate dish with a fiery one. Even without the fresh Aleppo chilies she used to dry out in the Syrian sun, Teetay still makes muhammara, a spicy red pepper dip, for her family. Her husband used to love muhammara. The dish hails from northern Syria, where the food is spicier than in her hometown of Damascus. Her grandchildren prefer a milder version, so she makes it with red bell peppers, which she mixes with red chilies, breadcrumbs, salt and extra virgin olive oil. She says her trick is to add lots of pomegranate molasses, tahini and walnuts. Her husband would eat it with all his meals.
Teetay recounts the daily fare she shares with her family. It starts with Turkish coffee mulled with ground cardamom and sugar. A dairy-driven breakfast follows: there’s labneh — thick, full-fat, strained yogurt served on a plate with a moat of olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt — and a selection of cheeses: halloumi, cottage cheese, cream cheese, baladi cheese (a soft, white cheese) and La Vache qui rit (a breakfast staple in Damascus). The table is also set with olives, eggs, pita bread and za’atar (a blend of herbs). And you can’t forget makdous — baby eggplants stuffed with dried red peppers, garlic and salt, then submerged in extra virgin olive oil.
The weekend calls for an elaborate breakfast with all the fixings: a salad of chickpeas or fava beans with chopped fresh parsley, diced tomatoes and olive oil; along with fatteh — layers of toasted pita squares, chickpeas, tahini and yogurt mixed with lemon and garlic and garnished with sliced almonds and pine nuts.
Maqloobeh, a meat stew served on rice and eaten with a yogurt dip, is the centre of the colourful meal. (IMAGE: LIBBY ROACH)
Back in Damascus, Teetay would come home to cook lunch for 3 p.m. — it’s the meal she spends the first half of her day creating now. There’s always lots of meat, but also plenty of vegetables. It’s a colourful table. The main dish rests in the middle, a big bowl of rice with chicken or a meat stew. Sometimes it’s maqloobeh, which means upside down. Teetay’s eyes light up as she describes it. Sliced eggplant and meat — chicken, lamb or beef — line the bottom of a large bowl followed by rice on top. Then she flips it, forming what looks like a layered cake. The icing is toasted pine nuts and slivered almonds sprinkled on top.
Only a cookbook too heavy to lift with one hand would do justice to all of Teetay’s recipes, but she says kibbeh (often made with bulgur and ground meat then either baked, fried or served raw) and shakriya (lamb shoulder cooked in a yogurt sauce) remain family favourites. Surrounding the main dish sit smaller bowls of baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, msabaha (the Syrian word for hummus) or mutabal — an eggplant dip made with yogurt. There’s usually long grain rice on the table, mixed with peas.
Haraq Osbao balances the indulgence of its garnish of fried dough balls with the sturdy base vegetarian pasta and lentils. (IMAGE: LIBBY ROACH)
“It’s just like rice and the frozen peas you get in bags,” explains Teetay’s oldest granddaughter, Leen, who’s 20-years-old.
Her parents shake their heads. “Back home, in the summer, we always eat the fresh peas,” says Jalal.
Another element on the table is a plate of chopped fresh vegetables, like green onion, white onion and radish. Each component plays a vital role in the meal: they’re not individual courses that stand on their own. They’re interconnected — a taste of rice and peas, chicken dipped in muhammara, a piece of pita with mutabal and then a nip of radish — every bite depends on another.
The day ends with supper; the family comes together for a light affair reminiscent of breakfast with makdous, olives and labneh, but there are fewer cheeses and lots of fruit, which change with the season. Summer in Syria means plump cherries, peaches, apricots and watermelon, while the winter brings bananas, citrus fruits and apples. Tonight, the dinner table is lined with apples.
Teetay shuffles through the spice cabinet. She’s going through her version of baharat, a Middle Eastern spice mix that differs slightly between households; she pulls out black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, nutmeg and cloves. Teetay also uses sumac and saffron in her cooking, as well as fresh mint and coriander. When asked what the most important ingredients in Syrian cuisine are, Teetay gathers her family into a huddle to discuss. Her final answer is just one ingredient: salt.
Things are different here, but underneath the oversized eggplants and frozen peas, everything is still the same.So thankful the surf gods denied @kellyslater today cos for whatever reason he was right there to save my wife and kid who were swept across a road by a freak wave today. Forever grateful to the great man and so thankful my family is alive and safe 👊🏼 ❤️💙 Thanks to all the lifeguards too who saved many lives today. A photo posted by Chris White (@chris.whitey) on Jan 27, 2016 at 10:42pm PST
Is there anything pro surfer Kelly Slater can’t do?
Between launching his own sustainable clothing line, perfecting the art of the man-made wave pool and winning 11 world titles, you might think you’ve seen it all from Slater. You would be wrong.
On Wednesday, the 43-year-old surf legend apparently helped save the wife (Sarah) and infant son (Van) of Australian surf photographer Chris White from potentially drowning as the result of a rogue wave that came sweeping across the famed Kamehameha Highway on Oahu’s coastline.
According to an Instagram post from White, Sarah was walking along the highway with Van in a baby stroller when a freak wave came crashing across the road, knocking over Sarah and the stroller. Lucky for them, Slater was in the right place at the right time and was able to scoop up Sarah and Van, whose stroller was quickly being flooded by the rushing waters.
“Forever grateful to the great man and so thankful my family is alive and safe,” White captioned his Instagram post.
RELATED: Kelly Slater perfects the man-made wave
Slater responded humbly in the comments of White’s Instagram, saying that he was confident lifeguards would have saved White’s family regardless of his help. Slater even joked that it was the first wave Van had ever caught, and that it was “a huge one.”
Despite Slater’s humility, White replied back to all of his followers that the situation was in fact very dire, and that young Van had swallowed quite a bit of sand and water as a result from the his baby stroller (“pram,” in Austrlian slang) being filled with ocean water.
While ultimately Sarah’s cell phone couldn’t be saved, at the end of the day, everyone walked away from a situation that could have ended much worse.
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GoPro joins with Periscope to bring live video to allSurgery Is Not The Reason For Most New Opioid Use, Study Says
Only 1.1% of people with long-term opioid use got the meds after an inpatient encounter, according to a new research letter.
With more Americans getting hooked on opioids, the use of opioid painkillers after surgery has come under scrutiny—but a new study shows that people are much more likely to use painkillers long term if they receive their first opioid prescription for chronic pain, rather than after a surgical procedure.
A new research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that only 1.1% of people who used opioids long term (six months or more) first got the medications after a surgery or other "inpatient encounters." Surgery was not one of the top 10 reasons that people who used opioids long term started taking the drugs.
People with long-term use were more likely to have received opioid prescriptions initially for “other ill-defined conditions,” an insurance code that covers ailments like chronic pain. More than 30% of people who used opioids long term started taking the painkillers for that reason.
“The initial event associated with exposure to prescription opioids has not been widely explored, but is often maintained to stem from an injury or surgical procedure,” the authors wrote. “As we search for causes of the opioid epidemic, we note that hospital events and associated procedures do not appear to be the main drivers,” according to the LA Times.
Instead, initial prescriptions that led to long-term use were more likely to be written for chronic pain “for which opioid administration is not considered standard of care.”
In March of 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released updated guidelines for treating chronic pain. The guidelines called for opioids to be prescribed at lower dosages and for doctors to explore other alternatives for treating pain.
“There is insufficient evidence that opioids control chronic pain effectively over the long term, and there is evidence that other treatments can be effective with less harm,” notes one infographic for primary care providers.
According to the CDC, “Improving the way opioids are prescribed through clinical practice guidelines can ensure patients have access to safer, more effective chronic pain treatment while reducing the number of people who misuse, abuse, or overdose from these drugs.”
Although the new report shows that surgery is not the main cause for long-term opioid use, about 6% of people who get surgery will use opioids for more than 90 days after surgery, putting them at risk for developing addiction, according to a study published in JAMA in June.
“New persistent opioid use is more common than previously reported and can be considered one of the most common complications after elective surgery,” study authors wrote.(CNN) -- Some American children are facing circumstances so dire that they require foreign aid to supplement services such as tutoring and reading programs, said a report by the Children's Defense Fund released Tuesday.
Events such as Hurricane Katrina and the sluggish economy have left some U.S. counties with meager government aid, forcing some, like the children of Mississippi's Quitman County, to rely on a grant from the Bernard van Leer Foundation of the Netherlands -- for tutoring and reading programs, the report said.
The study, "Held Captive: Child Poverty in America," highlights Quitman County in Mississippi; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and -- what it refers to as "the new face of poverty" -- Long Island, New York.
"Some (people at the foundation) wondered why it should be working in the most affluent country in the world, but they decided the reality is we have poor children in this country who are denied the opportunity to be all they can be," said Betty Ward Fletcher, director of a Jackson, Mississippi-based consulting firm contracted by the Dutch foundation to help it design a program in Mississippi.
In Baton Rouge, children displaced by Hurricane Katrina 5½ years ago are still struggling, and largely forgotten, the report says.
And in Long island, families are slipping from middle class to working poor, and the working poor to poverty because of the economy, the housing crisis, gaps in the cost of living vs. wages, and a lack of financial safety nets.
"The current economic crisis continues to drag more families and their children into poverty," the Children's Defense Fund said. "This Christmas season, 15.5 million children in America, more than one in five, are living in poverty, a number of them in extreme poverty. This is the highest child poverty rate the nation has experienced since 1959."We could go on and on about a lot of nitty-gritty stuff that needs fixing, but overall we'd like the above points addressed in the 2018 XPS 15 9570. Given the rave reviews garnered by the current iteration, prospective buyers will no doubt look forward to the next version in the hope of getting a no-compromise computing experience. Dell should keep this in mind and, apart from better batteries, upgraded CPUs, storage etc., things such as a more reliable BIOS, upward firing speakers, and lesser noise emissions are definitely welcome. It would also be nice to see the option of an Intel Dual Band Wireless AC-8265 WiFi adapter or above in addition to the Killer Wireless AC 1535. While we found the AC 1535 quite good, some users have reported stability problems with certain older routers. Importance, however, should be given to battery quality control and proactive replacement of faulty batteries in the interest of user safety. While it is understood that a thin chassis will bring with it some compromises, CPU native features such as Intel Speed Shift find no reason to be disabled. With respect to Thunderbolt 3, although OEMs can implement either 2 lane or 4 lane configurations, customers would surely not prefer a gimped data transfer rate. If Dell plans to axe all legacy USB ports in the next generation, they better enable at least a couple of USB Type-C ports with full 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3.A Polish man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman more than a decade ago has challenged the State’s decision to remove him from Ireland for five years.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was served with the exclusion order signed by the Minister for Justice in December 2014.
The man, represented by Michael Lynn SC, with Carol Doherty BL, instructed by Peter Connolly solicitors, was charged with rape and sexual assault arising out of an incident in 2006. He denied the charges and was acquitted at the Central Criminal Court in 2014 of rape but convicted of sexual assault.
Arising out of the conviction, the Minister ordered the man, who has been living and working in Ireland for some years, be removed from the State for five years.
He claims that decision is unlawful, disproportionate and breaches his rights.
In his judicial review proceedings against the Minister, Ireland and the Attorney General, he wants several orders and declarations, including an order quashing the removal order, issued on December 17th, 2014, and affirmed by the Minister following a review on October 5th last.
Free movement
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, adjourning the matter to next month, said he wanted to hear the views of the respondents on certain issues raised before deciding if permission to bring the challenge should be granted.
The judge has placed a stay on the man’s removal from the State pending the outcome of the High Court action.Classic blame-the-victims deflection and context-free spouting of facts. What Giuliani failed to mention, what most people who pay attention to murder statistics understand, is that murder is for the most part a crime of intimacy. People kill people close to them. Most blacks are killed by other blacks, and most whites are killed by other whites.
In fact, it is so intimate that one study has found that people likely to be involved in murder cases can be predicted by their social networks. A Yale study last year examining “police and gun homicide records from 2006 to 2011 for residents living within a six-square-mile area that had some of the highest rates for homicide in Chicago” found that “6% of the population was involved in 70% of the murders, and that nearly all of those in the 6% already had some contact with the criminal justice or public health systems.”
As a co-author of the study put it, the relationship among killers and those killed was like a virus: “It’s not unlike needle sharing or unprotected sex in the spread of H.I.V.”
So, what are we saying to the vast majority that are not involved: that they must accept the unconscionable racial imbalance in the police shooting numbers as some sort of collateral damage in a war on crime? No!
It’s an unfathomable, utterly immoral argument, and let’s not give Giuliani a pass for making it. After all, New York’s obscenely race-biased stop-and-frisk program was introduced under Giuliani, and some of the most notorious police violations of black men in recent history happened on his watch. As The New York Times recounted in a lengthy 2001 profile:
“In the summer of 1997, a police officer brutalized a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima in a bathroom of a Brooklyn station house. In the winter of 1999, four members of the Police Department’s Street Crime Unit, searching the Bronx streets for a rapist, shot and killed an unarmed African immigrant named Amadou Diallo; they had mistaken his wallet for a gun. And in the winter of 2000, just as Mr. Giuliani was gearing up his candidacy for the United States Senate, an undercover officer shot and killed an unarmed black security guard named Patrick Dorismond after a brief struggle in Midtown; the victim had been offended by the undercover officer’s inquiries about buying some drugs.”
Also, race is not the best lens through which to consider criminality. Concentrated poverty may be a better lens. According to a July Brookings report:
“Poor individuals and families are not evenly distributed across communities or throughout the country. Instead, they tend to live near one another, clustering in certain neighborhoods and regions. This concentration of poverty results in higher crime rates, underperforming public schools, poor housing and health conditions, as well as limited access to private services and job opportunities.”
If we are serious about fighting crime, we must seriously consider the reason— on both an individual and systemic level — these pockets of concentrated poverty developed, are maintained, and have in fact grown and spread.In Africa, there are forest elephants and there are savannah elephants. Forest elephants are smaller than savannah elephants and also less likely to be featured in a Disney movie. They also have more beautiful tusks and are therefore being hunted down even more aggressively — a new study found that the number of forest elephants in Africa has dropped by two-thirds over the past decade, to just 100,000. The Guardian reports:
Forest elephants have suffered particularly badly because they range across central Africa, which has been left lawless in large areas by war, and where poachers have ready access to guns. Furthermore, the tusks of forest elephants are longer, straighter and harder than savannah elephants, making them particularly sought after. “A lot of carvers prefer forest elephant tusks,” said [Wildlife Conservation Society]’s vice president, Elizabeth Bennett.
To track the decline, scientists spent nine years trekking over more than 8,000 miles of rainforest and collecting evidence of the elephants’ presence. They say the current population is just 10 percent of its potential size; that’s hundreds of thousands of elephants that could be tromping around the rainforest, clearing trails, keeping clearings intact, dispersing seeds, and generally making life better for everyone else. But instead some people get to have carved elephant tusks hanging out somewhere in their house collecting dust.One of the perks that Google and Motorola have added into the Moto X, is that you'll receive 50GB of free Google Drive space for two years. It's pretty cool, and something most people didn't know about. When I got the Moto X for review late last week, I logged into Google Drive on it as I do on any phone, and was greeted with the screen to redeem my 50GB of free space. I forgot it even had that. So I figured it was about time that I put together a tutorial on doing it.
Download Google Drive onto your Moto X Fire up the app Follow the on-screen instructions And Poof! You've just gotten 50GB of additional Google Drive space for 2 years.
That's just how easy it is. Now remember that this is only for the Moto X, and doesn't apply to the DROID Ultra, Maxx or Mini, unfortunately. But those do come with 6 months free All Access subscriptions, as well as a free Ingress invite. However, remember that the 50GB of free space is only for 2 years. Now I've had quite a few people ask me what happens to their data after the 2 years is up. Well basically, similar to Dropbox and Box's promotions, once the time is up and if you have more than 15GB of data in Drive, you won't be able to add anything else until you are below your quota again. So those that are worried that Google will delete your data once the promotion is over, nope that won't be happening. Although I'm sure in 2 years you'll be able to find another device that will offer you 50GB of space, if you really want the space and don't want to pay for it.
How many of you knew that your Moto X came with 50GB of free space?Even before University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld started speaking Tuesday during his first town hall meeting since taking office Nov. 2, critics had peppered the campus and community with fliers mocking Harreld and the regents who hired him and urging people to attend the forum.
Hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and community members did attend, and several there articulated — loudly at times — their criticism and concern about the hiring process by interrupting the president during his presentation on the university’s potential for improvement, even using expletives to get their message across.
Protesters scattered throughout the Pomerantz Center classroom Tuesday afternoon held signs that read, “Resign” and “The search was rigged.”
“Answer our freaking questions,” Melyssa Jo Kelly, of Iowa City, said after Harreld had been presenting for 30 minutes. “A town-hall meeting is not a monologue.”
Some in the crowd chanted “questions, questions,” at that point, while Harreld tried to persist in his presentation.
“Isn’t he incredibly responsive to his audience?” Kelly said, to a mix of both applause and loud boos and hushes from other audience members wanting to hear Harreld’s presentation.
Harreld, a former IBM businessman who was hired in the fall amid controversy for his lack of academic administrative experience, pointed out during his presentation losses the university has experienced in national rankings, federal funding, and faculty members.
He posed questions to the audience about the way forward, including whether the university should look for new and innovative revenue sources. He asked whether the university was spreading its limited funds too evenly and how it could better prioritize.
He suggested the campus also could choose to maintain its current trajectory.
“I don’t like that latter option,” Harreld said. “I think we should say, there’s got to be another way.”
Harreld’s presentation included numbers indicating UI declines in faculty compensation, resources, and class sizes. He challenged the public to think creatively about solutions, even suggesting tuition freezes have hurt the university’s ability to keep pace with its peers.
“We do have the variable of tuition,” he said, conceding the Board of Regents decides tuition, not the campuses. “I think there’s an optic in the state that makes it difficult for that. On the other hand, I think it’s a variable that needs to be on the table and open for discussion.”
Once Harreld began fielding questions, most took a harsh and critical tone. At one point, a member of the UI community took the podium, ignoring Harreld and addressing the audience.
“Friends, we have been duped. And we’re being duped, even now,” Venson Curington said. “How can we expect anything fruitful to come from such a rotten tree? Harreld is a mere branch on this rotten tree. The roots are systems designed to disenfranchise, silence, marginalize, and exclude.”
Curington, like others during the forum, asked Harreld to resign. Harreld responded by saying he would resign in 2020, which he later clarified for The Gazette is when his current contract ends.
“If people want me to stay and ask me to stay, then I’m open to that,” he said. “But between now and 2020, I’m not resigning.”
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To Harreld’s rejection of the resignation request, Curington announced the launch of “operation fire Harreld” and challenged audience members to pick a side. When someone criticized Curington for cutting ahead of others with his speech, cursing erupted, and two subsequent speakers asked Harreld to “keep an open mind about stepping aside for the good of the state for another who might unite and not divide us.”
When some audience members posed vision and issue questions, Harreld occasionally bounced back the rhetoric and asked for their thoughts — including when one black student asked Harreld what he plans to do about racism on campus.
“I think we need to do a ton of things about that,” Harreld said. “So please come. Please get involved. Engage us. Help us work this out.”
UI economics professor John Solow was among those in attendance who questioned that approach. And he expressed disappointment with Tuesday’s town hall.
“We are looking for the vision thing,” Solow said. “And what I heard was, ‘Things are pretty bad. We need to start cutting stuff. Let’s start figuring out who’s getting on the life boats and who’s not.”
Harreld repeatedly challenged the community to get involved in the visioning process, meeting with him and his staff and offering suggestions and thoughts. Some people shot back that they’re not making half a million dollars and have busy lives.
“You can’t be a leader without followers, and as you know morale is pretty crappy around here right now,” Solow told Harreld. “People are very concerned about what exactly they’re following.”
One staff member challenged Harreld to address ways he will help promote, retain, and support staff. Harreld said he believes staff members play an important role and he, perhaps, has been overly focused on faculty retention and compensation.
But, Harreld continued, he is looking to address faculty issues first.
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“I’m sorry, but let’s actually deal with it in the appropriate order,” he said.
Despite the outbursts and interruptions, Harreld maintained his composure — although he once engaged with Kelly after she said, “I don’t work here.”
“I’m not surprised,” he shot back.
Harreld, at one point, also expressed frustration with the nature of the questions.
“I think there are some very significant issues to deal with here in this state and at this institution,” he said.
Following the forum, Harreld said he wasn’t surprised by the tone of some of those in attendance, and he plans to continue holding at least three town hall meetings a year. Although he said the university will take feedback to shape them going forward.
Two specific topics Harreld said he might address at the next forum are diversity and sexual assault on campus.
“This is a critical part of the process, which is to get people engaged,” he said."Despite the vast differences that set Hong Kong apart from Tibet and Xinjiang, we can find one plausible common explanation for the unrest in all three places..."
The ongoing demonstrations by pro-democracy students in Hong Kong since the end of last month have raised one important question: why is Beijing facing simultaneous unrest on its periphery?
Since the riots in Lhasa in March 2008, a string of violent ethnic conflicts has struck the restive border regions, particularly Xinjiang. While conditions in Tibet and Xinjiang remain fragile and no signs of enduring stability are visible, the Chinese government now finds itself confronting smartphone-waving students in Hong Kong who have won the hearts and minds of the international community.
On the surface, the situation in Hong Kong could hardly be more different from the situations in Tibet and Xinjiang. In the former British colony, Beijing has experienced, until recently, few direct conflicts with the Hong Kong public since regaining sovereignty from Great Britain in 1997 (the only exception was the 2003 protest against an attempt to adopt a national security law that would undermine Hong Kong’s civil liberties). By contrast, the Chinese hold on Tibet and Xinjiang has been more tenuous and, over the last six decades, Beijing has periodically encountered fierce resistance from the Tibetans and the Uyghurs.
Despite the vast differences that set Hong Kong apart from Tibet and Xinjiang, we can find one plausible common explanation for the unrest in all three places: Beijing’s policy of assimilation has, contrary to the wishes of the Chinese government, greatly strengthened the local identities, sharpened the sense of alienation and grievance felt by the targeted groups, and radicalized the activists among them.
The limited space here does not permit us to go into how Beijing’s strategy of assimilation, which combines economic development, migration of ethnic Hans and draconian security measures, has produced the opposite outcomes in Tibet and Xinjiang. If we examine China’s Hong Kong policy in recent years, we can find that Beijing’s strategic thinking, policy instruments it has preferred, and the counterproductive results bear important resemblance to its policies on Tibet and Xinjiang.
At first glance, it may seem absurd to claim that China has a policy of assimilation toward Hong Kong because of its commitment to the formula of “one country, two systems.” Yet, the inescapable reality is that, both politically and economically, the assimilation of Hong Kong into the mainland has been progressing inexorably in the last seventeen years.
The process of political assimilation has occurred at three levels, with varying degrees of success. At the elite level, Beijing has succeeded remarkably in co-opting most of Hong Kong’s business and political elites, who have come to identify with Beijing’s priorities and interests more than those of the Hong Kong people. At the level of political culture and attitudes, the introduction of patriotic Chinese symbols, authoritarian attitudes and suspicion of the West has been much less successful in converting the city’s ordinary people, in particular its younger generation. For example, the Hong Kong government’s plan to use textbooks that would encourage “patriotism” was soundly defeated by a protest movement organized by Joshua Wong, then only fifteen years old, who is leading today’s pro-democracy movement.
At the institutional level, Beijing’s assimilation policy fared little better. As mentioned, the Hong Kong government’s attempt to ram through the now-infamous national-security legislation in 2003 brought more than half a million protesters into the streets, humiliating both Beijing and Hong Kong’s leaders. Beijing’s efforts to maintain, “one country, one (authoritarian) system” through keeping an undemocratic electoral system, have been constantly challenged by Hong Kong’s pro-democracy forces, ultimately resulting in the ongoing confrontations in the city’s streets.
As for economic assimilation, Beijing’s policy seems immensely effective on the surface in all of the three regions—Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Trade, tourism, investments and modern infrastructure now link the periphery ever more closely with the Chinese center. But appearances are deceiving. In this case, economic integration actually further exacerbates conflicts of identities. On the surface, Hong Kong’s economy as a whole has indisputably benefited from China’s rise. But as in the case of Tibet and Xinjiang, two new sources of friction and identity conflict have emerged. One is the sharing of the benefits created by economic integration. In Hong Kong’s case, most of the benefits appeared to have gone to the elites, while ordinary people bear the costs of soaring housing prices and inequality. The other is the cultural clash between the city’s 7.2 million residents and the 40 million mainland tourists who visit Hong Kong each year.
As with most encounters of groups with distinct cultural identities, close contact breeds not amity, but animosity, mutual disrespect and a stronger self-awareness. Thus, an ironic but not incomprehensible consequence of economic integration between China and Hong Kong is: the closer they are economically, the more apart they are in terms of identity.
If this analysis is correct, then the right policy response is obvious. Beijing will have to reconsider its policy of assimilation. What is troubling to observers is that it is unlikely to happen. The prevailing political wisdom in China is that such a policy is working and there is no need for any change. Even more troubling is the likelihood that, their façades of toughness notwithstanding, Chinese policy makers don’t have the political courage to acknowledge that their Hong Kong policy is failing.
Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker ’72 Professor of Government and a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Image: Flickr/Nik Cyclist/CC by 2.0Star Wars versus Star Trek is a decades-long conflict that stretches across the galaxy, turning brother against brother, tearing lifelong friendships apart. In one case, it nearly turned lethal.
Jerome Whyte, 23, was arrested last week in Oklahoma after a heated debate about Star Wars and Star Trek turned into real assault. According to Oklahoma City police, Whyte and his friend were hanging out in an apartment when the pair started chatting about which series was better. The friend, clearly flustered, told Whyte “You’re just a trick” before walking back to his room.
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Whyte then reportedly followed his friend back to his room and shoved him to the ground. After a quick back-and-forth between the two of them, Whyte wrapped his arm around the guy’s neck and started choking him. As the man was about to pass out, he pulled out a pocket knife, leading Whyte to let go. Whyte was arrested for assault and battery, as well as other unrelated charges.
Sadly, it’s not clear which series each side was in favor or, nor what form—original shows and films, reboots, or expanded universe for either of the series’ complex worlds—they preferred. In any case, at least a random stranger didn’t enter the apartment uninvited to argue for Stargate: Atlantis. That could’ve turned deadly.
Update: Ars Technica reached out to Whyte’s friend, Bradley Burk, who clarified that he was defending Star Wars, while Whyte preferred Star Trek. “He was saying Spock was the shit and I was saying Yoda was the shit,” he said.
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In addition, the “trick” comment stemmed from the two of them playing a Batman game on Xbox, during which Whyte performed a particular trick and Burk wanted to know how he did it.
[Fox 25 Oklahoma]BAS2003040612 - BASRA, Iraq, April 6 (UPI) -- Members of the Irish Guard, aka Desert Rats, leave a former technical school and Bath Party Headquarters they had taken control of only days previous, in route a dawn raid on Basra, Iraq on April 6, 2003. British forces faced fierce resistance inside the city of Basra but kept driving forward taking over control of most of Iraq's second largest city after days of fighting. dg/cc/cc/Chris Corder UPI | License Photo
BAS2003040613 - BASRA, Iraq, April 6 (UPI) -- The rear door of a Warrior armored personel carrier from the Royal Scots Dragoon, 7th Armored Brigade, aka Desert Rats, displays a little door art as the crew rest just outside a former technical school and Bath Party Headquarters they had taken control of only days previous, during a dawn raid on Basra, Iraq on April 6, 2003. British forces faced fierce resistance inside the city of Basra but kept driving forward taking over control of most of Iraq's second largest city after days of fighting. dg/cc/cc/Chris Corder UPI | License Photo
BAS2003040615 - BASRA, Iraq, April 6 (UPI) -- A Warrior armored personel carrier from the Royal Scots Dragoon, 7th Armored Brigade, aka Desert Rats, and it's crew leave a former technical school and Bath Party Headquarters they had taken control of only days previous, in route a dawn raid on Basra, Iraq on April 6, 2003. British forces faced fierce resistance inside the city of Basra but kept driving forward taking over control of most of Iraq's second largest city after days of fighting. dg/cc/cc/Chris Corder UPI | License Photo
BAS2003040610 - BASRA, Iraq, April 6 (UPI) -- A member of the British Media embedded with the Royal Scots Dragoon, 7th Armored Brigade, uses a war torn road sign just outside a former technical school and Bath Party Headquarters, the British had taken control of only days previous, during a dawn raid on Basra, Iraq on April 6, 2003. British forces faced fierce resistance inside the city of Basra but kept driving forward taking over control of most of Iraq's second largest city after days of fighting. dg/cc/cc/Chris Corder UPI | License Photo
BAS2003040611 - BASRA, Iraq, April 6 (UPI) - Mesha, an Iraqi boy, drives his wagon away from Basra, Iraq, after members of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, 7th Armored Brigade set out on dawn raid on |
vdk_member |
| vdk_message |
| vdk_newsbase |
| vdk_newsclass |
| vdk_pic |
| vdk_qq |
| vdk_woyaozhuangxiu |
+--------------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_admin
[7 columns]
+---------------+-------------+
| Column | Type |
+---------------+-------------+
| lastlogindate | int(11) |
| lastloginip | tinytext |
| logintimes | int(2) |
| password | varchar(50) |
| uid | int(3) |
| userclass | int(2) |
| username | varchar(25) |
+---------------+-------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_admin
[2 entries]
+-----+----------+----------------------------------+-----------+------------+-----------------+---------------+
| uid | username | password | userclass | logintimes | lastloginip | lastlogindate |
+-----+----------+----------------------------------+-----------+------------+-----------------+---------------+
| 4 | sztd168 | b7cdd802b2b5b96119abef56bc5cbdcc | 1 | 170 | 58.61.14.115 | 1346654455 |
| 2 | csg | e597883da9008e54402f0dc872d86a89 | 1 | 292 | 220.152.201.116 | 1341626254 |
+-----+----------+----------------------------------+-----------+------------+-----------------+---------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_member
[17 columns]
+------------+-----------------------+
| Column | Type |
+------------+-----------------------+
| address | varchar(500) |
| address2 | varchar(500) |
| email | char(32) |
| fax | varchar(50) |
| islock | tinyint(1) unsigned |
| lastip | char(15) |
| logintimes | smallint(5) unsigned |
| password | char(32) |
| phone | varchar(50) |
| qq | int(15) |
| regdate | int(10) unsigned |
| regip | char(15) |
| tel | varchar(200) |
| userclass | tinyint(3) unsigned |
| userid | mediumint(8) unsigned |
| username | char(20) |
| xiadanren | varchar(100) |
+------------+-----------------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_member
[17 columns]
+------------+-----------------------+
| Column | Type |
+------------+-----------------------+
| address | varchar(500) |
| address2 | varchar(500) |
| email | char(32) |
| fax | varchar(50) |
| islock | tinyint(1) unsigned |
| lastip | char(15) |
| logintimes | smallint(5) unsigned |
| password | char(32) |
| phone | varchar(50) |
| qq | int(15) |
| regdate | int(10) unsigned |
| regip | char(15) |
| tel | varchar(200) |
| userclass | tinyint(3) unsigned |
| userid | mediumint(8) unsigned |
| username | char(20) |
| xiadanren | varchar(100) |
+------------+-----------------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_dingdan
[20 columns]
+------------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+------------+--------------+
| address | varchar(125) |
| address2 | varchar(500) |
| dingdanhao | varchar(125) |
| email | varchar(25) |
| id | int(4) |
| leaveword | mediumtext |
| qq | varchar(500) |
| sex | varchar(2) |
| shff | varchar(25) |
| shouhuoren | varchar(25) |
| slc | varchar(125) |
| spc | varchar(125) |
| tel | varchar(25) |
| time | varchar(25) |
| total | varchar(25) |
| userid | varchar(100) |
| xiadanren | varchar(25) |
| youbian | varchar(10) |
| zfff | varchar(25) |
| zt | varchar(50) |
+------------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_pic
[7 columns]
+-----------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+-----------+--------------+
| date_time | int(11) |
| etitle | varchar(500) |
| f_id | int(11) |
| id | int(11) |
| pic | varchar(500) |
| sort | int(11) |
| title | varchar(500) |
+-----------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_config
[3 columns]
+--------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+--------+--------------+
| name | varchar(500) |
| remark | varchar(50) |
| values | text |
+--------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_message
[6 columns]
+-----------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+-----------+--------------+
| content | text |
| date_time | int(11) |
| id | int(11) |
| mailfrom | varchar(20) |
| mailto | varchar(20) |
| title | varchar(100) |
+-----------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_flink
[9 columns]
+--------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+--------+--------------+
| ifok | int(1) |
| ldate | int(10) |
| lid | int(11) |
| linfo | varchar(100) |
| llogo | varchar(100) |
| lname | varchar(50) |
| lsite | varchar(100) |
| lsort | int(4) |
| ltype | int(1) |
+--------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_job
[14 columns]
+--------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+--------+--------------+
| ejob1 | varchar(200) |
| ejob6 | varchar(200) |
| ejob7 | varchar(200) |
| ejob8 | varchar(800) |
| id | int(11) |
| job1 | varchar(100) |
| job2 | int(11) |
| job3 | varchar(200) |
| job4 | varchar(200) |
| job5 | varchar(200) |
| job6 | varchar(200) |
| job7 | varchar(200) |
| job8 | varchar(800) |
| sort | int(11) |
+--------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_guestbook
[17 columns]
+----------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+----------+--------------+
| address | varchar(50) |
| Company | varchar(150) |
| content | mediumtext |
| Country | varchar(150) |
| email | varchar(50) |
| id | int(7) |
| ifok | tinyint(1) |
| ip | varchar(15) |
| lang | varchar(5) |
| Msn | varchar(150) |
| nickname | varchar(30) |
| oicq | varchar(11) |
| posttime | int(10) |
| reply | mediumtext |
| Skype | varchar(150) |
| tel | varchar(250) |
| weburl | varchar(150) |
+----------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_qq
[7 columns]
+---------+-------------+
| Column | Type |
+---------+-------------+
| id | int(11) |
| ifok | tinyint(1) |
| name | tinytext |
| name_en | varchar(50) |
| qq | varchar(50) |
| sort | int(11) |
| type | smallint(8) |
+---------+-------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_newsclass
[12 columns]
+---------------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+---------------+--------------+
| f_id | int(11) |
| headshow | tinyint(1) |
| id | int(11) |
| meta_title | mediumtext |
| meta_title_en | mediumtext |
| model | varchar(100) |
| name | varchar(25) |
| name_en | varchar(50) |
| roue_char | varchar(50) |
| roue_id | varchar(40) |
| sort | int(20) |
| url | tinytext |
+---------------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_newsbase
[24 columns]
+--------------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+--------------+--------------+
| bigslideimg | tinytext |
| canshu1 | text |
| canshu2 | text |
| canshu3 | varchar(300) |
| canshu4 | varchar(300) |
| canshu5 | varchar(300) |
| cid | int(11) |
| content | text |
| date_time | int(10) |
| description | varchar(500) |
| econtent | text |
| edescription | varchar(500) |
| etitle | varchar(500) |
| file | varchar(100) |
| id | int(11) |
| ifok | varchar(10) |
| market | varchar(100) |
| member | varchar(100) |
| number | varchar(100) |
| picurls | text |
| slideimg | mediumtext |
| sort | int(11) |
| title | varchar(100) |
| url | tinytext |
+--------------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_comments
[12 columns]
+-----------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+-----------+--------------+
| commentid | char(30) |
| content | mediumtext |
| email | varchar(50) |
| id | int(7) |
| ifok | tinyint(1) |
| ip | varchar(15) |
| nickname | varchar(30) |
| oicq | varchar(11) |
| posttime | int(10) |
| reply | mediumtext |
| tel | varchar(250) |
| userid | int(10) |
+-----------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_admin
[7 columns]
+---------------+-------------+
| Column | Type |
+---------------+-------------+
| lastlogindate | int(11) |
| lastloginip | tinytext |
| logintimes | int(2) |
| password | varchar(50) |
| uid | int(3) |
| userclass | int(2) |
| username | varchar(25) |
+---------------+-------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_woyaozhuangxiu
[16 columns]
+-----------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+-----------+--------------+
| chanpin | varchar(200) |
| commentid | int(10) |
| company | varchar(100) |
| content | text |
| country | varchar(150) |
| date_time | int(11) |
| email | varchar(50) |
| id | int(11) |
| msn | varchar(50) |
| name | tinytext |
| oicq | varchar(20) |
| qty | varchar(50) |
| remark | text |
| skype | varchar(50) |
| tel | varchar(50) |
| userid | int(10) |
+-----------+--------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_key
[3 columns]
+--------+-----------------------+
| Column | Type |
+--------+-----------------------+
| id | mediumint(5) unsigned |
| title | varchar(40) |
| url | varchar(255) |
+--------+-----------------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_admin
[2 entries]
+-----+----------+----------------------------------+-----------+------------+----------------+---------------+
| uid | username | password | userclass | logintimes | lastloginip | lastlogindate |
+-----+----------+----------------------------------+-----------+------------+----------------+---------------+
| 4 | sztd168 | b7cdd802b2b5b96119abef56bc5cbdcc | 1 | 247 | 183.38.122.147 | 1361430485 |
| 2 | csg | e597883da9008e54402f0dc872d86a89 | 1 | 302 | 31.172.30.3 | 1361576005 |
+-----+----------+----------------------------------+-----------+------------+----------------+---------------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_guestbook
[3 entries]
+----+------+--------------+---------+------+------+-----------+---------+-------+------------------------------+--------+---------+---------------------+---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+----------+
| id | ip | tel | Msn | lang | ifok | oicq | Skype | reply | email | weburl | Country | Company | address | content | posttime | nickname |
+----+------+--------------+---------+------+------+-----------+---------+-------+------------------------------+--------+---------+---------------------+---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+----------+
| 5 | NULL | 15302581881 | <blank> | 1 | 0 | <blank> | <blank> | NULL | 348627414@qq.com | NULL | <blank> | 15寸液晶监视器 | 佛山南海 | 15寸液晶监视器，五金外壳，内置电源，含VGA接口，配底座，请报个含税含运费价 | 1343199778 | 邓小姐 |
| 6 | NULL | rGJDDtCYj | <blank> | 1 | 0 | 185515899 | <blank> | NULL | samuel.garnier@obs-nancay.fr | NULL | <blank> | hpzHKFABjZrOKZObe | zlLviyMq | An intlelignet point of view, well expressed! Thanks! | 1347257950 | Peerless |
| 7 | NULL | UTVjIKHzgdpI | <blank> | 2 | 0 | 371066853 | <blank> | NULL | paulabear525@aol.com | NULL | <blank> | NAzypXEiNtOZhvFCjtw | KHJeawxWOrfHW | That monitor has a reooiutlsn of 1024 768.720p video is 1280 720.1080p video is 1920 1080.Depending on the player, 720p video may be downscaled to fit on your screen, cropped to fit on your screen, or not be able to play at all. No point in even trying to bother with 1080p if a lower-reooiutlsn version is available. | 1347278040 | Akash |
+----+------+--------------+---------+------+------+-----------+---------+-------+------------------------------+--------+---------+---------------------+---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+----------+
Database: hdm0190788_db
Table: vdk_comments
[1 entry]
+----+--------+-----------+-----------+------------+------+---------+-------+--------------+---------+------------+----------+
| id | userid | commentid | ip | tel | ifok | oicq | reply | email | content | posttime | nickname |
+----+--------+-----------+-----------+------------+------+---------+-------+--------------+---------+------------+----------+
| 20 | 9 | 128 | 127.0.0.1 | 2147483647 | 1 | <blank> | fsd | 5fal@163.com | <blank> | 1312014896 | 陈胜刚 |
+----+--------+-----------+-----------+------------+------+---------+-------+--------------+---------+------------+----------+
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://mcomcctv.com/
Database: admin_liwabra_channel
[28 tables]
+---------------------+
| basket |
| countries |
| mainsection |
| products |
| sections |
| tbl_admin |
| tbl_basket |
| tbl_bskt |
| tbl_gallery |
| tbl_gen |
| tbl_gen_gallery |
| tbl_job_app |
| tbl_order |
| tbl_pdf |
| tbl_prd_gallery |
| tbl_prd_pdf |
| tbl_product_colors |
| tbl_product_gallery |
| tbl_questions |
| tbl_sizes |
| tbl_specification |
| tbl_status |
| tbl_subscribers |
| tbl_tickets |
| tbl_users |
| tbl_web_users |
| tbl_web_users_x |
| vw_search |
+---------------------+
Table: tbl_admin
[5 columns]
+----------+--------------+
| Column | Type |
+----------+--------------+
| aright | varchar(20) |
| fname | varchar(255) |
| password | varchar(50) |
| RecID | int(11) |
| usrname | varchar(255) |
+----------+--------------+
Table: tbl_admin
[1 entry]
+-------+---------------+--------+---------+----------+
| RecID | fname | aright | usrname | password |
+-------+---------------+--------+---------+----------+
| 1 | Channel Tower | adm | admin | admin99 |
+-------+---------------+--------+---------+----------+
#OpBigBrother #OpLastResort #indect #OpTrapwire #OpWCIT
We won't let you enslave us!
We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us!Plot Edit
Main article: List of Orange Is the New Black episodes Season Episodes Originally released 1 13 July 11, 2013 ( ) 2 13 June 6, 2014 ( ) 3 13 June 11, 2015 ( ) 4 13 June 17, 2016 ( ) 5 13 June 9, 2017 ( ) 6 13 July 27, 2018 ( ) The series begins revolving around Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), a woman in her thirties living in New York City who is sentenced to 15 months in Litchfield Penitentiary, a minimum-security women's federal prison in upstate New York. Chapman was convicted of transporting a suitcase full of drug money for her girlfriend Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), an international drug smuggler. The offense had occurred 10 years prior to the start of the series and in that time Piper had moved on to a quiet, law-abiding life among New York's upper middle class. Her sudden and unexpected indictment disrupts her relationships with her fiancé, family and friends. In prison, Chapman is reunited with Vause (who named Chapman in her trial, resulting in Chapman's arrest) and they re-examine their relationship. Simultaneously, Chapman, along with the other inmates, attempt to grapple with prison's numerous, inherent struggles. Episodes often feature flashbacks of significant events from various inmates' and prison guards' pasts. These flashbacks typically depict how an inmate came to be in prison or develop a character's backstory. The prison is initially operated by the "Federal Department of Corrections" (a fictional version of the Federal Bureau of Prisons), and was in a later season acquired by the Management & Correction Corporation (MCC), a private prison company. The fifth season shows the prisoners revolting against the guards, wardens and the system after MCC's failed handling of an inmate's death at the hands of a guard in the fourth season. The inmate death had followed a peaceful protest and subsequent instigation of an inmate fight by another guard. Fueled by the conditions the inmates are forced to tolerate, as well as grudges against the prison guards, a three-day riot ensues. During the riot, some inmates attempt to negotiate better living conditions and seek justice for the death of the inmate, while others pursue their own interests and entertainment, and a few seek no involvement. At the emergence of the riot, the guard who incited the fight in the prior season is critically wounded by an inmate who took the gun the guard illegally brought into the prison. At the end of the season, SWAT raids the prison to end the riot and remove all inmates from the facility. During this raid, a correctional officer is fatally wounded by a corrupt "strike team", which then conspires to blame the guard's death on inmates who hid in an underground bunker and had taken the guard hostage. All inmates are transported to other prisons. The consequences of the riot are shown in the sixth season. A number of the inmates, including Chapman and Vause, are transported to Litchfield Maximum Security. Most of these inmates are interrogated, and several of them charged and sentenced for their involvement in the riot. In max, new inmates are introduced, alliances are made, and a gang-like war emerges between two prison blocks, spearheaded by a longstanding feud between two sisters and a grudge harbored by them toward a former maximum-security inmate who returned. Inmates who arrived from the minimum security prison are either caught up or willingly participate in the war between prison blocks. The season portrays further corruption and guard brutality. Throughout the series, it is shown how various forms of corruption, funding cuts, privatization of prison, overcrowding, guard brutality and racial discrimination (among other issues), affect the prisoners' safety, health and well-being, the correctional officers, and the prison's basic ability to fulfill its fundamental responsibilities and ethical obligations as a corrections institution.[citation needed] One of the show's key conflicts involves the minimum-security prison's Director of Human Activities, Joe Caputo, whose efforts and aims as a warden constantly conflict with the corporate interests of MCC, which acquired the facility when it was about to be shut down.
Cast and characters Edit
Production Edit
Reception Edit
Broadcast Edit
See also Edit
Notes Edit
^ Michael J. Harney was credited as main cast for season 5 but did not make a single appearance.
References EditChildren with struggle from the earliest ages to control their actions and pay. They forget to turn-off the TV, to come to the table, or to clean their rooms. When homework requires their attention, children with ADHD lose track of time, skip problems, and often can’t find their assignment book. In the past, I’ve written about positive (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-older-dad/201102/positive-parenting-self-esteem) and siblings of children with ADHD (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-older-dad/201110/ghost-children-brothers-and-sisters-adhd-children). Now let’s turn our attention to a new study on ADHD and behavioral.
When things Go Wrong: Dr. Russell Barkley, a leading psychologist researcher in ADHD, documented how parents repeatedly reprimand their children with ADHD for not doing what they’re told. Barkley reported that, often, parents end-up to use angry, punitive strategies with their ADHD children. But, this cycle of reprimands, and usually only works in the short-term. In the long-term, this cycle can harm children’s emotional well-being, unintentionally teaching them to be aggressive. So…..what can parents do instead?
When things Go Right: Researchers at Ohio University, led by Dr. Steven Evans (http://www.ohio.edu/research/communications/owens-evans.cfm), reviewed studies since 2007. They examined the evidence, to see what helps children and teens who have ADHD. The study, published this month in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hcap20/.VACJzFavbRo), included the finding that behavioral parent training works. Evans' found similar evidence to other published studies, like the one Dr. William Pelham’s team published in 2005. What’s most encouraging is how quickly behavioral parenting training can work: the study showed that, even when the behavioral parent training occured in a single session, or on the phone, chidlren still benefited.
Behavioral Parent Training: A Positive Approach
Of the various programs for behavioral parent training, the Kazdin method (http://www.apa.org/divisions/div12/rev_est/pmt_child.html), called Parent Training (PMT), is a well-regarded POSITIVE way for parents to change their children's behaviors.
In PMT, parents are taught several parenting skills, including how to measure their children’s behaviors and set limits. But one of the most important parts of any behavioral parenting intervention, including PMT, is teaching parents how to focus on positive behaviors. In PMT, those are called Positive Opposites. Dr. Kazdin, in his book Parent Management Training, says
"The notion of positive opposites underscores the different orientation of PMT, namely, the focus on developoing positive, prosocial behaviors. Even when punishemnt is used in PMT, it is secondary to a program that focuses on positive reinforement."
Positive Opposites: When parents work to reduce oppositional behaviors from ADHD children, behavioral parenting defines what parents want from their children: the Positive Opposite. For example, if children fail to come to the table for dinner, the positive opposite would be to stop whatever else is being done, and sitting at the table. So PMT teaches parents to reward children for what Kazdin calls “minding.” The idea of behavioral parenting is not to stop a behavior, it is to replace it instead.
Attention Rewards: PMT also teaches parents how to control attention to problem behaviors, while praising children when acting in the positive opposite way. Parents learn how to use effective, unemotional ignoring targeted at specific problem behaviors. Instead, parents use effective praise when the positive behavior occurs by not only thanking children, but also by describing the behavior while praising it ("Sue, thank you for coming to the table, that is just want I asked you to do!").
No More Nagging: In addition, when parents ask children with ADHD to do a positive opposite, asking more than twice is referred to as nagging—and nagging rewards, through attention, children not minding. In contrast, a reminder that there will be another chance, and then ignoring children for a brief period can often be more effective. The "no more nagging" rule breaks the cycle described by Dr. Barkley.
Point Rewards: PMT also provides ways to use points to reward positive opposites. The points, in turn, can be used by children to obtain things they want. Even when children don’t mind their parents, PMT uses positive strategies by reminding children that they can try again later to earn points—keeping both parents and children focused on the positive. The parents are also aided to select only items that are interesting or desirable to their children so that earning points will be motivating.
Time-out and Other “Costs” for Problem Behavior: Of course, sometimes parents must use negative outcomes or time-out. In behavioral parenting, time-out is short, and children are praised for going to, and staying in, time-out. In PMT, time-out is not punitive; instead, it’s withholding attention until things calm down so children can try again to do the positive behavior. Other costs, like performing an unwanted choir or removing a privilege, occur along with parents reminding their children of the positive behavior. To keep the "costs" as postivie as possible, parents learn to use calm tones rather than displaying any anger.
Positive Practice: When parents have had unpleasant experiences, they can become apprehensive even before children misbehave. Research shows that parents’ anticipatory can undermine using positive behavioral skills, even after those skills have been used well. In behavioral parenting, moms and dads learn to use the strategies by practicing, sometimes even in the very situations when problems have occurred in the past. Behavioral parenting uses role-playing and practice to both teach behavioral parenting skills and to build positive experiences that counter anticipatory anxiety.
For children with ADHD, keeping it positive and using behavioral parenting strategies can’t be emphasized enough. Parents can see sometimes amazing outcomes when they learn behavioral parenting strategies, focus on the positive opposites, and use rewards and ignoring effectively.
Resources
http://yaleparentingcenter.yale.edu
http://alankazdin.com/the-kazdin-method-for-parenting-the-defiant-child-...
http://www.russellbarkley.org
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/adhd/Pages/Behavior-Therapy-The-Specifics-of-Parent-Training.aspx
In some parts of the country, parents can enroll their children in summer camps that can rapidly lead to progress—but moms and dads go to the camp regularly too, learning behavioral parenting. For more information, see http://ccf.fiu.edu or http://ccf.buffalo.edu/STP.phpUrsula Coyote/AMC
Warning: this post contains spoilers about Season 5 of “Breaking Bad” and Sunday’s semi-season finale.
How much more tension could “Breaking Bad” provide in its recent mini-season? In eight all-too-short episodes, viewers of that AMC series bit their fingernails down to their nubs watching a high-tech hands-free heist on a police evidence locker; a train robbery with unexpectedly lethal results; a very depressing birthday party for the meth-making protagonist, Walter White (Bryan Cranston); and a final showdown between Walter and his sometime ally Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks). And just when the prison stabbings and retaliatory killings had come to an end, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) had been paid his share, the White family had assembled for a happy gathering, and we had prepared for Semisonic’s “Closing Time” to start playing, Hank (Dean Norris) made a surprising discovery that could blow open Walter’s secret identity as Albuquerque’s leading drug kingpin.
Craig Barritt/Wireimage
Now comes the most suspenseful moment of all: waiting almost an entire year for the next eight episodes of “Breaking Bad,” which will close out the season, the series and the story of Walter White. To tide us over until then, Vince Gilligan, the creator and show runner of “Breaking Bad,” spoke to reporters on Tuesday in a telephone news conference. In these edited excerpts from that discussion, Mr. Gilligan talks about Sunday’s episode, the season so far, and what’s to come in the show’s final installments.
Q.
Are we to believe that Walt has done his last cook? Is he out, or are we supposed to be guessing?
A.
I guess you’re always supposed to be guessing when you’re watching “Breaking Bad.” As Walt said to his wife in that last act, he said, “I’m out.” And we can either take him at his word or not. He is of course infamous for being one of the world’s greatest liars. But I tend to believe personally he was telling the truth when he told her that. Have we witnessed him cooking his last batch? Hard to say. I could be coy and simply say I’m not going to tell you. But on the other hand, we’re still working out the final eight episodes. My writers and I don’t completely know how it’s going to quite lay out as of yet. I’m not even sure of the answer myself. But it’s looking like he’s out of the business for sure.
Q.
What reassurances might you have for Aaron Paul fans who might be afraid that he won’t have much to do moving forward?
A.
Oh, he’s going to have plenty to do. Let me reassure you on that count. [laughs] Just because he’s out of the business doesn’t mean he’s off the show. We love Jesse Pinkman as much as all the multitude of Aaron Paul fans out there love him. It would not be the same show without Jesse Pinkman on it.
Q.
You began Season 5 with a framing device that showed Walt at a certain place and time in his life. But we haven’t yet seen how Walt becomes the person in that scenario. How much of your final eight episodes have you worked out, and did you know, going into these most recent eight, how they would connect with however you intend to end the series?
A.
That flash-forward, with the Denny’s and Walt looking a bit like the Unabomber and purchasing an M60 machine gun in the back of an old Cadillac, is a glimpse forward to the future, and it is a future that is about a year ahead – 10 to 12 months ahead from the time of the first eight episodes. It is a glimpse to the end of it all? Perhaps. It is something we are still nailing down. You’d be surprised at how little we have at this point. [laughs] I hate to admit it. We have the broad strokes for the final eight, but I’ve always loved that there are two opposing clichés – God is in the details and the devil is in the details. I love the fact that those two clichés are in opposition, and yet they both hold true. What remains is very much in the details. We have the broad strokes of what all of that means, that M60 machine gun in the trunk of the Cadillac and whatnot. But it’s the connective tissue that will tell the tale. The plumbing of it all – the laying of the pipe of it all – that will tell us whether we’ve succeeded or failed in coming up with a satisfying ending.
Q.
What are you prepared to tell us at this point about the story of the final eight episodes?
A.
This is where it all comes to an end. There will be resolution in these final eight. We will know where everybody stands. Gosh, what can I say about it? I’m being very maddeningly vague and general. We are going to swing for the fences in these final eight episodes. It’s terrifying, and yet it’s liberating for me and for the writers to know that these are the final eight hours that we’ll ever have for this series. There’s been talk of a movie and whatnot, but I can tell you that none of that is even remotely on my radar right now. As far as I’m concerned, the end of this story is contained within these final eight episodes. We now have freedom, carte blanche I suppose, to dispense with the timid, pusillanimous storytelling we’ve been doing so far.
Q.
How will Hank handle the information he just put together?
A.
That is the big question, isn’t it? Unfortunately I have to be a little coy about what he is going to do. But I can tell you this, it has been the subject of great debate among the seven writers, myself included. You run through every possible permutation in your head. Does he just walk right out and shoot him right in the forehead? What are the various possibilities? How do you react to something like this? Do you keep your cards close to the vest or are you able to control those emotions that you would feel? And do you feel them all at once or is it a slow burn? Are you in a state of shock? It’s hard to put oneself into Hank’s head in that moment, because you’ve to think, that’s the single biggest, most horrible revelation this guy’s probably ever had in his life. This guy, who he loves, who he has brotherly love and affection for – they’re only related by marriage, but they oftentimes do feel like brothers, not just brothers-in-law – that knowledge, how does one take it all in and process it in a mere matter of seconds? I hate to tell you how many man-hours we’ve spent talking this stuff through.
Q.
Why did you decide to end on the scene of Hank sitting on the toilet?
A.
We wanted an ending for a season that was different than any other season ending that we’d had before. We’re always trying to keep track of what we’ve done in the past, in an effort to try to turn particular moments on their ear. We’ve had a season end, a first season, in which we were in a junkyard and watched a really scary, methed-up drug dealer beat one of his underlings to death. We’ve had a season that ended, literally, with a plane crashing into Walt’s backyard. And that we had Jesse shoot a guy in the face. We figured [laughs] perhaps the most interesting ending would be, on the face of it, the least dramatic – a guy sitting on the toilet and having the biggest revelation of his life, while seated on the porcelain throne, there. It seemed to us irresistible – the irony of it and the undramatic, at least on the surface, nature of it felt appropriate to us.
Q.
Where do you see Walt and Jesse’s relationship, moving forward into the last eight episodes, coming out of their last scene together?
A.
That last scene had a very bittersweet feel, a very nostalgic feel to it, for me and for our writers. Moira Walley-Beckett, who wrote that episode, did a wonderful job with that scene, and it feels like a goodbye scene between those two characters. It feels like a reminiscing about the past, about better times – [laughs] better times are a relative idea in the world of “Breaking Bad.” They are reminiscing, after all, about cooking meth. There was a more innocent time on this show, and they are thinking about that, and what they’re essentially saying is that those days are over and they can never be returned to.
Going forward it’s less about the assistant or the acolyte attending to the master or the mentor and more about partners on an equal footing, or former partners. We’ll see whether they are – uh, gee, I’m getting into territory where I don’t want to give too much away. But basically Walt and Jesse are very much – not necessarily intellectually equals, but speaking in terms of formidability – is that a word? formidableness? – they are very much closer to being equals than they’ve ever been before. As to how that particular fact will inform our storytelling in the final eight remains to be seen.
Q.
That scene of Walt saying he’s out comes after a visit to the doctor’s office. Is it safe to say his human side came out of whatever he learned at that doctor’s office? How important will that be in the end game of the |
the Constitution, and who has a Harvard law degree, and who taught Constitutional law at the University of Chicago, is not willing to obey the rules of the very Constitution that he studied, taught, and took an oath to uphold.
Here are three Calvinball cartoons by Bill Watterson, which I post with the “fair use” policy – followed by a list 19 changes that Obama has made to Obamacare – changes which he made illegally – because they were not approved by Congress.
Click on each image to see a larger version.
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19 illegal changes that Obama has made to Obamacare:
1) Within months after Obamacare was passed, Obama, without approval from Congress, illegally gave some organizations, including numerous corporations and unions, an exemption from some of the requirements of Obamacare. As time went on, more than 1,300 organizations received these exemptions.
2) In 2013, members of Congress and their staff complained that Obamacare was going to cost them a lot of money, and said that this would likely cause a brain drain among their staff. In response to this, Obama made changes to Obamacare so that these things would not happen. However, Obama’s actions were illegal, because he made these changes without Congress voting on them first. The New York Times wrote of this:
… the language of the health care law requires Congressional employees to obtain health insurance through an exchange created by the law, but other parts of the federal legal code restrict the ability of the federal government to pay the usual employer share for group insurance programs approved by the Office of Personnel Management.
A straightforward reading of the law thus means that Congressional staff members, starting in January 2014, will have to obtain insurance through the Affordable Care Act but pay for it on their own without the normal contribution from their employer — Congress. This would be a multi-thousand-dollar income hit for those affected… many… would potentially feel the pain, giving rise to concerns over a potential brain drain of Congressional staff members finding other employment.
… the federal personnel office initially ruled that Congressional staff members would not be eligible for the subsidies, and then changed this decision under pressure from the White House…
3) In July 2013, Obama illegally delayed the employer mandate part of Obamacare from January 2014 until January 2015 without Congressional approval.
4) Even though Obamacare requires the government to verify the income of people who receive subsidies for Obamacare exchanges, in August 2013 it was reported that Obama would not be verifying their incomes.
5) As it was passed by the House and Senate and signed by Obama in 2010, Obamacare sets caps on the out of pocket payments that people pay for health care, and these caps were legally required to take effect in January 2014. However, in August 2013, Obama, without approval from Congress, illegally delayed these caps until January 2015.
6) Obamacare requires that individual employees of small businesses be allowed to choose their own insurance plan during the first year of Obamacare. However, in March 2013, the Obama administration announced that it would not be allowing them to make this choice during the first year. Beacause Obama did this without approval from Congress, his action was illegal.
7) After Obamacare was passed, Obama illegally added 20,000 extra pages to it, without approval from Congress.
8) In May 2013, the Washington Post reported that Obama had illegally used Obamacare to give additional powers to the IRS, without approval from Congress.
9) In May 2013, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius solicited donations from health insurers to help pay for Obamacare. Such soliciting is illegal. Obama refused to fire or prosecute Sebelius for her criminal behavior.
10) Obamacare calls for the creation of 16,500 new IRS agents. In March 2011, 15 IRS agents illegally seized the medical records of 10 million people without a warrant. Obama refused to fire or prosecute them for their criminal behavior.
11) In August 2013, it was reported that Obama had illegally used Obamacare to fund pre-K education without approval from Congress.
12) In August 2013, it was reported that Obama had illegally missed 41 of Obamacare’s 82 deadlines.
13) In August 2013, it was reported that Obama was trying to give illegal Obamacare subsidies to unions, without approval from Congress.
14) Obamacare requires that the online registration for small businesses be ready by October 1, 2013. However, five days before that date, Associated Press reported that this deadline would not be met.
15) In November 2013, it was reported that Obama was trying to illegally exempt some unions from some of the Obamacare fees, without approval from Congress.
16) In August 2013, without approval from Congress, Obama illegally gave an Obamacare waiver to Massachusetts.
17) On November 14, 2013, after insurance companies had canceled policies that did not meet the minimum requirements of Obamacare, Obama told them to restore these policies. However, he did this without Congress voting to approve these changes to Obamacare. The President does not have the legal authority to change a law that was passed by Congress, without those changes first being approved by Congress.
18) In December 2013, Obama ordered insurance companies to cover “customers” who had never paid any premiums. Obama’s action was illegal because it violated the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. It was also illegal because he did not have approval from Congress.
19) On December 19, 2013, Obama gave exemptions from the Obamacare mandate to people whose insurance had been canceled due to Obamacare. Because Obama gave out these exemptions without approval from Congress, his action was illegal.On March 14th, online security journalist Brian Krebs was cleaning his Virginia home in preparation for a small dinner party when he noticed some plastic tape stuck under his front door, left over from when he’d had to secure an extension cord. Pulling up the tape, he opened the front door — and suddenly heard a yell. "Don’t move!" the voice said. "Put your hands in the air!" There were around 10 to 12 police officers surrounding his driveway, guns drawn.
Fortunately, Krebs realized immediately what had happened. He had actually warned the police months before about the possibility of a fake emergency call designed to bring a SWAT team to his house, an increasingly popular prank among the young hackers he writes about. Still, he was shaken.
"Things can go wrong very easily"
"Any time people who are trained to respond to hostile situations show up at your door pointing automatic weapons at you, things can go wrong very easily," Krebs told The Verge. "I'm a pretty cool customer, as these things go, but when they said ‘put your hands up,’ I had a big huge ball of tape in my hands. What if somebody mistook that for a weapon?"
Heavily armored special police units were a common sight in the Boston metro area last week during the hunt for the bombers who attacked the Boston Marathon. But special forces had been seeing more action than usual, across the country and before the bombings, thanks to an old prank known as "swatting" that’s recently come back into style.
Back in January, police received a 911 call about a husband threatening his wife with a gun. After sweeping the property and startling the handful of staffers who were the only ones home, it became obvious that the call was a hoax. The victim? R&B singer Chris Brown.
Tom Cruise, Kim Kardashian, and others have also been unnecessarily visited by a SWAT team. In February, actor Clint Eastwood got the SWAT treatment. In March, Paris Hilton was hit. Selena Gomez, Justin Timberlake, Russell Brand, and Rihanna were all swatted in the same week in the beginning of April. The problem is so bad that the LAPD has stopped publishing reports of swatting incidents in order to discourage copycats.
The problem is so bad that the LAPD stopped publishing reports of swatting
So far, one swatter has been caught: a 12-year-old boy who admitted to swatting Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber, and a bank. The Los Angeles County District Attorney also says the boy called 911 once to get out of school.
The attacks have been happening outside Hollywood as well. North Carolina-based Woody, a vlogger who runs a YouTube channel called WoodysGamertag, was dramatically swatted in March. Woody had just wrapped up an episode when he noticed people prowling around in his yard, so he came down the stairs with a shotgun — which is just about the most dangerous reaction you can have in that situation.
"I’m what my wife describes as a minor league internet celebrity," Woody said in a video. "It turns out the ultimate goal of these swatters, I’m told, is to have them bust through the door and drag you off camera. They would just love to see the police grab me by my shoulders and pull me off the show."
Woody, a video game vlogger, explains how he was swatted.
The FBI estimates there are around 400 swatting attacks a year, based on "local law enforcement calls received about once a month; interviews of individuals arrested; and a review of social media with perpetrators bragging about it," a spokesperson told The Verge. However, Google Trends shows a huge spike in mentions of the word "swatting" beginning in 2013.
It’s relatively easy to swat someone, since law enforcement tends to err on the side of taking emergency calls seriously. The threshold for calling in a special forces team varies by district, but generally it seems to be enough to say you have a gun and a potential victim. All swatters really need is the victim’s address, a way to mask their phone number, and a crazy story to tell the 911 operator.
It’s relatively easy to swat someone
There are a few options when it comes to masking your phone number. Swatters can use services designed so the deaf can type and have their messages spoken by an operator. Because of privacy laws, these services do not track personal information of the people making the calls, and the operators are required to read everything that’s being typed, no matter how absurd. Swatters can also use a "spoof card," magicJack, or even an app (Burner is a popular one) to hide the originating number.
As it turns out, the recent increase in swatting may be connected to one specific hacker, or group of hackers. Krebs discovered that an individual, or individuals, has been publishing personal information on public figures on a site called exposed.re. At the end of March, a notation was added next to the names of celebrities who had been targeted: "[Swatted]."
The site where a hacker (or hackers) has been publishing the personal information of public figures.
"I actually think there is a connection between the swat against me and the swat against celebrities," he said. The FBI is investigating the case.
Swatting can bring harsh penalties. In 2007, a young man named Randal T. Ellis called in a hoax on an apparently random household using a deaf relay service. At first, Ellis told the 911 operator that his name was Ryan and his sister had overdosed on cocaine and gave the address of a house in Lake Forest, Washington, where Doug and Stacey Bates lived with their twin daughters. Ellis also claimed he had a gun and had shot someone in the face. He then threatened to shoot his mother and his sister.
At this point, police requested a SWAT team. Doug Bates heard a strange noise and saw some the shadowy figures in the yard. Worried about intruders, he came out the back door with a knife.
Excerpt from 911 transcript: [Police unit 664] confirming these people are deaf? we may need to get someone out here that speaks sign language [Sheriff’s dispatch] Six six four we’re still trying to confirm that. We do have an informant by the name of Ryan. He states he shot a female in the face [Police unit 664] – He’s at the back window, he’s looking out. And ah – it looks like he does have a large knife in his hand and he is agitated. He’s coming out.
Luckily, no one was hurt in the ensuing standoff. The police searched the Bates’ home and found nothing. "Fuck this bullshit, I'm just going to kill myself," Ellis told the 911 operator, and hung up.
Brian Sims, a sergeant with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, was the lead investigator on the case. He discovered that Ellis had used the California Relay System to call 911. About five search warrants later, Sims traced the call from an AOL account to a Comcast account and finally to Ellis. The 19-year-old went to jail for three years on five felony counts, including computer access and fraud, false imprisonment by violence, and falsely reporting a crime. He was ordered to pay $14,700 in restitution.
About five search warrants later...
At the time no law enforcement had ever heard of swatting, Sims told The Verge. The only other case he was aware of involved Matthew Weigman, the notorious blind phone hacker who ended up getting 11 years for various computer crimes. Weigman’s first known swat was in 2005. The Verge attempted to contact Weigman to ask whether he was inspired by an earlier swat, but he declined to be interviewed through his lawyer.
Sims is now consulting with the LAPD to help with the string of Hollywood swats. "Unfortunately for us, with the new spoof cards and the magicJacks, and everything else coming out, it’s becoming more and more difficult," he said. "It’s very labor intensive. It’s not like you got swatted last night and I can have someone in custody today."
However, he said, the swatters tend to give themselves away. "It’s almost like a high for them," he said. "They want to memorialize all this activity, all this news media. They’re only going to stay quiet for so long."
Update: Woody asked that his real name be removed from this story in order to reduce his future risk of being targeted, so we substituted his nickname.Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics' morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today.
A company wants to turn your existing car into a self-driving vehicle. All it takes is $10,000 of rooftop sensors and actuators. No, we're not about Google or GM, but a small San Francisco startup named Cruise. Even more surprisingly, the company hopes to bring its first units to market early next year, according to Forbes.
The way it works is that sensors placed on the roof gather data, which is then analyzed by a computer tucked away in the trunk of your vehicle. The press of a button on the dash turns the system on or off. But Cruise's vision is more akin to GM's Super Cruise technology than Google's fully autonomous creation. This means the system, known as the RP-1, will be able to control and navigate the car to a degree with adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist, but you're not going to want to read a book behind the wheel quite yet.
For now, the system is outfitted for only the Audi A4 and S4, but the company promises more models on the way.
Despite its currently untested potential, the idea that a startup could achieve a semi-autonomous system quicker than a major U.S. car manufacturer is a hard concept to wrap your head around. Forbes attributes the company's early success with the "Lean Startup" approach, where you build quickly, learn from your mistakes, and improve—all without spending tons of money.
Although Cruise's progress is admirable, it still has plenty of hurdles to overcome. For one, the cost is a little high for what you end up getting, which is essentially a super-charged cruise control, and the system only works optimally on roads surrounding Cruise's HQ in San Francisco. Scaling up to more locales will probably take much more time. But the promise is there.
Read This
NASA discovered a mysterious island on Saturn's moon Titan that has a nasty habit of disappearing. [via href='http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/23/instagram-tvseries/' target='_blank">EngadgetThe De Beers diamonds antitrust class action sought to end an alleged 60-year conspiracy to fix the price of rough diamonds in the U.S. by the De Beers group of companies. The litigation includes several cases including Hopkins v. De Beers Centenary A.G., et al., No. CGC-04-432954, which commenced on July 24, 2004, and Sullivan v. DB Investments, No. 04-cv-02819, and earlier related cases that commenced in 2001.
The complaints charged that De Beers had created a global cartel in the markets of rough and polished diamonds – with a market share that reached nearly as high as 90% - through aggressive management of supply and prices, and collusive agreements with competitors, suppliers, and distributors. This was a quintessential antitrust violation of the Sherman Act. [1]
In October 2005, the parties reached a preliminary agreement to settle the claims of all indirect purchasers nationwide, with Sullivan serving as the procedural vehicle for seeking court approval of the settlement, notice and claims administration. Working out the details took three years between Plaintiffs' Counsel and De Beers.[2] On April 14, 2008, the Court conducted a fairness hearing and on May 27, 2008, granted final approval to the settlement.[3]
The settlement provides $295 million to purchasers of diamonds and diamond jewelry, including $130 million to consumers. In addition, De Beers consented to a historic injunction that prohibits De Beers from monopolizing the world supply of rough diamonds and from fixing the price of polished diamonds. The injunction also requires De Beers to submit to the continuing jurisdiction of the United States District Court for enforcement of the injunction.[4] Commenting on the case, plaintiff's counsel Eric B. Fastiff of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein stated that De Beers' offer to settle "showed that our strategy was correct. If you put litigation pressure and represent your client vigorously, eventually a guilty defendant will recognize that it needs to resolve its problems."[2]
On May 21, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the final petition for review. Pursuant to an Order of the Court, Initial Distribution checks were mailed to Authorized Reseller Claimants on August 31, 2012. The remaining proceeds of the Reseller Subclass Net Settlement Fund were distributed to Authorized Reseller Claimants on March 15, 2013. As of November 24, 2015, distribution of settlement funds has been completed and the case is now closed.Florida Gators recruiting is doing well and this week’s recruiting mailbag had a lot of great questions about how prospects liked the Florida Gators big win over the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night, plus we preview the Ole Miss versus Florida Gators recruiting list.
As you have noticed Gator Country and Andrew Spivey have mixed things up and we have taken our recruiting mailbag to podcast form, as well as continuing the written of version of the mailbag.
Make sure to listen as Andrew answers everyone’s questions from this mailbag and don’t forget to get your questions in every week so he can answer your question next time on all things Florida Gators recruiting.
Here’s the written version of this week’s Florida Gators recruiting mailbag:
MrB-Gator: Do we get a Juco LB in this class?
AS: Honestly I don’t think so. Right now the only one with a scholarship offer is Tyree Horton and he isn’t going to qualify, so he’s out of play.
Brainstorm: Can you revisit our DL board – who are the players the staff really want the most and how many do you think we end up signing if the gods smile on us? We have a lot of DL on the current roster – do we still sign a large class?
AS: I think Florida signs a semi-large class, yes, because of Jonathan Bullard graduating, plus Alex McCalister potentially being gone after this year. The ones to look at are Shavar Manuel, Dexter Lawrence, Janarius Robinson, Ben Frazier, Jordan Woods, Brian Burns and Antoneous Clayton. Florida would like to get four to five of those guys.
2xgator: Do you expect any more in season officials to UF?
AS: Isaiah Johnson says he’s taking an official this weekend, but I think it will be bumped back. I do think and know that several guys will be taking officials visits for the Florida State game in November though.
Okcgator: With FSU playing at Wake Forest and Miami playing at Cincy is there any likely hood that we have another big instate prospect list for the Ole Miss game? I know it’s probably not an ideal game to have people visit but with FSU/UM being away should we expect anyone to come down for it?
AS: It’s going to be a semi big weekend for Florida, but not nearly as big as last week’s game was. You will see some big names like Marcus Tatum, Freddie Swain and Jordan Woods potentially come in for the weekend. I’ll have a full list up on Friday.
SVSqueek7: Dumbfounded with LB recruiting regardless if it’s a down year in state. Instant playing time available, can CMac, Shannon, D staff and support staff pull a couple of rabbits out of their collective hats?!?!?
AS: Truth is that the prospects just simply aren’t there for the instate guys at the position. I think Florida is working hard on Miami commit Zach McCloud but the rest of the good players are out of state. I think it will take a miracle to get one of those Texas guys in but they are working hard.
Juggernautz: > Any guesses on who will be our next commit?
AS: I’ll stick with Marcus Tatum, but I honestly have no idea when they can be. He says that he will commit when he thinks the time is right, but who knows when that will actually be.
Juggernautz: Will Jordan (Scarlett)’s riding the bench have any influence on Sam Bruce’s decision?
AS: If Scarlet becomes unhappy then yeah it could hurt, but right now I don’t think Scarlett is unhappy with Florida, or at least not from what I’ve heard he isn’t. I think things will work out here.
Juggernautz: Will Jake Allen be taking any other “official” visits?
AS: Well, he can’t take officials until his senior year, but I would lean towards him not taking any official visits other than Florida unless something goes wrong. Allen is one of the most solid Florida Gators recruiting commits.
Gator_champs1: Are we still in good shape for WR’s James Robinson and Donovan Peoples-Jones?
AS: Florida is trending up with Robinson and battling Clemson there. Peoples-Jones likes Doug Nussmeier a lot but Florida needs to get him back on campus again this spring to continue moving forward on the right track.
Gator_nica: How is the board looking for DT’s and how many do we take?
AS: Shavar Manuel and Dexter Lawrence are the top two targets there and I think Florida is in good shape with Manuel and made up ground on Lawrence.
Gator_nica: How many WR do we lose after this year and how many do we sign?
AS: Demarcus Robinson likely goes pro and Latroy Pittman is graduating and I think some other guys will leave the program. I think Florida signs between five and six this year.
Lilro: Andrew do you think last week’s game will help Florida finish real strong for UF?
AS: It will help for sure but one game won’t make a break or a class. The one thing is that it will do is be in the back of kids mind for the reminder of the process.
Lilro: I know we don’t lead for Victor anymore but what if he starts back feeling UF and we get him?
AS: If Binjimen Victor wants in then he’s a take because you don’t turn down a great player like Victor.
RVG: Now that Florida is four games in and approaching the most difficult stretch of the schedule, how affected will recruits be by wins and losses? Is it more about how the offense and defense look, or is it W’s and L’s?
AS: Recruits want to see the team get better on the field and see a true identity for the offense more so than wins and losses. No doubt though that 4-0 was a good start for the Florida Gators recruiting efforts.WASHINGTON -- Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, has received a death threat from an online magazine published by the Daesh, another name for the Islamic State terrorist organization.
In a 68-page piece, the terrorist organization calls for killing imams of the west and then points out "we cannot overlook" other western Muslim leaders, including Ellison.
They called the Democrat representing Minneapolis a "politically active apostate."
Ellison's office sent out a statement about the mention on Wednesday.
"As millions of faithful Muslims flee Daesh's imposed nightmare they call a caliphate, Daesh takes the time to threaten Muslim public servants in the west," Ellison said. "Daesh is a collection of liars, murderers, torturers and rapists... The fact that I'm on Daesh's bad side means I am fighting for things like justice, tolerance and a more inclusive world."TL Map Contest 5 - Finalists & Voting Text by Plexa Finalists
The finalists for the fifth Team Liquid Map Contest have been chosen after over a week of careful judging. As it has been nearly a year since the last TLMC was held and each mapmaker was allowed three entries, a record number of high quality maps found their way into the contest, making it extremely difficult to narrow the list down to a final seven.
Voting will be open until Tuesday, Feb 24 6:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00). You can vote by choosing your favorite map in the poll at the bottom of this post. Before you vote, however, we encourage you to click on each of the maps to see their higher-resolution images. Additionally, the Strategy team has offered a brief description of each map, highlighting their strongest features and explaining how they think the maps will play out. However, we would first like to describe how the finalists were determined.
Judging Process
As with every season of TLMC, the maps were initially screened for quality so that the judges could have a manageable list of maps to fully evaluate (we had a record number of entries, exceeding 150!). This process left only the highest quality maps for the judges to work with. The maps were arranged in a spreadsheet containing no information that could identify the maps as belonging to any particular mapmaker as to avoid any author biases.
At this point the TL Strategy team and multiple professional players took over the judging process. They carefully considered each of the shortlisted maps and eventually settled upon a much smaller list 1v1 maps. Most of these maps were carefully tested by the whole team with an aim to assessing balance and whether or not the maps features were viable or not. At the conclusion of this process the TL Strategy team had settled on a diverse pool of seven maps which they felt were both balanced and enjoyable to play on.
With the judging process now explained, we are proud to present the prizes for this season of the TeamLiquid Map Contest. We are hugely thankful to Blizzard for providing an outstanding set of prizes for the finalists. They sat down and worked out a set of prizes that went above and beyond to cater to the interests of the mapping community. Including making this TLMC the first contest where finalists will receive a new contributor portrait (more information below).
Prizes
1st PLACE
Legacy of the Void Beta Ladder Map Spot
(Blizzard will work with the winning map maker to feature one of their other maps on the LotV Beta ladder.)
Legacy of the Void Beta Key
Community Commander Portrait
Dev Signed – StarCraft II 2015 Wall Calendar
StarCraft II Kerrigan Vinyl Figure
StarCraft II Jim Raynor Vinyl Figure
Zergling/Baneling Reversible Plush
Alex Ross Limited Edition Laser Cell Lithograph – SC2 Justice
StarCraft II Razer Spectre Gaming Mouse
StarCraft II Razer Banshee Gaming Headset
StarCraft II SteelSeries Heart of the Swarm Mouse Pad
2nd & 3rd PLACE
Legacy of the Void Beta Key
Community Commander Portrait
Dev Signed – StarCraft II 2015 Wall Calendar
StarCraft II Kerrigan Vinyl Figure
StarCraft II Jim Raynor Vinyl Figure
Zergling/Baneling Reversible Plush
Alex Ross Limited Edition Laser Cell Lithograph – SC2 Justice
StarCraft II Razer Spectre Gaming Mouse
StarCraft II Razer Banshee Gaming Headset
StarCraft II SteelSeries Heart of the Swarm Mouse Pad
TO ALL FINALISTS
Legacy of the Void Beta Key
(Limit one per mapper, if multiple entries are finalists)
(Limit one per mapper, if multiple entries are finalists)
Community Commander Portrait
For information about the new 'Community Commander' Portrait check out Blizzard's recent post about it.
Below are the finalists for TLMC5. You can view them all conveniently in this imgur album. We strongly recommend using this because it allows you to view the maps in high resolution very easily.
Adun's Shrine | Caevrane Adun’s Srine brings a whole bunch of new, modern elements to the battlefield. The multiple pathways into external bases brings a much needed refreshment into the layouts of the map, and the general different style of this map is something we’ve never seen before.
Cactus Valley | Ferisii A map à la whirlwind, army movements will eventually funnel into the center of the map. With only a single path circling around the map, central control will be key in establishing succeeding bases and open up aggressive options. The initial third base can be taken on either side, depending on spawning positions and playstyle..
Coda | IeZaeL Similar to overgrowths expanding patterns, the third can be taken either linearly, while assuming a defensive posture, or at the pocket base, exhibiting an aggressive stance. Ensuing bases will be on high ground similar to Merry Go Round, but will be more of a focus of attention with the watchtower in the middle, and being the direct path to the opponent..
Echo | Uvantak Deceivingly small, Echo brings back the high ground ridges from Cloud Kingdom. The many ramps around the map, coupled with high ground, gives many options for counter attacks and army movement, and should be watched closely. Not much airspace is behind or around the initial bases; focusing on a ground army early on will be much more beneficial..
Neo Emerald Plaza | IeZaeL Initially there is only one path to the opponent, while other paths can be opened up by killing rocks. The third base is protected by rocks as well, but could be cut off by a rock tower between the natural and the third. This map screams split map, as rocks along almost every ramp cut the top half from the bottom half, giving a natural progression to expansions.
Ganymede | Uvantak Continuing on with the theme of high ground ridges, Ganymede brings in some elements from Blue Storm with the high ground ridge in the middle, albeit with more flexibility. More paths to attack and retreat from and choke points everywhere, after taking the third base this map becomes very tight and confined, and succeeding bases after three become distant and harder to defend.
Timberwolf | lorestarcraft The last map of the bunch, and the only to feature gold minerals. This map takes the overgrowth approach with expansions, but the middle of the map is much different with high grounds and low grounds scattered throughout. Fortunately, the only exposed base is the gold so this might not be worthwhile to take, with the high ground right behind the minerals.
The vote has now closed, thank you for voting. Results will be available soon.
Voting closes in
In addition to the public vote, we will also be conducting a progamer vote to see which maps they prefer. Once both polls conclude, we will combine the results with an equal 50/50 weighting and ties resolved by pro vote. We'll release the final rankings of the maps as soon as possible after the votes conclude. If you have any unanswered questions please do not hesitate to ask them below or PM Plexa or The_Templar who will be happy to answer them.
Thank you to all entrants for making this the most competitive and high quality TLMC to date and thank you to Blizzard for the opportunity to host this contest and the amazing set of prizes. Best of luck to the finalists.
Administrator ~ Spirit will set you free ~The gun, with broken buffer ring exposed. Defense Distributed
The idea of using a 3-D printer to create a gun is controversial and interesting, but the process seems to still be a ways off from equaling the quality of machined parts. A gun with a major part printed that way failed after just six shots when some enthusiasts decided to give the tech a try.
Creating a printable gun is the project of Defense Distributed, which is working on what it calls the WikiWeapon. But the effort isn't far enough along to create a working firearm, so Defense Distributed used a design created by another printed-gun creator who goes by the name HaveBlue.
HaveBlue claimed in July to have fired his printed gun hundreds of times, which doesn't seem implausible given the quality of the printing. The part printed by the group (called the lower receiver, where a round is received from the magazine) looks to be very well made, and it appears to fit exactly to the other parts in the gun kit they used.
But the pressure of the recoil appears to have been too much for the "buffer ring," which separates the stock from the upper receiver. After firing just six shots, the gun split in two. It's a serious setback, especially considering they were firing a lower-caliber cartridge than the gun would normally shoot.
The legality of all this is unknown, not to say in dispute. It is legal to create your own firearms, but not to distribute them — and in the case of printed guns there's a bit of both going on. The ATF is looking at the subject, but for now it's all something of a grey area.
The technical aspects of the part, the failure, and the team's plans to improve it can be found at Defense Distributed's blog. You can watch the video of the test below.
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBCNews Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.Leonard Roy Harmon (January 21, 1917 – November 13, 1942) was a black American sailor who died in action during World War II and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his valor.[1][2] He is the first African-American man to have a US warship named after him.[3]
Life [ edit ]
Harmon was born in Cuero, Texas, on January 21, 1917. He attended the segregated all-black Daule High School[4] before working in livestock production.[5] During the Great Depression, he performed various house and grounds chores by the owner of the historic William Frobese home in Cuero.[5] He was 22 years of age when he enlisted in the United States Navy in June 1939 at a San Antonio recruiting station.[3][6] He reported for training in Norfolk, Virginia, before reporting for duty on the cruiser USS San Francisco on October 28, 1939.[5] He trained as a Mess Attendant, one of the few jobs available to black men in the navy at that time.[3] The basic job description consisted of serving food to officers and crew aboard ship. However, like all members of a ship's crew they were also trained in damage control and had stations to report to during general quarters.[7]
During his service, Harmon became a Mess Attendant First Class and was serving aboard the San Francisco during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. On November 13, 1942, San Francisco was raked by Japanese gunfire during the battle, killing nearly every officer on the bridge. Harmon rushed in to evacuate the wounded.[5] He was then assigned to assist Pharmacist's Mate Lyndford Bondsteel in evacuating and caring for the wounded.[8] While the ship was being raked by enemy gunfire, Harmon helped evacuate the wounded to a dressing station. While doing so he deliberately stood between Bondsteel and enemy gunfire in order to protect his wounded shipmate.[5] This action resulted in his death.[5]
Honors [ edit ]
Harmon was awarded the Navy Cross posthumously on March 1943. Additionally, two ships were named in his honor. HMS Aylmer (K463) had been provisionally named USS Harmon (DE-72) but was transferred to the Royal Navy prior to completion. The USS Harmon (DE-678) served from 1943 to 1947 and remained in the Reserve Fleet until 1967; it was the first US warship to be named for an African American.[1] Harmon's heroism was also commemorated by the naming and dedication of Harmon Hall, bachelor enlisted quarters at Naval Air Station North Island, on July 29, 1975, and with a state historical marker placed at the Cuero Municipal Park in 1977.[5] A poster of him hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.[9]
Navy Cross citation [ edit ]
The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Mess Attendant First Class Leonard Roy Harmon, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty in action against the enemy while serving on board the Heavy Cruiser U.S.S. SAN FRANCISCO (CA-38), during action against enemy Japanese naval forces near Savo Island in the Solomon Islands on the night of on 12–13 November 1942. With persistent disregard of his own personal safety, Mess Attendant First Class Harmon rendered invaluable assistance in caring for the wounded and assisting them to a dressing station. In addition to displaying unusual loyalty in behalf of the injured Executive Officer, he deliberately exposed himself to hostile gunfire in order to protect a shipmate and, as a result of this courageous deed, was killed in action. His heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, maintained above and beyond the call of duty, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.[6]As a book lover, its inevitable that you will think about and aspire to be a writer. By reading your favorite books, your imagination will wonder and you’ll think about the type of book you want to write. Writing may seem easy at first, but as soon as you sit down to write your first few pages, you realize how difficult of a task it is. Whether you want your first book to be a novel, a biographical piece, or a short non-fiction e-book, its important to read specific literature on writing.
There are specific techniques you need to learn to be a successful writer, and the books on this list are the books which will equip you will all the tools and know |
30, originally from Castlegar, British Columbia, was among the seven people killed in Saturday night’s attack. The social worker had recently moved to the Netherlands, where her fiancée Tyler Ferguson was working, his sister Cassie Ferguson Rowe told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
London attack victims: tributes paid to Christine Archibald and James McMullan Read more
The couple were visiting London when Archibald was hit by a van that terrorists drove at pedestrians during the attack. “Last night in London my baby brother lost the love of his life on the London Bridge. In a split second his entire life was ripped away from him,” Ferguson Rowe said. “He held her and watched her die in his arms.”
Her family said that Archibald had worked at a homeless shelter in Calgary before moving to Europe. “She had room in her heart for everyone and believed strongly that every person was to be valued and respected,” they said in a statement. “She would have had no understanding of the callous cruelty that caused her death. Please honour her by making your community a better place.”
Hundreds embraced the family’s wishes online, using the hashtag #Chrissysentme to pledge donations for shelters, soup kitchens and other community groups.
The employees at Calgary’s Alpha House, which provides shelter and housing to those struggling with addictions and other health issues, said they were devastated to hear of their colleague’s passing. “Chrissy was a bright light to many, and her generosity, kind spirit and huge heart for her work in responding to issues of addictions and homelessness at the centre inspired us all,” they wrote in a statement.
She would be remembered, they added, as “a talented social worker, workmate and exceptional human being”.
Mark Ferguson said his brother had been in London for business and that Archibald had joined him for the weekend. The two Canadians – who Ferguson said were “madly in love” and had got engaged just a few months earlier – were out sightseeing and had ended up on the London Bridge when the attack happened.
“He heard tires screeching and he looked back, and he just saw the mayhem going on and the van hitting people,” Ferguson told the CBC. “He tried CPR on her.... First responders showed up right away and they tried to do everything they could for her. She passed in his arms.”
His family had travelled to Europe to comfort his grieving brother, he said, and was hoping to eventually launch a charity foundation in Archibald’s name.
In the meantime, he urged people to counter her senseless death with acts of compassion. “If you make a local donation in your community or help out somewhere, take a pic and add #Chrissysentme,” Ferguson said on Facebook. “Let’s all keep her alive and not let this beautiful soul die in vain.”Albuera mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. was allegedly killed in a “firefight” after resisting arrest on November 5 at the Sub-Provincial Jail in Baybay, Leyte.
A police incident report said, “Detectives of Northern Leyte CIDG8 led by PCI Leo Laraga together with RMU8 as participating unit implemented two search warrants inside the Sub-Provincial jail at Brgy. Hipusngo, Baybay City, Leyte in which a firefight ensued between the suspects (subject of the search warrant) and the CIDG8 operatives that resulted [in] the [deaths] of the said suspects namely: Rolando Espinosa and Raul Yap.”
Amid questions about Espinosa’s death, an alleged affidavit from the deceased mayor started circulating online. Among the names in the list was Senator Leila de Lima, generals, politicians, and even people from the media.
Facebook page Showbiz Government even brought up some people’s speculations about how Espinosa’s death was a way of ‘silencing’ him.
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The said copy of Espinosa’s affidavit was said to have been shared by a certain Facebook user called Denise Celdran.
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As of posting, neither the Department of Justice, with its stamp seen on the affidavit photos circulating online, nor the Philippine National Police has confirmed the affidavit’s authenticity.
Cebu Daily News’ interview with Espinosa’s older brother, Ramon, expressed his dismay that PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa did not deliver on his promise that nothing bad would happen to the Albuera mayor if he surrendered.
“General Dela Rosa vowed that nothing bad will happen to my brother. But why was my brother killed? General Dela Rosa should have done something to secure my brother because he’s the head of all policemen?” Ramon told CDN in Cebuano. “I do not understand what is happening with our government. I thought we now have a good president. But some people around him are abusing their power. Only few are trustworthy. I hope the President and General Dela Rosa will do something in the wake of my brother’s death,” he added.
According to Ramon, his brother told him that he only signed a ready-made affidavit.
“Ako siyang gipangutana, ‘Kanang imong gipangsuwat diha sa imong affidavit, ikaw gyud nagsuwat? Ingon siya, ‘Dili akong naghimo sa akong affidavit. Igo ra ko nga gipapirma. Giandam ra tong daan,’ (One time, I asked my brother, ‘Did you really make the affidavit?’ And he told me, ‘the affidavit was ready-made. It was prepared by someone else, and I was just asked to affix my signature on it,’” Ramon said.
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Ramon also believed that his brother was killed to keep him from squealing on them.
He added that the family will also discuss which government agency they would ask for help in investigating his brother’s death.
“Sabutan pa na namo kay karong panahona gibaliwala naman ang tawhanong katungod. Makita nato nga daghan ang gipamatay bisan walay sala. (We still have to talk about that because these days, human rights no longer matter. As you can see, many people are being killed even if they had not committed any infraction), Ramon said. It was Albuera police chief Jovie Espenido who convinced Mayor Espinosa to execute an affidavit, pointing to those people involved in his son Kerwin’s drugs operation, in exchange for protection from the police. After executing his affidavit, Espinosa stayed in the Albuera police chief’s office for about two months until he was transferred to Baybay City’s sub-provincial jail on October 5. According to Espenido, the mayor’s lawyer requested Judge Carlos Arguelles of the RTC of Baybay to return Espinosa’s custody to the Albuera police, where he would be safer, although the judge did not act on the request because of the lack of a valid reason for the transfer. Espenido is saddened by Espinosa’s death as it may weaken their case against Kerwin’s drug coddlers. He said, “I wanted him to live because he could have helped us a lot in our campaign against illegal drugs. He knew how vast the operations of his son was. He is dead. We no longer have a witness who has a first hand knowledge on the illegal drug operations of his son. All our efforts amount to nothing now.”
With Espinosa’s death, lawyer Trixie Cruz-Angeles said in her Facebook post that a complaint affidavit “has little or no evidentiary value” after a witness’ death.
“About that “affidavit.” There’s an alleged complaint affidavit making the rounds of FB allegedly issued by Mayor Rolando Espinosa, recently deceased. Said affidavit implicates one senator, several police officers, a governor and others of complicity in the drug trade, specifically that of the operations said to be run by one Kerwin Espinosa. The complaint affidavit, while valuable as a tool for investigation has little or no evidentiary value now that the affiant can no longer witness on its contents. “In the vernacular, wala nang maaaring tumestigo ayon sa mga nakalahad sa naturang affidavit. Kapag may ibang nagprisinta ng nasabing affidavit, ang testimonyang ito ay ituturing na hearsay at maaaring ma-exclude. “Gayunpaman, kahit makahanap ng paraan para ma-admit yung nasabing affidavit — at assuming na tutoo ito– kailangan patunayan sa pamamagitan ng ibang ebidensya ang mga alegasyong nilalaman nito, dahil ang pangunahing makakapagpatunay, yung testigo, ay yumaon na.
#palaisipan #nasaansiLeila”
Espinosa’s body was expected to be brought to his family’s residence in Sitio Tinago II, Brgy. Benolho, Albuera.
Sources: (newsinfo.inquirer.net, cebudailynews.inquirer.net, facebook.com)Hour of Code is upon us again. Take some time to learn about programming, or share what you know with others. In this blog post I show how the side CodinGame helps teach Delphi and also provide some resources for those wanting to learn programming.
A short overview to CodinGame for Hour of Code
CodinGame uses Free Pascal behind the scenes, which is based on Delphi. This means it is actually Object Pascal, which is an extension on Pascal. The code I’ve seen on CodinGame is mostly plain procedural Pascal, but since it is using an actual compiler, you should be able to use full Object Pascal. You will however be limited because Free Pascal doesn’t support some of the latest features Delphi does. Still a good learning resource and a lot of fun.
I’m planning to sit down with each of my kids, and probably my wife, on CodinGame this week! If you already know how to code then find someone you can share with too!
Resources for CodinGame and Hour of Code:
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EmailDespite failing to score a point for pole position, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi succeeded in extending their and Toyota’s lead in the World Endurance Championships for drivers and manufacturers respectively last Sunday afternoon at the Shanghai International Circuit in China. It was an emphatic win, with Davidson and Buemi repeatedly setting fastest laps through the course of the race in the no. 8 car. Their run was interrupted only by the need to make an additional stop to refuel after a glitch on the refuelling tower during the first stop (at which tyres were changed) during the first Safety Car Period.
During the “Audi Post Race Tech” discussion on RadioLeMans.com, someone posed a question about whether (and if so why) one Toyota was “consistently quicker” than the other, and at the time I wasn’t really in a position to back up any answer I gave with the facts. So now that the dust has settled, and I’ve had the opportunity to analyse the data, here is the evidence from the two Far East races, in Fuji and Shanghai.
Shanghai Stint no. Driver no. 7 Stint average lap time Driver no. 8 Stint average lap time 1 Alex Wurz 1m 51.058s Anthony Davidson 1m 50.616s 2 Stéphane Sarrazin 1m 51.118s Anthony Davidson 1m 50.503s 3 Stéphane Sarrazin 1m 51.218s Sébastien Buemi 1m 50.334s 4 Kazuki Nakajima 1m 50.661s Sébastien Buemi 1m 50.474s 5 Kazuki Nakajima 1m 50.028s Anthony Davidson 1m 50.213s
Fuji Stint no. Driver no. 7 Stint average lap time Driver no. 8 Stint average lap time 1 Kazuki Nakajima 1m 29.604s Sébastien Buemi 1m 29.559s 2 Stéphane Sarrazin 1m 29.193s Anthony Davidson 1m 29.054s 3 Alex Wurz 1m 29.875s Sébastien Buemi 1m 29.311s 4 Kazuki Nakajima 1m 28.882s Sébastien Buemi 1m 29.132s 5 Kazuki Nakajima 1m 28.982s Anthony Davidson 1m 28.948s 6 Stéphane Sarrazin 1m 29.231s Anthony Davidson 1m 28.543s
For the purpose of these tables, I have taken the average lap time as being the time taken to get from the pit exit on the ‘out’ lap at the start of the stint, until the pit entry on the ‘in’ lap at the end, divided by the number of laps completed in the stint. In order to simplify matters, I have also ignored the third stint in Fuji – which was affected by the Full Course Yellow – and the first stint(s) in Shanghai – when the safety car was deployed.
Thus the stints shown are fully green, and are comparable, each with its equivalent from the other car. While it may seem that the no. 8 is generally quicker than the no. 7, it could also be argued that the chief difference is in the drivers. Kazuki Nakajima, in particular, seems to be able to consistently match (or better) the times of his team-mates in the no. 8 car, whereas Sarrazin and Wurz don’t.
One of the things that has become clear over the course of the 2014 season is that the current breed of hybrid LMP1 cars, with very specific regulations regarding the amount of fuel that can be used, require a very specific driving technique. This includes the ability to monitor energy usage and harvesting at the same time as driving the car, and being able to ‘fuel-save’ at various points. Obviously a quick driver is always a quick driver; but these days the ability to be quick is not enough: a driver has to be able to perform other ‘tricks’ as well.
Paul TruswellBy ELEANOR MAYNE
Last updated at 22:27 14 April 2007
Scientists are creating artificial bones using a modified version of an inkjet printer.
The technology creates perfect replicas of bones that have been damaged and these can then be inserted in the body to help it to heal.
The process will revolutionise bone graft surgery, which currently relies on either bits of bone taken from other parts of the body or ceramic-like substitutes.
More follows...
Professor Jake Barralet of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, explained: "The "paper" in our printer is a thin bed of cement-like powder. The inkjets spray the cement with an acid which reacts with it and goes hard.
"That deals with one layer. Then new layers of fresh powder are sprayed on top, and the layers build up to the shape we need."
It takes only ten minutes for the printer, which is the size of about three filing cabinets, to print a typical bone graft.
The printed graft acts as a bridge to allow the body to replace the damaged section with new bone. Crucially, the substance created by the printing process contains the same building blocks as real human bone, allowing the graft to eventually dissolve harmlessly into the body.
The sections made by the printer are so precise that spaces can be left to encourage the regrowth of tissue and blood vessels through the graft, mirroring the make-up of normal bone.
Professor Barralet said: "The holes in the bone graft will affect how new bone grows into the graft.
"You can design it so you encourage it in a particular direction, to get different tissue repair. It is mainly useful in areas where you need a very good sort of fit, like cosmetic surgery or reconstructive surgery, or in the spine where you don't want to be playing around to get something to fit.
"We're a long way from seeing this used in a hospital setting, but it's an important first step."
A team of scientists at Manchester University led by Professor Brian Derby are working on a similar printing method to make sheets of artificial skin.Firefighters and medics will take their first “Trans 101” course on Tuesday, learning the correct way to interact with transgender people — and even getting a lesson in what LGTBQI actually stands for, a city official said.
(It stands for lesbian gay trans bisexual queer/questioning and intersex.)
The two-hour sensitivity training was launched in March by the city Commission for Human Rights after Mayor de Blasio signed an executive order allowing people to use any public bathroom or locker room they identified with, regardless of their sexual anatomy.
The training at FDNY headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn will go over correct terminology and even how to ask for a person’s preferred pronoun.
“People need to learn to not be afraid to ask someone who is transitioning genders what their pronoun is,” said a Commission for Human Rights spokesman.
‘It’s never been an issue, but people have made it an issue. This is one of those trainings where they’re just preparing for a potential problem.’ - a fireman
Pupils also learn which words are no-nos and what the difference between gender identity and gender expression is. (The former being the gender someone identifies as and the latter being how gender is conveyed through appearance.)
Firefighters have been largely silent on the new sensitivity training, and it might be because many don’t even know about it yet. Firefighters questioned at five Brooklyn companies Saturday said they knew nothing about it.
“It’s never been an issue, but people have made it an issue,” said one fireman. “This is one of those trainings where they’re just preparing for a potential problem.”
Employees of city pools have also begun training in time for Wednesday’s opening of the summer swim season, where gender sensitivity issues are more likely to arise in locker rooms and bathrooms.
“It’s especially important for Parks employees [to take the training] because they work in a place that involves changing clothes,” a commission spokesman said.
So far, 65 city pool employees have taken the class and 200 more are scheduled to take it in the coming weeks, according to Sam Biederman, a Parks Department spokesman.
“Pools and parks are for everyone — and training programs like Trans 101 help give staff the tools they need,” he said.
Additional reporting by Wilson DizardGallery
Bernie Rolfe, Inventor
Wayne Hudgeons Purchasing Agent
USPTO Application Number 12/072,376 - Confirmation No. 4684
Publication Number 2009-0211140-A1 ; Publication date 8/27/2009
The Logo used on our products is a Registered Trademark of CBRPS, LLC
Center Balanced Rifle Platform Systems
625 W Deer Valley RD
Suite 103-473
Phoenix, AZ 85027
Phone: (623) 606-1267
[email protected]
Office Hours:
Mon - Fri 8:30AM to 5:30PM
So Cal SKS Yugo Sporter
Mississippi 597 Added Mag
Colorado 597 Standard
New York Mosin Nagant
Louisiana SKS Norinco Sporter
Yukon Leftie 597
Ohio Dual Mag 597 Bull Barrel
Northern Cal SKS Yugo Sporter
Utah 597 Standard
Pennsylvania 597 Added Mag
Florida 597 Dual Mag
Texas SKS Yugo Sporter
Center Balanced Systems
Arizona SKS Yugo Tac
Ohio Saiga 12 Standard
Pennsylvania Norinco SKS Tac
Michigan SKS Yugo Sporter
Massachusetts Mosin Nagant with folding rear pod and chassis mounted bipod
Hawaii Norinco SKS Tac
Connecticut Mossberg 22 Plinkster Tac
Toronto Canada Registered Class
Standard AK and Custom Mosin Nagant
Ukraine
Australia
Mosin Nagant with Custom OD Green paint, Muzzle Brake and bent bolt
California
SKS Paratrooper
Spike Base
Australia -
Mosin Nagant Rail with Custom butt
New South Wales
Florida
Mosin Nagant Standard with shortened barrel, compensator and night scope Optics
Indiana Shooter Mosin Nagant Flat Top
With shortened barrel, compensator and night scope Optics,Timney trigger, Harris rotapod rail adapter, Harris bipod, Brass Stacker raised scope mount, Osprey international scope, flat turn down bolt, JP Enterprise muzzle device, 100% vltor black Duracoat.
Washington State
SKS NC Spade
4x40, mil dot, lit reticle, quick change mount, scope mount riser (to get the scope up to eye level), red laser in front of scope for back up, green laser on top front of barrel, flashlight on bottom front of barrel, five position front handle (which contains the switch pads for the lasers and light), custom strap loops
Texas
SKS Norinco
Spike Base
Florida
Mosin Nagant Standard
in White
Minnesota
Mosin Nagant Cossack Rifle with
Barrel Cover and CNC Warrior original Russian Style compensator
Florida
Mosin Nagant Cossack ES Rifle with high lift rings, Magpul front grip and compensator
Florida
SKS Spike Base with Tac Sleeve, added cap rail, flip up sights, Magpul front grip and compensator,
Sightmark/EOTech
Connecticut
MN Standard with tribute hammer and sickle icons, bolt by Boltman and custom compensator
Wyoming Shop
AKX1S in digi camo with full tactical setup
Utah Shop
AKX1S with flip up sights and holographics
Missouri M44 Customer
Cossack ES with custom muzzle brake, bipod and long range micro adjustment scope
Customers Beretta ARX 160 compared to Ruger CBRPS Raptor
Oregon Ruger Raptor customer with 50 round drum mag and offset scope and customers comp picture with Beretta below
Texas AKX1S Customer with Millet Scope
North Carolina Ruger 1022 Raptor with Bull barrel and AR lift kit
France Cossack ES with hand applied carbon fiber veneer, Atlas bipod, Bushnell 6-24x50 scope, NC Star tactical grip, Timney trigger and CBRPS Wedge Muzzle Brake
...At 100 yards, all bullets in 1.5" circle with home reloads...Recoil reduction is incredible - fired 40 shots in a row without the slightest pain in my shoulder...felt like shooting 222 Remington
Minnesota Draco with custom Compensator
Texas MNAR Customer -
Dura-Coat black matte finish, UTG Sniper rifle profile bi-pod, UTG 5mm SWAT 3-12x44 Compact IE Scope with AO Mil-dot 36 color EZ-Tap.
Arizona SKS Noroinco Spike with Tac Sleeve and Scoutscopes.com rear sight base
California SKS Spike Base and Pug Customer -
This customer has come up with a clever design for CA shooters to utilize stripper clips with the Spike Base System. The butt stock has been trimmed to accommodate insertion of the stripper clips and a secondary levered mechanism attached to the rear sight leaf that allows shooters to use the factory 10 round fixed mag with stripper clips, while providing a cover mechanism for additional protection during firing.
Washington SKSAR and Spade Customer -
Here is a well dressed pair of SKS CBRPS units by a Washington customer. The Cantilevered optics mounting systems were preferred to get the line of sight exactly where he wanted them. A very unique forward charging system for the Spade can be seen on the right side of the lower unit. (The Spade incorporated a pic rail gas tube by NC Star that is no longer available, and as such those particular units are no longer offered by CBRPS). Nice pair!
Oregon multi customer -
The three units below, The Cossack ES, Ruger Raptor and Remington 597 Dual Mag unit, are set up for appropriate optics to accommodate best ballistics, as well as pressure activated red-dot lasers, and forward slant-grips - Nice trio -
This is the customer's setup using the pug front end with 10" pic rail
California Cossack ES
This delightful concept, aside from a well conceived graphics package, also benefits from using the Bryan Cathy 10 round mag adapter kit.
Texas Custom Shop
This shop specializes in custom finishes for various gunstocks.
Here is the CBRPS Mosin Nagant Standard, Cossack ES and SKS Spike with Tac Sleeve in differing custom paint colors.
MN Standard
MN Cossack ES
SKS Spike with TacSleeve
Idaho Customer/Contractor (Conceptual Ballistics) CBRPS Collection with Superior optics systems
AKX1S with custom buttpad
SKS Spike in Shortened barrel
Mosin Nagant
Cossack ES with
shorty front grip
Mosin Nagant
Cossack ES with raw aluminum chassis and broomhandle front grip
California Mosin Nagant Cossack ES with Cerakote finish
Kentucky Saiga 12 Spike setup for Home Defense
California Mosin Nagant Standard with Sniper Scope and Custom Muzzle Brake
Oklahoma SKS Pug with Holographic optics, Harris bi-pod and offset taclight
Mosin Nagant M9130, shortened barrel, White MNAR with thermo formed butt and Magpul front slant grip, red dot laser with pressure switch
MNPG
SKSAR
Mosin Nagant T53 with bayo lug ground down, custom optics, custom paint designated "Wolverine"
AK47 X2S with left side forward charging handle, magnifying scope and back-up iron sights with combo grip-pod
SKSAR Zombie SKS, custom paint and opticsMoody’s, the global rating agency, has been fined in the US, in Europe and in Hong Kong for ‘rating fraud’, and all during the last year and a half. Regulators in the United States, Europe and in Hong Kong questioned the integrity of the process and imposed heavy fines on the agency.
In January, 2017 Moody’s agreed to pay a fine of 864 million US Dollars ( approximately 550 Crore INR) to escape criminal action for its inflated rating of banks and securities in the run up to the sub-prime crisis of 2008.
In June, 2017 Europe’s markets watchdog imposed a penalty of 1.24 million Euros on Moody’s for “not adhering to the correct rating protocol”
In April, 2016 a Hong Kong tribunal upheld a penalty of 1.4 million HK Dollars on Moody’s Financial Service for similar reasons.
US Justice Department had said in a statement in January, “Moody’s failed to adhere to its own credit-rating standards and fell short on its pledge of transparency in the run-up to the ‘great recession’.”
Moody’s, it had said, was fined for issuing false credit ratings that eventually led to the market crash. A probe found that Moody’s issued high ratings to sub-prime home loans, which later collapsed in 2007. Credit ratings firms gave out top grades to junk deals, in order to secure business from the banks.
S&P Global’s Standard & Poor’s had also paid a penalty in 2015 of $1.375 billion US Dollars. Standard and Poor’s is the world’s largest ratings firm, followed by Moody’s.
While the Prime Minister and Mr Jaitley are understandably elated at the rating upgradation by Moody’s, most observers and experts have serious reservations. The Washington Post has carried a report under the headline : “Upbeat Moody’s misses the mark on India”.
The Post went on to comment, “Moody’s upgrade is a denial of the current state of the Indian economy. It acknowledges that government debt, at 68% of GDP, is higher than similarly rated peers’—but asserts that “reforms offer greater confidence” that it will remain stable. It notes the disruption and the hit to growth caused by the Modi overhauls, but argues that the positive impacts will be seen in time. That, however, merely raises the question, Why upgrade now? Why not wait for signs—however nascent—that the measures are actually effective?”20 year old Jenna Hill was raised in the fold of Scientology since she was a baby - so what happened when she finally broke free?
From the moment she landed in Australia, 20-year-old Jenna Miscavige Hill enjoyed a level of freedom she’d never known before. There was unlimited access to TV and the internet. She and her husband Dallas could hop on their bicycles and explore their new home of Canberra whenever they liked. Their usually rigidly-packed schedules were almost empty. There was minimal monitoring. They could even sit back with their new friends and enjoy a beer. For the worldwide Scientology leader David Miscavige’s niece, who signed a billion-year contract of allegiance to the church at the age of seven, it was a radical new way of life.“We were in regular contact with [non-Scientologists and lay members], which I had never really had before,” said Jenna. “People in Australia are more real and they say it how it is. It was nice to have some real friends who were cool and relaxed. And we had some independence. When you are at the church in LA, you are told what you are allowed to do.”
Until that point in 2004 Jenna’s life had been so regimented that she had always eaten her meals in the church’s communal mess halls – Her visit to a supermarket
in Canberra, where she’d been deployed by the church, was her first grocery run – full stop. Following recipes and working the stove were new and daunting tasks. Equally eye-opening was the hour or two of TV she allowed herself each day; the convention-flouting reality show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy became a firm favourite. Jenna liked the characters and was perplexed that “what I saw didn’t match what I’d learned in Scientology” – namely, that homosexuals are “sexual perverts and covertly hostile”. But perhaps the most profound new experience was striking up a friendship with a woman in the church who had two young daughters and a baby born during their stay. As members of the church’s elite Sea Organisation, Jenna and Dallas didn’t mix with children and were forbidden from having their own. “[My friend’s] daughter was adorable, really sweet and I fell in love with her,” she recalls. “For the first time, I wondered what it would be like to have a family of our own.”
Jenna Miscavige Hill's book, Beyond Belief.
Jenna’s Australian mission, in theory, was to revive Canberra’s small, struggling church and raise money for a new building. But the manner in which she was dispatched was, in hindsight, unusual – a seemingly rushed and ill-prepared folly. Husbands and wives were often split up by jobs in the church – it had happened to Jenna’s parents – but Dallas received immediate permission to join her. Jenna suspects sending her to the other side of the world may have been a way to get her “offline” and
ensure she wasn’t influenced by her parents, who had by then left the church. “I don’t know if [senior church members] were worried about us telling my parents the inside goings-on of the church,” she says. “[It seemed] they were somehow trying to get us out of the way. I never knew the exact reason.” The official mission, in any case, seemed destined to fail. The couple valiantly held fundraising events, such as raffles, games and shows, and ended up with a total of $75,000. But this was well short of the several million dollars that would have been needed to meet Scientology’s criteria for new premises, which included being a
minimum of 25,000 square feet, on a busy street, not too industrial and preferably traditional and decorative. “Most of the money came from one person who happened to have a lot of money,” recalls Jenna, who says there were just 15 to 20 practising Scientologists in the whole of Canberra at the time. Furthermore, she says, the congregation was being kicked out of its existing location because the rent hadn’t been paid for six months. Hassling ordinary people who couldn’t afford to donate much was hard and she began to feel it was unethical to keep asking them for even more money. Yet when she raised the issue in her daily missives home, her superiors disagreed. Perhaps the missing part of the jigsaw in Australia was a major celebrity backer. Back in California, they always had star appeal with the likes of Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley to raise the profile of the church and fill its coffers, directly and indirectly. “Celebrities are valued for their influence,” says Jenna. “It’s not just about the money. [Church leaders] know people are interested in celebrities’ lives.” Even those who leave, like Cruise’s ex-wife Katie Holmes and their daughter Suri, are unlikely to be declared negative influences or “suppressive people” because of their high-profile status, she claims. At their new base far away from the church’s plush headquarters in California, it was slowly dawning on Jenna and Dallas that perhaps Scientology wasn’t taking over the world as they’d always been led to believe. When Dallas stumbled across a website that was critical of the church and Jenna’s uncle, they couldn’t help but take a little look despite knowing that viewing such material was prohibited. “The fact Dallas came across this site so easily surprised me,” recalls Jenna. “But it was also somehow satisfying, although I didn’t really know why.” As they increasingly mingled with “ordinary” people, the couple began to realise there could be a life worth building outside the church.
Cynicism from the Australian public also had an effect. On one occasion, promotional material was returned to them defaced by rude remarks about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. “Based on everything that we heard from Uncle Dave and the senior members of the church my whole life, I had been under the impression that everyone loved L. Ron Hubbard and that Scientology was flourishing and expanding all over the world,” she writes in her book. “However, it seemed like most people in Australia did not even know what it was, and those who did were often sceptical.” Australians’ irreverence and propensity to distrust authority is one of the reasons Scientology isn’t as popular here as in the US, Jenna believes. “I would probably say Australians are less receptive to the church. They might ask questions and not worry about beating around the bush... questions that might be hard for a Scientologist to answer.” The Church of Scientology vigorously disputes Jenna’s story. “Revisionist histories are typical of apostate behaviour and tabloid tales should always be taken with an enormous grain of salt,” it says in an official statement that refuses “to discuss private matters involving Ms Hill, nor any of the efforts to exploit Mr Miscavige’s name”. In retrospect, Jenna recognises that her time in Australia was “a big part of the decision” to leave the church. After a year in Canberra, where their mission to establish new premises had failed, she and Dallas were permitted to return home for the Christmas holidays. While in LA, however, they were told they would next be posted to Sydney – permanently. Outraged, Jenna resisted. But, after a few weeks of waiting on new orders, the plan was suddenly terminated and they returned home. Unlike most US visitors, they never got a chance to explore our vast and beautiful continent, instead confined to a city that tends to be little more than the butt of many Australians’ jokes. Still, Jenna recalls feeling “more relaxed than I’d been in years, not to mention well fed, well rested, and having a lot of fun” during her time in Australia. (In case you’re wondering, she never could develop a taste for Vegemite.) Leaving Scientology, however, was by no means a simple process. During the 10 months following their return from Australia, Jenna says senior church members tried to drive a wedge between her and Dallas, encouraging him to stay and her to leave. When they eventually decided to get out, their struggles still weren’t over. Excommunicated from friends and family, the pair had to build a new life from the bottom up, all with the spectre of a possible consequence of their betrayal looming in the background: “You feel like if you leave, you are giving up your eternity.” Their lifelong social networks evaporated. “Nobody I knew in the church is allowed to speak to me,” adds Jenna. “Everyone I grew up with is still there. I do miss people, and hope they find a way out.” In 2008, trouble flared up when Jenna took part in a highly publicised interview about Scientology with US TV’s Nightline program. It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was cathartic: “I used to have nightmares but, once I spoke out, I didn’t have them because they weren’t controlling me anymore.” Still, she and Dallas suddenly found themselves tailed by unknown cars and facing pressures from the church, all communicated via family members. “They have what’s called a Fair Game policy, where if someone speaks out against Scientology, they are considered an enemy of Scientology,” explains Jenna. “You can do anything to someone who is considered an enemy. Since I’ve left, people have followed me but no one has tried to physically assault me. I won’t let them intimidate me.” The church, however, insists “those who decide a religious order isn’t for them are free to move on with their lives, as Ms Hill did. Every religion has its detractors; there is no faith that can satisfy everyone’s spiritual needs.”
Today Jenna, 29, is happy being a stay-at-home mum to her four-year-old son and one-year-old daughter, ensuring they enjoy the kind of carefree upbringing she missed. “A big difference is my children are allowed to play,” she says. “I make a big effort to make sure their childhood is nothing like mine. They are in a loving environment.” As a child, Jenna lived on a communal property known as The Ranch with other children of Scientology, away from their parents. She says they undertook 25 to 35 hours a week of manual labour, including rock hauling, digging and weeding on top of school work and religious studies. She also recounts a relentless
regime of duties, rituals, continuous assessments, paperwork and a humiliating system of moral policing. Because Scientologists believe they are immortal spirits called Thetans, which temporarily inhabit a body before moving onto the next after death, children aren’t thought to need special allowances. “We were treated like little adults,” |
, breast and brain cancer cells and left the healthy cells alone. It was tested on Rats inflicted with severe tumors; their cells shrank when they were fed with water supplemented with DCA. The drug is widely available and the technique is easy to use, why the major drug companies are not involved? Or the Media interested in this find?In human bodies there is a natural cancer fighting human cell, the mitochondria, but they need to be triggered to be effective. Scientists used to think that these mitochondria cells were damaged and thus ineffective against cancer. So they used to focus on glycolysis, which is less effective in curing cancer and more wasteful. The drug manufacturers focused on this glycolysis method to fight cancer. This DCA on the other hand doesn't rely on glycolysis instead on mitochondria; it triggers the mitochondria which in turn fights the cancer cells.The side effect of this is it also reactivates a process called apoptosis. You see, mitochondria contain an all-too-important self-destruct button that can't be pressed in cancer cells. Without it, tumors grow larger as cells refuse to be extinguished. Fully functioning mitochondria, thanks to DCA, can once again die.With glycolysis turned off, the body produces less lactic acid, so the bad tissue around cancer cells doesn't break down and seed new tumors.Pharmaceutical companies are not investing in this research because DCA method cannot be patented, without a patent they can't make money, like they are doing now with their AIDS Patent. Since the pharmaceutical companies won't develop this, the article says other independent laboratories should start producing this drug and do more research to confirm all the above findings and produce drugs. All the groundwork can be done in collaboration with the Universities, who will be glad to assist in such research and can develop an effective drug for curing cancer.You can access the original research for this cancer here This article wants to raise awareness for this study, hope some independent companies and small startup will pick up this idea and produce these drugs, because the big companies won't touch it for a long time.As a Michigan man, it's not an easy admission for me to make. But Michigan State is now churning out NFL quarterbacks the way it has NBA standouts.
Last week alone, four former Michigan State quarterbacks -- Arizona's Drew Stanton, Cleveland's Brian Hoyer, Washington's Kirk Cousins and Philadelphia's Nick Foles -- all led their teams to big wins. At least three and possibly four will start Sunday with the chance to try to do it again.
As one NFL executive noted this week, it's still hard to process the transformation, a rugged Big Ten school as an aerial training ground. When coaches and scouts think of quarterback schools, they think of Michigan producing Tom Brady and Chad Henne, or Texas A&M producing Ryan Tannehill and Johnny Manziel, or Florida State producing EJ Manuel and Christian Ponder, or Georgia producing Matthew Stafford and Aaron Murray, or USC producing Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, Mark Sanchez and Matt Barkley. They don't think of Michigan State.
Michigan State product Brian Hoyer rallied the Browns to a thrilling Week 2 victory. Jason Miller/Getty Images
"If you listed all the colleges putting out starting quarterbacks," the executive said, "it would be a while before you put down Michigan State."
But Michigan State's list, and influence, is growing. Michigan State's current quarterback, Connor Cook, another lightly recruited prospect out of high school, is considered a first-round talent and even a potential top-10 pick. He could become the first Big Ten quarterback to become a first-round pick since Carolina selected former Penn State standout Kerry Collins in the first round of the 1995 draft.
But that's a storyline for next spring. The storyline for now is that, one weekend after Michigan State quarterbacks engineered four wins, they have the chance for more this Sunday, with two squaring off head to head.
Washington at Philadelphia will pit Cousins against Foles. The two were teammates at Michigan State in 2007, when Foles backed up Hoyer while Cousins was in his redshirt year. But the following summer, Foles transferred to Arizona, where after sitting out a year he was the starting quarterback from 2009-11.
Cousins settled in as the starter at Michigan State in 2009. Then in the 2012 draft, the Eagles drafted Foles in the third round and the Redskins drafted Cousins in the fourth round, all leading up to this, another moment for Michigan State.
Again, this is not easy for any Michigan man to admit. But Michigan State's contributions to the NFL now include some magic.
Trader Joe: One year ago Thursday, on Sept. 18, 2013, the Browns made a trade that drew criticism at the time, but praise almost ever since.
Cleveland sent running back Trent Richardson to Indianapolis for the Colts' 2014 first-round pick, which the Browns wound up turning into former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel.
As much as the Colts were lauded exactly one year ago for the move, the record of Browns CEO Joe Banner suggested the trade would work out the way it did.
Editor's Picks Schefter Mailbag: Playing to RG III's strengths? Adam Schefter tackles five of the biggest NFL questions, including whether the Redskins are playing to RG III's strengths.
During his time in Philadelphia and Cleveland, Banner has helped engineer a series of trades, most of which wound up favoring his team.
In Philadelphia, Banner and the Eagles' front office once traded second- and fifth-round picks to the Jets for Pro Bowl defensive end Hugh Douglas, who went on to ring up 51.5 sacks during his five seasons in Philadelphia.
Banner sent a late first-round pick and a fourth-round pick to Buffalo for Pro Bowl left tackle Jason Peters.
Banner didn't just trade for players; he sent plenty away. He traded former Eagles quarterback A.J. Feeley to the Dolphins for a second-round draft pick, quarterback Donovan McNabb to the Redskins for second- and fourth-round draft picks and quarterback Kevin Kolb to Arizona for a second-round pick and Pro Bowl cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie.
And he traded picks as well as players, such as the fourth- and fifth-round picks in the weak 2013 draft for a third- and a fourth-round pick in the deep 2014 draft. Yet despite those deals, Banner is now unemployed, out of football, trying to figure out how to tweet and what he would like to do next. The Browns will be paying him for years to come, as well they should.
Banner's trades, like the one made one year ago Thursday, usually paid big.
The Equalizer: One of the players Banner helped draft in Philadelphia was wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who is squarely in the spotlight for Sunday's game against his former Eagles team. Jackson is this week's Equalizer.
Jackson returns to Philadelphia on Sunday, and the factors behind his departure have been and will continue to be reviewed ad nauseum, with no firm answers other than the Eagles simply didn't feel comfortable moving forward with the receiver.
But what cannot be speculated on are the numbers surrounding Jackson's change of scenery. This season, Jackson still counts more against the Eagles' salary cap ($6.25 million) than he does against the Redskins' salary cap ($4.25 million).
As it turns out, Philadelphia released Jackson for less than what Baltimore released Ray Rice. Yet now, Jackson is back, playing for Washington, with his absence still being felt, financially as much as anything else, in Philadelphia.
SCHEF'S SPECIALTIES
• Player of the Week: Saints RB Khiry Robinson. With New Orleans having to overcome the loss of injured running back Mark Ingram, time for another back to step up.
• Game of the Week: Denver at Denver. Broncos-Seahawks is one of five rematches this season from last season's playoffs, a slate that includes both conference championships and the Super Bowl.
• Upset of the Week: Giants over Texans. Houston is 2-0, New York is 0-2; Texans have gotten turnovers, Giants have not. There's a real chance it changes Sunday.January 23, 2018 - UPDATE! Perry continues to make small steps toward recovery, and is receiving speech, occupational and physical therapy at a residential facility in the San Fernando Valley. Ines is there every day, while Kelly works numerous jobs and Gabriella continues her studies.Perry got Botox injections in his arms, which suspends the pain and allows Ines and the therapists to work on his arms and hands to increase flexibility and return function. He has been able to stand up a few times (with help) and is doing repetitive movement exercises to strengthen his trunk and legs. Ines has learned much from watching and asking questions, which helps her help Perry.His short-term memory is still an issue, but it is intriguing to Ines that he still remembers key medical personnel by name, what he got for Christmas, Pizookies (he can’t wait to have one again) and that January means it’s time for the Spaghetti Feed. Perry remembers much from the past – school, work, theater, friends. His sense of humor still pops up, and he chuckles at jokes and long stories. He attempts to speak when he takes deep breaths and has been able to say short sentences.The need for assistance continues, as Ines and Kelly are traveling a lot to be with their son and there are some expenses not covered by insurance. While they regret not being able to thank their supporters individually, please know that they appreciate everything that their “safety net” of friends and family have been able to provide and they are grateful for all of your love and prayers.Where we started.......In mid-September, Perry Roberts experienced a traumatic brain injury that initially caused doctors to tell his parents to prepare for the worst - but constant medical attention and the strength of a global network of prayer has brought him back from the brink and he continues to improve little by little. Doctors consider his case a miracle.The last few months -After three years of living in New York, Perry returned to his native Santa Clarita to start anew with the love and support of his parents Ines and Kelly, and his sister, Gabriella. The strong network of family, friends and community has helped Ines and Kelly get through the last couple of months, ensuring that all the Roberts were fed both physically and spiritually and making it possible for Ines to stay at Perry's bedside to work on his progress toward recovery.Perry is currently in a sub-acute rehabilitation center, awaiting approval to go to Rancho Los Amigos, an acute rehab center in Downey that specializes in brain, stroke and spinal cord injuries, with the ultimate goal of coming home for continued therapies. Funds raised will help with medical supplies and home-delivered professional services required for his recovery. Ines has been unable to work since September, as she spends most of her time with Perry, working with medical staff and helping him with physical therapy. Kelly is working two jobs, along with real estate, to keep the family afloat during this crisis.Hundreds of people have come forward since Perry's hospitalization and many continue to watch social media for updates on his condition, always offering their encouragement. Friends and co-workers, many who know the family through work or their childrens' activities, the local theater and churches, have all expressed a desire to help and now, there is a way to do just that.Every contribution goes directly to the Roberts to help defray expenses and keep the life-enhancing efforts going for Perry's complete recovery. No amount is too big or small. Please know that every contribution is received with grateful hearts - The Roberts family loves and thanks you all.The Roberts would like to thank each donor personally, so please make sure to provide contact information. IThank you all - we are certainly blessed.We've known (or suspected) for some time that Apple can provide data from iOS devices to US law enforcement, whether that data is stored on Apple's iCloud servers or on a password protected phone or tablet. In an effort to be more transparent about this process, Apple yesterday posted an extensive document describing what data the company can provide to law enforcement and the processes for requesting that data.
The document outlines two basic types of data: information stored on Apple's servers and information stored locally on iOS devices. Information on Apple's servers includes both data associated with your Apple ID—your basic contact information, customer service records, your transaction history both in Apple's retail stores and in the online iTunes and App Stores, and iTunes gift card information—and data associated with your iCloud account. All account data stored on Apple's servers is obtainable "with a subpoena or greater legal process."
The short version is that essentially anything you've backed up to or stored on iCloud is available for Apple to fork over to law enforcement, including connection logs and IP addresses you've used. Apple has access to 60 days of iCloud mail logs that "include records of incoming and outgoing communications such as time, date, sender e-mail addresses, and recipient e-mail addresses"; any e-mail messages that the user has not deleted; and any other information that can be backed up to iCloud. As of this writing, this list includes contacts, calendars, browser bookmarks, Photo Stream photos, anything that uses the "documents and data" feature (which can include not just word processors but also photo and video apps, games, and data from other applications), and full device backups. Subscriber information requires a "subpoena or greater legal process," e-mail logs require a court order or search warrant, and e-mail or other iCloud content requires a search warrant. Any iCloud information that the user deletes cannot be accessed.
The one major area that isn't mentioned is passwords stored using Apple's iCloud Keychain feature, which could provide credentials for non-Apple sites and services. Apple has said in the past that iCloud Keychain data is encrypted and inaccessible by Apple. Some security researchers have disputed that claim, but in any case it's unclear whether Apple will provide this data to law enforcement if requested. Apple also maintains that iMessages and FaceTime calls cannot be intercepted because of the end-to-end encryption those services use, though security researchers have also disputed those claims and the guidelines don't mention whether iMessages stored in an iOS device backup are similarly protected. In any case, even if Apple could view in-transit iMessages if it wanted to, its guidelines make it clear that it won't offer to do so.
Some data from the Find My iPhone service is also available, including connection logs and requests to remotely lock or wipe a device. Apple cannot manually activate the Find My iPhone service on a phone if requested by law enforcement, however, and it's not clear whether Apple will provide the current location of an iOS device that is turned on and has the Find My iPhone service enabled. We've contacted Apple for clarification on the Find My iPhone, iCloud Keychain, and iMessage questions and will update this article if we receive a response.
When law enforcement seeks any of the above data, the guidelines state that Apple will "notify its customers when their personal information is being sought in response to legal process except where providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself." Apple will also avoid notifying users if the company "believes that providing notice could create a risk of injury or death to an identifiable individual or group of individuals or in situations where the case relates to child endangerment," though this is entirely up to Apple and not to the law enforcement agencies involved.
Finally, even if you don't store any of your information on iCloud, Apple can bypass security passcodes on our iOS devices to extract "certain categories of active data," though it apparently cannot bypass that protection entirely. If provided with a valid search warrant, Apple can hand over SMS messages, pictures and videos, contacts, audio recordings, and your phone's call history, but it can't access e-mails, calendar entries, or information from third-party applications. Devices must be running iOS 4 or newer, must be "in good working order," and must be provided directly to Apple's headquarters along with an external storage drive twice the size of the iOS device's internal storage.
Apple's guidelines are broadly similar to those provided by other tech companies—Google, for example, provides a similar "Transparency Report" outlining the types of data available to law enforcement. The best recourse for Apple customers who don't want this data to be available to law enforcement agencies is to limit what you store on Apple's servers. Anyone with a registered Apple ID has given some data to Apple, but by storing device backups locally or (for the especially privacy-minded) running your own OS X Server or e-mail server to store some of this potentially sensitive data, you can limit the amount of stuff that Apple and other cloud companies have access to in the first place. If nothing else, these new guidelines can help people make those decisions by outlining just what Apple can access and under what circumstances it can do so.Over the weekend, as the media reported on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s chauvinist and sexist past, a dozen middle-aged and elderly women rallied for him in Broward, Florida’s most Democratic county. They’re not affiliated with the Trump campaign but had nonetheless grown frustrated with the commonly held belief that all women are against him, or that they should be. So at 11 a.m. Saturday May 14, this cohort of spirited female Trump supporters took to the patch of grass in front of the Target on Hollywood Boulevard and Park Road to show their backing for the candidate they believe is fighting for their best interests.
It was a strange sight indeed. Dressed in crocheted sun hats and matching bubblegum pink shirts that said “Women for Trump,” these ladies stumped for Trump for two hours in the 90-degree heat. Wiping beads of sweat from their foreheads, they kept waving American flags and handmade signs that read: “No Trump No Vote,” “Women for Trump,” and “Build the Wall.” They sang chants like “Hillary for Prison,” and “Make America Great Again.” They posed like giddy schoolgirls with a life-size cutouts of The Donald wearing a suit and his signature red baseball cap.
“We’re just a huge movement of supporters,” said organizer Flo Goldfarb, 75. “Trump’s down to earth, a humble man, who resonates not only with men but with women, too. The media has been showing unfavorable presentations of him with women that are not really true. Trump is concerned with women and everyone and I just love him.”A run of the mill Klan rally turns into a political spectacle at the hands of Donald Trump.
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LAKE CHINGANDOS, FLORIDA — In what feels like to some like a flashback to previous Donald Trump campaign rallies turning ugly and violent against immigrant protesters, another incident involving the billionaire 2016 Republican front runner and racial undertones happened this week.
“We were just standing around, getting ready to light a cross, when all of a sudden, Trump appears at the podium, and starts talking to us about how we can make America great again,” said Tommy Garrison, who is the Grand Imperial Wizard of the Florida chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. “It was the damndest thing. There we were, about to set fire to a symbol of racially-motivated terrorism, hatred, and violence, and who should appear but the candidate most willing to trade on those things for votes,” Garrison said in amazement.
One klansman in attendance described a feeling of “surprise and pride” that Trump would show up at their rally. “Most politicians disavow any connection to racist violence,” the klansman said, “even if they help craft policies that effectively hurt one race over the other. But Trump clearly is willing to at least openly court us, and that says a lot about him as a person, if you ask me.” The klansman, speaking on condition of anonymity said that he was “definitely leaning Trump” because the business tycoon and reality-TV star “obviously gets what Americans are most afraid of — a silent Mexican invasion from the South.”
“What I love about Trump is that he tells it like it is,” Wizard Garrison told the press after the impromptu Trump rally, “even if how he’s telling it isn’t exactly true.” Garrison said he knew as soon as Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as mostly being “rapists,” “killers,” and “drug dealers” that he was the one Garrison wanted to win the nomination. He told reporters that he was “tired of all the wishy-washy, dog whistle racism of the GOP” and wanted to stop “pussy footin’ around with the uppity blacks who think they’re still entitled to equal treatment under the law.”
Stan Carroll, a member of the Klan for twenty years, said he is still skeptical of Trump. “Oh sure, he’s shown a certain unrepentant disdain for Mexicans,” Carroll said, “but what has he said about the black? The gay? The Jew?” Carroll said that until he hears Trump’s stances on all the “heathen variant-skinned mongrels” he can only tepidly endorse the super-wealthy man who has curried favor of both major parties through campaign donations in the past.
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Putin: Russia sees no need to arm the Kurds in Syria
ARA News
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday that the Syrian constitution doesn’t allow for federalism and that the federal structures created by the Kurds in northern Syria “are temporary.” These remarks, given in a wide-ranging interview, contradict the political platforms and aspirations of nearly every Kurdish party in Syria.
“These [Kurdish parties] are diverse: some patriotic, some mercenary, and some seek separation and federalism,” the Syrian president declared. “We cannot take a clear position – it depends on the case.”
Assad said that the Kurdish parties and their allies had exploited the bedlam in northern Syria. “They took advantage of the absence of the state in a number of areas in the north in order to create specific social structures, which take a political form, ” he said.
The Syrian president stressed that while his government was opposed to federalism in principle, resolving the political situation in northern Syria would have to wait until the end of the civil war.
“Priority is given now to dealing with terrorism. We say that we support every group fighting terrorism and terrorists,” Assad explained. “But for us, dealing with federalism cannot happen except after we finish the problem of terrorism, then the people will decide.”
Assad explained that Kurdish political aspirations and federalism are in his mind very different issues. “The question of federalism is quite different; it is related first to the constitution and second to the popular state in that region,” he said.
“The constitution doesn’t allow for it to happen, and amending the constitution needs a referendum, and the popular state is not amenable to that trend, even among the Kurds themselves. The largest section of the Kurds do not support this,” the Syrian president claimed.
Although President Assad said that the Kurds do not want federalism, almost all Kurdish parties, including the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Kurdish National Council (KNC), support federalism. It is a consensus position amongst Syria’s Kurds, uniting politicians with starkly diverging agendas.
“As far as we are concerned as a state, we accept whatever the Syrian people accept, and I don’t think that the Syrian people accept federalism anywhere in Syria. That’s why I’m not concerned about this proposition,” the Syrian president stated.
Moreover, the Syrian president did not rule out a clash with the Turkish army in Syria. “As long as the Turkish policy is run by an abnormal and psychologically-disturbed person like Erdogan, we have to expect all possibilities,” he said.
“Ultimately, when there is Turkish interference, Syria has the right to defend its territories. This is self-evident, and we will of course do it. Now there are military priorities, but in principle we certainly have the right,” Assad added.
Furthermore, the Syrian president said he is also ready to work with Donald Trump. The US President-elect has said that his goal in Syria would be fighting the Islamic State (ISIS), not overthrowing President Assad’s government.
“In principle, we have spoken about the necessity of forming an alliance against terrorism since 1985, and we continuously announce that Syria is ready to cooperate with any party seeking seriously to fight terrorism. This is a general principle which applies to the United States and all other countries,” Assad stated.
Salih Muslim, the co-Chair of the Democratic Union Party touched on many of the same themes as Assad in an interview-on Wednesday. According to Syria’s leading Kurdish politician, the Kurdish parties do not want to divide Syria and have no interests in fighting Damascus.
“We have a project for all of Syria; a democratic federal decentralized Syria. We are ready to discuss this with everyone: the Alawites, Druze, Sunnis, and others,” Muslim said. “This is the Syria we want. If they don’t accept it, Syria will be divided.”
Confederalism, the ideology of the PYD, seeks to create participatory self-administrations, not nation states. Muslim said that he feared the Syria would break up, a trend that could only be reversed through the creation of “a decentralized, democratic, and secular system.”
Bader Mustafa, a member of the Kurdish Youth Movement (TCK), told ARA News that Assad is trying to send a message to the Kurds and asserting his own dominion over Syria. “It is the same delusion he has been living for, for years. It is not Assad’s decision anymore.”
Mustafa was confident that the overwhelming majority of Syrian Kurds want federalism or decentralization in those areas controlled by Kurdish-led forces. “Assad is telling the Kurds that his regime can prevent what the Kurds want, which is a federal system and an end to the dictatorship of the Arab majority,” he said.
“I think it is not the right of any majority to decide for the minority,” Mustafa added.
“We as Kurds are not a minority voluntarily, but due to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which prevented us from having one Kurdish state,” Mustafa continued. “It is obvious that the Kurds do not want a centralized state in Syria.”
Zara Salih, a politician from the Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria, agreed. “What Assad is saying isn’t anything new. He is still denying the Kurdish issue and rejects the federal system the Kurdish people ask for,” he said.
“Assad keeps sending messages to the Kurds, especially to the Democratic Union Party, saying that what they’re doing against ISIS is their duty and there are no privileges for them,” Salih told ARA News.
The Kurdish official also said that Turkey and other states have prevented aid from coming into Northern Syria – Rojava (NSR), which is under a partial siege. He believes that the foreign actors should sideline Ankara and instead deal directly with the Kurdish parties.
“We are asking the United Nations, the US, and others to not get permission from Turkey to move things in Rojava. Why not directly deal with our people?” Salih reasoned. “But nobody wants to do it.”
“This does not mean recognizing Rojava as a different part [of Syria],” he clarified. “Rojava is a part of the Syrian revolution, a part of a democratic federal Syria.”
Reporting by: Wladimir van Wilgenburg | Source: ARA News
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Join our Weekly NewsletterLiverpool can confirm they have completed the signing of Italy striker Mario Balotelli, subject to registration.
The 24-year-old sealed his switch to Anfield from AC Milan after passing a medical and agreeing a long-term deal to become the Reds' ninth signing of the summer so far.
Balotelli said: "I'm very happy. We've been talking about coming here and now I'm happy to be here.
"Liverpool are one of the best teams here in England and the football is very good here.
"It's a great team with young players, and that's why I came here."
Watch the video here »
Balotelli joins Liverpool after a year-and-a-half with Milan, where he scored 30 goals in 54 appearances.
The forward already has experience of playing in the Barclays Premier League having represented Manchester City, where he helped them to the title in 2012 after moving from Inter Milan.
Balotelli has also clinched several other winners' medals during his career so far, which include the Champions League, three Serie A championships and an FA Cup.
He has won 33 caps for Italy and scored 13 goals for his country.
Click here to get your brand new 'Balotelli 45' LFC jersey now.This game deserves to be amongst your Wii U games library, if you're on the fence about buying this game; I implore you to be brazen, jump down off the fence and purchase this game. You'll be buying a special game that offers a unique way of playing and an experience like you've not experienced before. This is a special game and it's my favourite game of the year so far.
You play as superhereos known as the Wonderful 101, your aim? To stop the alien invasion of Earth by the mighty GETHJERK army. From the beginning to the end this game throws you into the thick of the action. There's no slow introduction to the Gethjerk onslaught, you're thrown into the deep end, armed only with your Unite Morphs and your desire to save Earth.
So what are the good points of the game? The Unite Morphs are great; each one delivers Zeus like blows to the Gethjerk army. The game is colourful, vibrant and beautiful, it's fast paced, seldom slowing down, it's just a constant thrashing together of two brutal forces and it has made for some amazing game play. Not only that the Wonderful 101 is a challenging game, a game that will have you frustrated, a game that will cause you to curse aloud, but ultimately it will give you a good sense of achievement, a sense of achievement that is all too absent from many games these days. The game is also long; I completed the game in just over 17 hours and it has replay ability, I just cannot wait to jump back into the action and smite the Gethjerk with my Valiantium blade. Even my pet hates in other games cease to a pet hate in this game. QTE adds to the flow of the action, it doesn't feel forced or thrown in for the sake of it and the games cut scenes are just hilarious. The witty banter between Wonder-Blue and Wonder-Green has had me laughing out loud.
There are bad points to the Wonderful 101. The camera at times doesn't help matters, at times it can hinder you as play, and this is particularly true as the gameplay switches from the TV to your Gamepad. And while I praise Platinum games for their brilliant use of the Wii U gamepad at times I have found it incredibly difficult to draw out Unite Morph symbols on the gamepad which is frustrating especially when you need to act swiftly in the fight to save Earth. My last gripe with Wonderful 101 is some of the puzzle solving aspects don't add anything to the game other than to slow down the overall pace of the game, but please do not let my opinions influence your purchasing decisions, this game is simply brilliant and I'm delighted with my purchase.Laser beams shot to the moon from Grasse (MéO) station in Calern, France successfully targeted the reflector on the Soviet Union's old Lunokhod 1 rover.
Scientists have successfully bounced a laser off the Soviet Union's old Lunokhod 1 rover, which trekked across the moon's landscape more than four decades ago.
Lunokhod 1 was the first remote-controlled rover ever to land on another celestial body. The wheeled vehicle was carried to the lunar surface by a spacecraft called Luna 17, touching down in the Sea of Rains on Nov. 17, 1970.
Among its instruments, the rover toted a French-built laser retroreflector consisting of 14 corner cubes that can reflect laser light beamed from Earth. [The Moon: A Space Dumping Ground (Infographic)]
Attempts to contact the rover after the lunar night that began on Sept. 14, 1971, were unsuccessful, apparently due to a component failure on the rover. Lunokhod 1's days of rambling around the moon formally ended on Oct. 4, 1971, after 11 lunar day-night cycles (322 Earth days).
Laser ranging observations
For the most part, those working in the laser ranging field have cautioned over the years not to spend time on Lunokhod 1, calling the rover a nearly impossible target.
"And during 30 years, nobody tried to range on Lunokhod 1," Jean-Marie Torre, research engineer at the Côte d'Azur Observatory in France, told SPACE.com.
But Torre and his colleagues tried anyway, using the Grasse (MéO) laser-ranging station in Calern, France, which is run by the Côte d’Azur Observatory. In March, they received return signals from the Lunokhod 1 reflector for the first time since the start of their lunar laser ranging observation campaigns in the early 1980s.
The results were obtained over three nights, using a new instrumental configuration at the MéO station.
On November 17, 1970 the Soviet Luna 17 spacecraft landed the first roving remote-controlled robot on the Moon. Known as Lunokhod 1, it weighed just under 2,000 pounds and was designed to operate for 90 days while guided by a 5-person team on planet Earth at the Deep Space Center near Moscow, USSR. Lunokhod 1 actually toured the lunar Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) for 11 months in one of the greatest successes of the Soviet lunar exploration program. (Image: © NASA )
The historical difficulty of ranging on Lunokhod 1 may have been due to a number of factors. The reflector may have been dusty, or its cover could have closed. Or the rover may not have been parked in view of Earth, Torre said.
In the end, however, "it was more a problem of lack of confidence than to a technical difficulty," Torre said.
Poor weather conditions prevented the scientists from getting a good determination of the Lunokhod 1 reflector's efficiency. Still, the results have buoyed the interest of Earth-based scientists to continue beaming their lasers at the long-dead rover.
A retroreflector array was also left on the moon by the landing crew of NASA's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, while two more retroreflector arrays were set up by Apollo 14 and Apollo 15 moonwalkers.
In fact, Torre and a colleague were ranging successfully the Apollo 15 site when Torre suggested trying Lunokhod 1. [NASA's Apollo Moon Missions in Pictures]
"Fortunately, we had immediate echoes... and if not, we might not have tried again for one or many years!"
NASA's LRO recently discovered the Russian Robotic rover Lunokhod 1 that landed on the moon in 1970 and vanished from detection in September 1971. (Image: © NASA)
Pinpointing Lunokhod's locale
The final end-of-mission location of Lunokhod 1 was uncertain until 2010. But thanks to images snapped by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), both the Luna 17 lander and Lunokhod 1 were spotted.
Lunokhod 1 came to its final stop on a site situated around 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) north of its point of landing.
The success last month by the Grasse station was not the first laser ranging effort targeting the "lost" Lunokhod 1 reflector.
In April 2010, specialists at the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO) in southern New Mexico used the LRO images to first pinpoint the locale of Lunokhod 1, closely enough for laser range measurements.
Surprisingly, the APOLLO researchers reported that the craft’s retroreflector was returning much more light than other reflectors on the moon.
"In normal conditions, the difficulty to range this [Lunokhod 1] reflector is the making of the corner cube [which is] silver coated. They are very good in the dark, from a few days after the new moon to the quarter. It is better to range the reflector from March to May," when the on-the moon reflector is the highest in the sky, Torre said.
A better understanding of the moon
Lunar laser ranging has been made possible by combining advances in laser technology, data processing and precision timing via atomic clocks, according to the International Laser Ranging Service, a service of the International Association of Geodesy.
Lunar laser ranging uses short-pulse lasers and state-of-the-art optical receivers and timing electronics to measure how long it takes light beamed from ground stations to travel to retroreflector arrays on the moon and back again.
It takes just two and a half seconds for light to make this roundtrip trek, requiring use of an atomic clock.
Because the reflectors on the moon are relatively small and a laser beam naturally loses its intensity with distance, only a tiny fraction of the signal makes it back. However, the information is sufficient for precise calculation of the Earth and moon's movement: speed of rotation, axial variation and orbital deviation (taking into account, of course, the influence of other celestial bodies such as the sun).
Torre said that thanks to Lunokhod 1's position on the moon -- closer to the moon’s limb than any other reflectors — it allows researchers to detect more precisely small libration effects. Laser ranging on the rover can improve researchers' understanding of the moon's internal structure and rotation, he added.
Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin’s new book “Mission to Mars — My Vision for Space Exploration” out in May from National Geographic. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.The Justice Department has requested the banking records of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as part of its investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives working to influence the 2016 election, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Federal investigators asked Citizens Financial Group Inc., a Rhode Island-based bank, to turn over Manafort’s records in mid-April, according to the report. The newspaper noted it’s unclear exactly what information DOJ requested or whether other banks received similar requests.
New York City real estate records reviewed by the Journal revealed that Citizens gave Manafort a $2.7 million loan in 2016 to refinance debt on a Manhattan condominium he owns.
Manafort had an unusual pattern of using shell companies to make all-cash purchases of real estate properties, transferring the properties to his own name, and then taking out large mortgages against them, according to a March investigation from WNYC.
The GOP operative and lobbyist has intimate ties to |
's a wonder juice. Cures heart disease, wards off bugs, water proofs, used as a disinfectant it is claimed to be able to kill all known virus including polio in less than 10 seconds, supposedly faster than any chemical disinfectant. I really have no proof just an interesting news blurb on Japanese tv.
But just to elaborate a little further, kakishibu is used on sill beams and ground contact posts on homes to water proof and deter wood boring beetles. Used extensively as a near annual coat on many exposed wooden components on traditional Japanese houses. Engawa floor boards, fences, gate doors, etc.... Often mixed with the above mentioned secret ingredients.
The pectin polymers create a fairly durable coating with a few or several applications that go on first like a coat of red wine but the tanins in the kakishibu will turn the color darker to a ruddish brown pretty quick in the sun. Usually thru one afternoon. There are modifiers you can use to change the hue from yellow to red, brown, black. I mean black as black. Fast too.
A thimble full is thought to be good for your heart. Early Japanese immigrants brought the shibukaki with them to Hawaii. It was something that many Japanese families grew in the yard and concocted back in the day because of all it's varied uses. And really no harder to make than fruit wine. It was also used to water proof paper umbrellas. Locally prior to monofilament fish net, Japanese fisher men would soak their linen nets in the kakishibu to make them last longer in the salt water. It's a common colorant for textiles and you'll find shirts, jeans, shoes on-line dyed with kakishibu.
But for me, it browns the mango nicely and used as a grain filler mixed with tonoko ( stone dust) or kikuso (wood dust) the pectin polymers harden and lock the fillers in the pours of the wood, coloring all at the same time. Water soluble and won't kill you or the environment. Only draw back is that it's ridiculously expensive in the USA.
tops of the two completed sections below
Some pics of the hardware in process.....
Below is the lock plate marked out from a stencil and some of the plate cut away with a cold chisel.
Then filed to the line.....
Hinges in process
Side handles
example of how sheet steel reacts to being cut with a chisel.
here's a pic of my gas forge. nice little portable unit. In the chamber is a block of 4140 steel that became my nail heading block and a tire iron I straightened out and forged a four sided taper to make the square hole in the heading block.
I hope Dave J is reading, don't I have some questions for you LOL
Above is my nail forge with two irons in the fire. Perfect size for small nails made from 1/8" round stock.
I heard 200 nails in a day was pretty good, I was able to do 260 one day, but Ryohei's nails are much nicer. In all I think I made around 700 to pick out the best 500 then another 35 or so were more small "rose head" nails I used for drawer handle bumpers.
All the edges are hand filed to a neat bevel and a irisumi corner.
535 holes were drilled for the 535 small nails.
The three way corners need to be cut out and bent very precisely to achieve 6 - 90 degree corners.
I do not like the look of clean,flat, shiny, sheet steel parts. The process of cutting out the parts with a chisel leads you to having to correct the inevitable distortions in the part from the displacement of the steel around the cut line created by the bevel of the chisel as it sheers the steel. The process of working the parts,cold and hot,will give them a mostly forged look but just to give it a little more vintage feel I threw them in the pacific ocean for a couple days.
Mostly to cure them of any plain, shiny areas that remained.
Then a quick acid bath to remove the surface rust followed by a bath in a base solution to neutralize the acid leaving behind the rust textured surface.
Here they are after the blackening with used oil from an excavator. Sorry not pics of that process. I know I burned less oil than the average 18 wheeler does in a single day, but I bet the EPA would not approve. Lastly they get a good coat of bee's wax melted into the surface and buffed off.
Many thanks for checking it all out. The Tansu is currently available for sale, contact with message or email if you would like to own it. I do have intention to enter it in a up coming wood show so I may not be able to offer it "artist direct" after January 13 2018. Most tansu sell during the first couple weeks of the show. There is however a similar but different stacking chest 60% complete that I've been working on the side. Many irons in the fire but will have it together sometime late spring early summer,sooner if someone would like to put a finger on it. It also will have a full hardware suite. Mango with Australian Black Butte burl drawers.
Did I forget to say there was 535 hand forged nails......lol.
Happy New Year!
mahalo nui loa
MatsuKaze Woodworking
uniquely hand crafted
simple devices for inspired livingTwo conservative activists who pretended to be a pimp and prostitute and sleazy boyfriend* and wore hidden cameras in order to catch ACORN workers in compromising conversations are being sued in federal court in San Diego for at least $75,000. That much money are hard to find if one has no second income source like Orion code for instance.
Juan Carlos Vera, an ACORN employee in National City, filed a lawsuit yesterday against James O’Keefe III, Hanna Giles and John Does, alleging violations of the Invasion of Privacy Act following an interaction last summer.
From the complaint:
On August 18, 2009, at approximately 5:00pm, Defendants O’Keefe and Giles visited the ACORN office in National City, California. O’Keefe was wearing a hidden camera and recorded audio and video of the visit. Defendants O’Keefe and Giles conspired to secretly video tape and audio tape Mr. Vera. Defendants went into Mr. Vera’s office, sat down, and began a conversation. O’Keefe and Giles asked whether the conversation would be kept confidential and Mr. Vera agreed. By this time, Defendants O’Keefe and Giles had already secretly videotaped employees of other ACORN office in California and other states.
Vera cites a California law that prohibits recordings of confidential communications without the consent of all the participants.
When O’Keefe released the video, which purportedly contained footage of Vera agreeing to assist them in trafficking underage girls from Mexico for the purpose of prostitution, Vera immediately lost his job.
In April, Attorney General Jerry Brown investigated O’Keefe’s allegations against ACORN and found that O’Keefe had significantly edited the ACORN footage. In Vera’s case, Brown found that the employee had elicited as much information as possible and then turned it over to his brother, a detective with the National City Police.
Download the complaint here.
* I have corrected this to be clear that O’Keefe portayed himself specifically as a pimp only after the fact. To quote from the Attorney General report:Story highlights Three other drivers were taken to a local hospital
Wheldon is remembered as a "fantastic husband, father and man"
More than a dozen cars were involved in the crash
Video of the accident shows cars spinning out of control
Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon died Sunday of "unsurvivable injuries" sustained during a multi-car wreck at the Las Vegas Indy 300. He was 33.
The rest of the race -- the marquee event of the IZOD IndyCar World Championships -- was canceled.
"IndyCar is sad to announce that Dan Wheldon passed away from unsurvivable injuries. Our thoughts and prayers are with Dan and his family," IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard said.
The remaining drivers, many of whom were visibly emotional after emerging from a meeting with IndyCar officials, did a five-lap salute in Wheldon's honor.
"Amazing Grace" played as the drivers slowly wound their way around the track.
JUST WATCHED The dangers of high-speed auto racing Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH The dangers of high-speed auto racing 01:47
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More than a dozen vehicles were involved in Sunday's fiery wreck. Video of the accident showed cars spinning out of control, bursting into flames, and shooting smoke and debris into the air.
Championship contender Will Power, Rookie of the Year candidate J.R. Hildebrand and driver Pippa Mann were also involved in the crash. They were taken to an area hospital for treatment.
Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – Hide Caption 1 of 8 Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – Racing vet Dan Wheldon's car bursts into flames in a multi-car wreck during the Las Vegas Indy 300 on Sunday, October 16. Wheldon, 33, was killed. Hide Caption 2 of 8 Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – More than a dozen cars were involved in the fiery crash. Video of the accident showed cars spinning out of control and shooting smoke and debris into the air. Hide Caption 3 of 8 Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – The race was stopped and the remaining drivers, visibly emotional after emerging from a meeting with IndyCar officials, will do a five-lap salute in Wheldon's honor. Hide Caption 4 of 8 Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – Wheldon was flown from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to a nearby hospital in an air ambulance on Sunday. Hide Caption 5 of 8 Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – Wheldon gears up for a practice run in Las Vegas on September 13. He was in line to win $5 million if he captured the checkered flag Sunday. Hide Caption 6 of 8 Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – Wheldon celebrates his Indianapolis 500 victory on May 29 with the traditional bottle of milk. Unlike previous winners, he chose to bathe in it. Hide Caption 7 of 8 Photos: Photos: Fatal crash at IndyCar race Fatal crash at IndyCar race – Wheldon holds his son Sebastian alongside his wife, Susie, and their son Oliver during the Indy 500 trophy presentation on May 30. Hide Caption 8 of 8
Power was evaluated and released, while Mann and Hildebrand are awake, alert and will stay overnight for observation, according to IndyCar spokeswoman Amy Konrath.
Wheldon was in line to win $5 million if he had captured the checkered flag at Sunday's race.
"I lost one of my best friends, one of my greatest teammates," driver Tony Kanaan told reporters.
"I know this is a dangerous sport. I know we're exposed to that every day, in normal life as well. But you know, you don't think about it. Today we have to think about it," he said.
Racing accidents are not uncommon, though fatal ones have been rare in recent years.
Safety improvements at such high-speed events have included the installation of "soft walls." So-called SAFER barriers, which include foam, are intended to soften the effects of impact. Other equipment protects a driver's head during impact.
In 2006, driver Paul Dana died in a two-car collision during a practice run at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.
Driver Tony Renna died in October 2003 of injuries suffered in a testing accident at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, while Scott Brayton was killed at the same speedway in May 1996 when his vehicle hit the wall during practice.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation President and CEO Jeff Belskus released a statement, calling Wheldon a "great champion" and "wonderful ambassador."
"Most importantly, he was a fantastic husband, father and man -- a good friend to so many in this sport. His memory will live forever at the Speedway, both through the magnitude of his accomplishments on the track and his magnetism off the track," he said.
After his second Indy 500 victory in May, Wheldon talked with CNN's "American Morning" about the intensity of the race track. His first win was in 2005.
"We're doing speeds in excess of 225 miles per hour. With this race, you never know what can happen. It's about staying focused and you really don't ever let off the power unless you have to," he said.
Wheldon, who was born in Emberton, England, lived in St. Petersburg, Florida. His father was a go-kart racer and his mother was the timer at a local track. Wheldon is survived by his wife and two young children.WATCH as Larry Hagman stars along side Barbara Eden in I Dream of Jeannie.
DALLAS star Larry Hagman has died at the age of 81.
Hagman, famed for playing the villainous oil baron J.R. Ewing, passed away at a Dallas hospital after losing his battle with cancer.
"When he passed, he was surrounded by loved ones,'' the star's family said in a statement. "It was a peaceful passing, just as he had wished for.''
According to the statement, Hagman died late on Friday afternoon at Medical City Dallas Hospital.
"Larry was back in his beloved Dallas re-enacting the iconic role he loved most,'' the statement said.
"Larry's family and close friends had joined him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving holiday.''
Hagman's Dallas co-stars Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy, who played his wife Sue Ellen and brother Bobby, were at his bedside when he died, The Sun newspaper reported.
Barbara Eden, Hagman's co-star in I Dream of Jeannie, paid tribute to the actor on Twitter, describing him as "the Texas Tornado".
"Not just a great actor, not just a television icon, but an element of pure Americana," Eden tweeted. "I'll miss him."
She later wrote: "Amidst a whirlwind of big laughs, big smiles and unrestrained personality, Larry was always, simply Larry."
Hagman revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, saying: "As J.R. I could get away with anything - bribery, blackmail and adultery. But I got caught by cancer."
He underwent treatment for his cancer and was back filming the new Dallas series in January, reprising his role as the legendary villain who TV viewers loved to hate.
Hagman, who was born in Forth Worth, Texas, shot to fame in 1965 when he landed the role of Anthony Nelson, Barbara Eden's "master", in the popular sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.
His role as the scheming oil tycoon JR Ewing in Dallas, which debuted in 1977, made him one of the biggest stars of television. In the final scene of the 1979 season, Hagman's character was shot by an unknown assailant, launching the landmark "Who Shot JR" storyline and breaking ratings records.
In 1995, Hagman had a liver transplant after nearly 50 years of alcoholism. He later revealed how he used to down bottles of champagne on the Dallas set.
"I was loaded all the time, all the time, all during Jeannie, all during Dallas I was loaded," he told the BBC in 2001.
"I never got sober. Do the first scene, get it into the can, hopefully by nine o'clock and so I'd reward myself, I'd open a bottle of champagne and start to imbibe."
Hagman, whose mother was Broadway star Mary Martin, married Swedish-born Maj Axelsson in 1954 and the couple had two children. Maj was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008.
A heavy smoker as a young man, he later quit and recorded several public service announcements pleading with smokers to stop and urging non-smokers never to start.It appears that your browser has JavaScript disabled. Rosalind requires your browser to be JavaScript enabled.
We defined a mismatch in “Compute the Hamming Distance Between Two Strings”. We now generalize “Find the Most Frequent Words in a String” to incorporate mismatches as well.
Given strings Text and Pattern as well as an integer d, we define Count d (Text, Pattern) as the total number of occurrences of Pattern in Text with at most d mismatches. For example, Count 1 (AA C AAGCTGA T AAA C ATTTAAA G AG, AAAAA) = 4 because AAAAA appears four times in this string with at most one mismatch: AA C AA, A T AAA, AAA C A, and AAA G A. Note that two of these occurrences overlap.
A most frequent k-mer with up to d mismatches in Text is simply a string Pattern maximizing Count d (Text, Pattern) among all k-mers. Note that Pattern does not need to actually appear as a substring of Text; for example, AAAAA is the most frequent 5-mer with 1 mismatch in AACAAGCTGATAAACATTTAAAGAG, even though AAAAA does not appear exactly in this string. Keep this in mind while solving the following problem.
Frequent Words with Mismatches Problem
Find the most frequent k-mers with mismatches in a string.
Given: A string Text as well as integers k and d.
Return: All most frequent k-mers with up to d mismatches in Text.
Sample Dataset
ACGTTGCATGTCGCATGATGCATGAGAGCT 4 1
Sample Output
GATG ATGC ATGT
Extra Datasets
Click for an extra dataset
Click for debug datasetsTwo fans and collectors (Dan Gvozden and Mark Ginocchio) discuss the Spider-Man comic universe in a show that looks to the past, present, and future of Spider-Man. In this episode they discuss Superior Spider-Man #28, your fan-emails and comments, Spider-News, and conclude with a discussion of Amazing Spider-Man #39, the first Romita Sr. issue and reveal of the Goblin’s secret identity.
0:00 Opening
1:55 Featured Review: Superior Spider-Man #28
32:00 Comments and Emails
40:27 Spider-News
54:41 Classic Comics: Amazing Spider-Man #39
1:08:41 Goodbyes and Contact Info
Articles mentioned in this show:
Superior Spider-Man #28 and Pangs of Sympathy
Superior Spider-Man #28 – Review
Marvel Announces New Spider-Man Title “Year One: Learning to Crawl”
“Original Sin” Preview May Have Revealed the Fate of Doctor Octopus
Ron Frenz and Kevin Shinick to Finish Up “Superior Spider-Man Team-Up”
Norman Osborn is a Part of “Goblin Nation”
Remembrance of Comics Past: Amazing Spdier-Man #39
Please be sure to subscribe and review Superior Spider-Talk on iTunes.
You can email questions to our show at superiorspidertalk@gmail.com.David Parker/SPL/Getty
This pi day, we can write down more digits of the famous irrational number than ever before. An extra 9 trillion digits after the decimal point have been discovered, smashing the previous world record set back in 2013.
In November, after 105 days of round the clock computation, pi enthusiast Peter Trueb’s computer finally calculated 22,459,157,718,361 fully verified digits of pi. “I was really surprised that it worked so smoothly, I was so happy,” says Trueb, who is an R&D scientist by day.
Trueb realised that breaking the pi world record required two things: fast computation and fast storage. Luckily, the company that he works for, Dectris, has experience with both, and was willing to sponsor the project.
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He built a computer with 24 hard drives, each containing 6 terabytes of memory, to store the huge quantity of data produced with each step of the process. To run the calculations, he used a computer program called γ-cruncher developed by Alexander Yee that is available for free online.
Fancy algorithms
Yee developed γ-cruncher as a hobby when he was in high school, and now works for a hedge fund in Chicago. The software uses the Chudnovsky algorithm for calculating pi. It’s quite a complicated mathematical formula, but what really makes γ-cruncher useful is its ability to perform calculations with trillions of digits.
“Imagine trying to multiply two numbers that are a trillion digits long on a blackboard. It just wouldn’t work,” Yee says. “Instead, we need lots of fancy algorithms to streamline the calculations.”
This is not the first time γ-cruncher has broken pi world records, but previously Yee has played a role. “It was a complete surprise. Normally people run their setup past me first to check if things will run smoothly,” he says. “Peter just sent me an email one day saying that he had broken the world record.”
The final file containing the 22 trillion digits of pi is nearly 9 terabytes in size. If printed out, it would fill a library of several million books containing a thousand pages each.
Normal or not?
So what can we use all these extra digits for? Not much.
NASA only uses around 15 digits of pi in its calculations for sending rockets into space. To get an atom-precise measurement of the universe, you would only need around 40. So computing trillions of digits of pi is mostly about showing off computer power.
As pi is an irrational number – there are an infinite number of digits after the decimal point that never repeat – we will always be able to calculate new digits. Even though we have done this for trillions of digits of pi, we still aren’t sure if some digits appear more often than others.
If no digit of an irrational number appears more frequently than any other when written as a decimal, it is called “normal”. A lot people are interested in the normality of pi, but proving it either way is unlikely to have much real-world impact, says Wadim Zudilin at the University of Newcastle in Australia.
“We care more about pi itself, because it’s so famous, that solving another arithmetic mystery of this number is an attractive task,” he says.
With trillions of extra digits to play with, Trueb examined what the distribution looked like. “Each of the numbers from nought to nine appeared 10 per cent of the time, which is what you would expect if pi is normal,” says Trueb.
Settling the normality of pi for good can’t be done with calculations alone – it will require a mathematical proof. Twenty-two trillion digits might seem like a lot of good evidence, but compared with the infinitude of pi, it’s diddly squat.Harford Co. Jail Chaplain Charged In Sexual Assaults On Inmates
A grand jury on Tuesday indicted a Harford County sheriff's office chaplain, since terminated, for alleged assaults and sex offenses against inmates, the sheriff's office announced.
Rev. Kennis Andrew Rolle Sr., 59, of Middle River was assigned to the Harford County Detention Center and was suspended in March after the allegations were first made.
“We hold all agency members to the highest level of integrity," Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said in a statement. "I am deeply disappointed that someone who has been put in a position of confidence to assist people during vulnerable points of their lives, has violated that trust. This type of behavior will not be tolerated in this agency.”
Investigators say two women, ages 31 and 26, alleged that during scheduled and unscheduled counseling sessions in Rolle's office, he would touch them in unwelcome ways. These include unsolicited hugs, kisses on the forehead and cheek, playing with hair and touching of their buttocks on the outside of their clothing. The conduct allegedly happened in the fall of 2014 and again between December 2015 and February.
Rolle has been with the sheriff's office since September 2012. Rolle turned himself in without incident on Wednesday and was released on a $50,000 bond.Ringworm's mix of strait edged hardcore and thrash metal is a breath of fresh air. Like many Victory releases, 'Birth is Pain' seems to cross the line of death and melody many times - sometimes just in one song. Well, I have to say that this is not a great album, but it is worth the money. It is somewhat hard to describe the sound of this album, to me it seems like a cross between Snapcase and Slayer. This comparison might seem fairly rash (comparing Ringworm to a band like Slayer, come on), but the singer goes from a Daryl Taberski (Snapcase) type yell to a Tom Araya (Slayer) type scream. Though it might be a little different, but it is a very cool combination none the less. Though this album is not as "dark" or as "evil" as people have said about it, I can tell you one thing; this is pretty heavy (I mean, this is no Soilent Green or Dying Fetus, but it is pretty heavy for a hardcore record). I have to say that I enjoy the song structure; very grindcoreishe, short and strait to the point. The album itself is pretty short - clocking it at just under 27 minutes - but I feel that Ringworm gets their point across. For me, the songs are great for the most part. "Dollar Whore" and "Amputee" are two excellent tracks that really make this album stand out. The closer "Wallow" might not be an entire song, but it is fairly disturbing and is the perfect way to end an album such as 'Birth is Pain'. The reason it recieved four stars is simple; they need to finely tune their sound more. I can't wait for the next record, I am sure that they will have matured and will produce something a lot heavier and better than this (like Kittie with 'Spit' and 'Oracle'). But all in all, Ringworm's debut album 'Birth is Pain' symbolizes a new wave in hardcore, one that leads down the road to death. Adn believe me, that is a very good thing.The season that took Star Trek: The Next Generation from on-the-bubble failure to bona-fide success finally has come out on Blu-ray. And new Blu-ray means new factoids!
The best thing about long-running TV series is that there's a near-bottomless well of things to learn. With the season-three Blu-ray for Next Gen, we found ourselves mouths agape at all the things we didn't know. Now some of these 20 facts have been floating around in the ether a bit, but many were things fans get to find out for the first time. So if you're feeling too lazy to sift through all the extra features or just don't have the scratch to plunk down for a Blu-ray right now, we've taken the time to do the hard work for you.
Here, in no particular order, are 20 facts we found out about TNG from the season-three Blu-ray!Nokia files patent for a FOLDABLE battery that could see a new generation of paper-thin, collapsible phones
Nokia’s patent application, filed originally in March, is called ‘Battery Pack’
It describes a battery made of a series of cells that can be folded together
This battery could be made bigger or smaller depending on the handset
The technology could lead to super-thin handsets, or phones that collapse
While LG and Samsung promote their curved handsets with bendable displays, rival Nokia appears to have been silently working on the next stage in flexible technology.
A patent, originally filed in March, has come to light this week suggesting the Finnish firm is working on foldable batteries.
It describes a battery pack made up of ‘foldable cells’ that can curve and bend with the shape of a phone, as well as being capable of folding in on itself.
Nokia's patent describes a battery pack made up of 'foldable cells', pictured, that can curve and bend with the shape of a phone. The technology could also be capable of folding in on itself, meaning it fits into smaller, tighter spaces and is more suited to wearable technology, designed to move with a person's body
Aside from being bendy, the technology also has the benefit of being able to be made smaller.
This means it could fit into places within a phone’s circuit that other solid, and even bendable, batteries can’t.
This could lead to super-thin devices, or advancements in batteries used in wearable technology designed to curve and move with a person’s body.
According to Nokia’s patent: ‘Portable electronic devices are made with consistently smaller form factors.
‘Even though the internal components are becoming smaller and smaller, batteries generally lag behind other technological advancements, consistently consuming a large portion of the portable electronic device.
Nokia recently unveiled its Lumia 1520 phone, pictured left, and the Lumia 2520 tablet, pictured right. Based on the details filed in the patent, future Nokia devices could be curved, similar to LG's G Flex phone, be super-thin, or could fold in themselves
It continues that batteries tend to take on ‘rectangular box-type’ forms and this means phones have to be equally rectangular in shape to maximise the use of space.
‘In current portable electronic devices, to have a curved and aesthetically pleasing form factor, space is generally wasted between the battery and a case making the portable electronic device seem larger and a result may be less appealing,’ added Nokia.
‘Additionally, there may also be wasted space between the internal components and the case and/or between certain internal components.’
The technology behind the plans, including what the cells would be made of and how exactly they would fit together, was not fully explained in the patent.
LG's G Flex phone, pictured, was launched in October with a self-healing case. Japanese firm Natoco also makes a similar technology called Self Healing Cure. Natoco's coating is made from polymer-alloy
It is not the first battery capable of changing its shape, however. LG Chem, the research arm of the Korean phone maker LG, unveiled its curved battery design earlier this year.
LG Chem used thin strands of copper wire, coated with nickel-tin, which are then spun into a'metal yarn' and wrapped around a rod.
The rod is then removed, leaving a strong spring which can be tucked into tight and small spaces.
The team said: 'In our experiments we found that our prototype was exceptionally flexible and could suffer large strain without malfunction.'It’s common nowadays to encounter the insistent claim that “there are only two genders, male and female”. These simplistic and loud declarations resemble nothing more than a random interjection by a person who’s shouting for no clear reason. This is one of those instances where a statement manages to be as wrong as it is brief. Inaccuracy is compact like that – reality is detailed, and the more details you strip away, the further you get from reality.
Often, nonbinary or genderqueer trans people have been insultingly labeled “trans-trenders”, a vague term for a poorly specified group, so flexible that it can be used to justify targeting and attacking nearly anyone. Contrary to the accusation that their genders are somehow “not real”, genders beyond solely woman or solely man have existed and been recognized throughout the entirety of human history. Descriptions of additional genders exist among our earliest recorded texts – these genders beyond the alleged dichotomy have played an established role in various societies for millennia. This is not a recent phenomenon, and certainly most of the world’s history has not been one of social justice.
There is not a question of whether nonbinary genders are “real” – not only are they real, they have been and continue to be studied in cultures around the world, and these are not studies of nothingness. Today, the 2nd and 6th most populous countries in the world regard a third gender as a valid concept worthy of the official recognition of the law. Altogether, 1.5 billion people live in nations where the existence of such individuals is accepted within the fabric of civil society. These countries have found that the concept of a nonbinary gender and the existence of nonbinary people are real enough to be acknowledged and affirmed in this way. Consider that there may be real reasons why this concept has persisted throughout history. It is an observed phenomenon of gender, as real as transgender women or transgender men.
In defiance of this historical and modern reality, those who’ve decided to target nonbinary people substitute this with a heuristic of absurdity, comparing their genders to individuals who identify with cats or other animals and nonhuman entities. But absurdity heuristics are personal – the comparison with people who identify as cats has been wielded against nonbinary trans people, but it’s also been wielded against all trans people. There are those who find the idea of even binary-gendered trans people to be too ridiculous to acknowledge as real, on just as thin of a basis: a mere appeal to mockery, the product of attitudes which are inherently subjective and influenced by however much intolerance happens to be present in a society at any given time. And given that this is subjective, they could have just as easily chosen to orient themselves in the direction of not attacking anybody – binary trans people, nonbinary, otherkin, or anyone else.
One perverse twist in this rejection of nonbinary people’s genders is that this is often claimed to be necessary in order to defend or validate binary trans people’s genders. This division of supposedly “real” trans people from the “not real” has a lengthy history too, and it is not a positive one. For decades, trans women were told that if they were anything other than 100% straight, they weren’t genuine trans women at all. Straight trans women were deemed to be “real” trans people, and queer trans women were “not real”, accused of being merely cis men with some kind of sexual fetish. Trans people have been told how they have to feel about different parts of their bodies, told their gender must be expressed as a narrow social stereotype of femininity or masculinity, told they aren’t “real” women until they’ve had surgeries that simply aren’t within the means of most people, told exactly how they have to feel about who they are lest their very self be branded inauthentic. The imposition of these false dichotomies never led to a better world for people, and it certainly won’t start now.
What appears at first glance to be a clash between two opposing groups is in fact a manufactured conflict – one which never needed to exist and has no reason to. This is not a debate, a discussion, or anything resembling that structure of human interaction. It’s not a matter of competing evaluations of the world made in mutual good faith by two groups that simply have different perspectives based on their respective interpretations of a given phenomenon. It’s just a part of humanity simply trying to live their lives and develop a meaningful understanding of who they are. They put a name to something that matters to them, and they reach out in the hopes of finding others and helping those who may see themselves reflected in this. And then there’s another part of humanity offering no real critique – just attacking them for no reason, merely because they’re different. If you’re looking to spot an evil scheme in all this, who seems to be more deserving of that label?
It’s obvious that people have a very wide diversity of understandings of gender, what it is, and how it functions in society. There’s an abundance of different perspectives on this, and so many different personal experiences with it. Why would we ever think that these many varying understandings wouldn’t inform a person’s view on what their own gender can be? A nonbinary person’s gender was never an attack on anyone – it was never harassment or trolling or mockery on a mass scale. When I see people trying to describe their experience of gender, I don’t see deception or conspiracy. I see human reality.
But to uphold this false framing of two sides, nonbinary people must be depicted as having done something that would merit such an aggressive rejection. And so they’re accused of all manner of nonsensical social crimes, like having a gender solely for attention – a claim that’s invariably made by an unimaginative crowd of people who do these videos of trumped-up schoolyard teasing just to gain popularity among the populist right. They’ve been accused of wanting to appear to be oppressed, on the grounds that there’s somehow anything popular about being unpopular. They’re accused of pretending to be under attack, by those whose judgment is so astute that they feel the best response to this is to attack such a person en masse. They’ve been accused of being boring, by those who apparently think being boring is the way to get attention, and indeed find these individuals so boring that they can’t shut up about it. At the root of all this, they’re being attacked simply for the alleged infraction of thinking there could be something special about who they are.
“Special snowflake” used to mean something wonderful. It meant knowing that if something so small as a snowflake can be one-of-a-kind, then certainly we are too. It means that each of us has something unique and important to bring to our world – that a life, our life, is irreplaceable. I don’t understand how anyone could see that as something bad.
I’ve never considered nonbinary people to be any sort of threat to me as a trans woman – the very idea makes no sense. Nonbinary and genderqueer identities have been and continue to be deeply important in my life and my personal development. My partner Heather is agender. She’s an incredible person, and it’s a privilege to share my life with her. I could never look at her very self and pick away at it as if it were something inauthentic or hostile. I can’t see who she is as some kind of nefarious plot rather than a human being.
Understanding your gender can be complicated, because gender is complicated. Trans people who’ve spent years trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do with their gender should certainly understand this. The existence of and recognition of spaces beyond solely female and solely male is valuable to everyone. I considered myself to be genderqueer for several years before coming out as a trans woman, and having that room was immensely helpful to me. Expecting me to commit |
and Healer, which I’ve talked about before, and he hits pretty damn hard in melee. He’s a great helper, and he has Incap which furthers our goal. Finally, I went with Shang-Chi, pretty much for one reason: The Quinjet. If you roll well enough, this guy can solo any character in the game, and the big, bad jet has a tremendous amount of clicks. I feel this is the place you could sub in any ID card you wanted, maybe with Green Arrow or Hawkeye for some Ultron Drone killers. The choice is yours and ID cards are pretty fluid since you can pick what you want based on what you expect to play against.
Is this team perfect? Probably pretty far from it, but it’s a start. I’d really love to see The Joker with the Supreme Intelligence make an appearance in the next round of the WizKids open. If you can find a way to stop your opponent from burning time, it’s a pretty nasty combination of pieces.
Do you have a specific idea for this piece? I’d love to hear it! I’m still waiting to get mine and I seriously cannot wait to experiment with him. Perhaps I’ll do another article at some point that focuses on non-competitive builds with him. I mean, he kind of screams competitive, but I don’t see why it couldn’t work.
I’ll see you guys next week!
AdvertisementsThe number of confirmed cases of dengue fever on the Big Island increased to 56, the Department of Health said Monday.
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The number of confirmed cases of dengue fever on the Big Island increased to 56, the Department of Health said Monday.
Of the confirmed cases, 46 are Big Island residents and 10 are visitors. Fifteen of the cases have been children younger than age 18. The last onset of illness occurred Nov. 7.
Just one imported dengue fever case has been confirmed on Oahu, and the case was determined not to be associated with the Hawaii Island outbreak.
Dengue fever is a viral illness spread through the bite of mosquitoes. The disease, which does not spread from person to person, occurs mainly in tropical Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. It is most common during the rainy season in areas infested with infected mosquitoes, according to the state DOH.
The World Health Organization estimates that 50 million to 100 million infections occur yearly and 22,000 deaths, mostly among children.
Symptoms of dengue fever usually start within six days, but can take up to 15 days to appear. They include sudden onset of fever, severe headache, eye, joint, and muscle pain, and a rash that typically appears on the hands, arms, legs and feet within four days of the onset of a fever. These symptoms usually go away within two weeks without medical treatment.
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There is no specific treatment for dengue fever, according to the state. Simple bed rest and acetaminophen to treat fever and pain are recommended. Drugs that can cause bleeding problems, like ibuprofen and naproxen, are not advised.
To report a suspect case, call 322-4877 in West Hawaii and 933-0912 in Wast Hawaii. To report mosquito concerns, call 322-1513 in West Hawaii and 974-6010 in East Hawaii.By Peter Turchin
This is the fourth and last installment in this series. To tell the truth, I will be glad to be done with it because shooting rampages is an inherently depressing subject, in more ways than one. However, it is also an important one. Today I need to review the alternative explanations of the pattern I documented in the previous installments.
First, a recap. I have argued that indiscriminate mass murder (IMM) has been seriously misinterpreted. It is not just another type of crime, but a form of political violence. More precisely, suicide terrorism. It is not motiveless. But the motive is not to kill a specific person, or persons, but to strike at a social group, at an institution, or at the society as a whole. ‘In-discriminant’ is the key word coding for the Principle of Social Substitution.
Rage is a common, perhaps universal component of the motivation leading to an IMM attack. We still don’t know what motivated Adam Lanza to commit this horrible act, but we know that he was driven by rage. The six-year old girl, who survived the massacre by playing dead, described the shooter to her mother “as a very angry man.”
The rampage shooters see themselves as moralistic punishers striking against deep injustice. In a perceptive opinion at New York Times, Adam Lankford writes, “we should think of many rampage shooters as non-ideological suicide terrorists” (I would remove ‘non-ideological’ because many such killers in my database were ideologically motivated). He then points out that a common factor in both rampage shooters and suicide terrorists is “a deep sense of victimization and belief that the killer’s life has been ruined by someone else, who has bullied, oppressed or persecuted him.” I would add that this ‘someone else’ does not need to be a person (a point that Lankford acknowledges elsewhere in his opinion). In fact in the case of IMM (with an emphasis on the I), it is usually a group, an organization, an institution, or the whole society that are held responsible by the killer.
I further argue that the frequency of IMM depends, in the first place, on environmental conditions. As the degree of cooperation in the American society declined over the last four decades, and the degree of intra-societal competition rose, increasingly large numbers of susceptible individuals were victimized, bullied, and oppressed, and a certain (very small) fraction of them chose to become mass murderers to avenge such injustice.
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The fundamental forces underlying this environmental change have been two structural-demographic trends – widespread impoverishment and elite overproduction (see my article on the Conversation). The first was correlated with the deterioration of working conditions, the second with the growing social pressures on the campus, which is why the two most common settings for shooting rampages are the workplace and the schoolyard. Overall, as the level of cooperation within the society decreased, social competition, political polarization, the dog-eat-dog economic climate, and the general level of nastiness increased (see my blog on this topic).
As I am quite sure that some will willfully misread what I am saying, I want to add that while an environmental change may explain why the frequency of IMM increases, it does in no way excuse them. Mass murder is a horribly inappropriate response to even those situations when injustice is real. Mass murderers are insane, evil, or both.
Now that I have summarized my explanation, let us consider alternatives.
Guns
I don’t think that anybody seriously contends that the reason why IMMs are increasing is due to changing patterns of gun ownership. The evidence is overwhelmingly against this explanation. During the last couple of decades a series of laws have been passed that impose more and more restrictions on the purchase of powerful firearms. Partly as a result of these laws, but probably having to do more with cultural change, the proportion of Americans who own guns have been steadily declining. Here is a graph from a recent New York Times article:
As we can see, gun ownership rates have been declining across the political spectrum, although naturally the Republicans lagged behind the Democrats. Since the trend in the firearms runs counter to the trend in the frequency of IMM, it does not help to explain why the latter have been increasing.
This doesn’t mean that the proposed measures of gun control will be ineffective in reducing IMMs. It seems quite possible to me that if we were to ban all firearms completely, then there will be fewer IMMs. It won’t change the underlying environmental change that explains the motivations of potential rampagers, but it will surely reduce their ability to inflict damage on the society. In the absence of guns they will have to turn other means of inflicting casualties – constructing bombs, using knives, axes, bows and arrows, cars, and planes. But all those methods of inflicting mass homicide have problems – they are more easily detected by the police, or they inflict lower casualties. So in the absence of guns it stands to reason that a higher proportion of killers contemplating IMM will be arrested before they commit murder, or if they go on rampage, kill fewer people, or even choose to just kill themselves (perhaps in the form of ‘suicide by-cop’) instead of committing murder-suicide. Overall, while these measures will not address the conditions causing the increase in IMM, they will surely reduce the number of innocent people killed.
Mental disease
This is one of the most common explanations for the increased incidence of IMM. Here’s an article by Clayton Cramer that lays out the logic in a very clear way (thanks to the reader lrb for supplying me with this link).
Cramer says, “At least half of these mass murderers (as well as many other murderers) have histories of mental illness.” The problem with this statement is that it either goes too far, or not far enough.
It does not go far enough because can you imagine yourself shooting in the face a man or a woman who is begging you for mercy? Killing your mother? Shooting a six-year old with an assault rifle 11 times? Things that indiscriminant mass murderers do go way beyond the pale, as far as normal human beings are concerned. The overwhelming majority of humans are incapable of treating other human beings in this way. Perhaps only 2 or 3 percent of human beings are ‘sociopaths’ who lack such inhibitions and to whom killing another person is no more stressful than stepping on a cockroach. The Army recruits their best snipers from this small minority.
On the other hand, Cramer goes too far because there are literally millions of people in the US who suffer from some kind of mental problem (“in the early 1980s, there were about two million chronically mentally ill people in the United States”). Nevertheless, only a tiny minority of them commit mass murder. In the retrospect, we say – aha! – Adam Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. This explains why he murdered 27 people including 20 children and then committed suicide.
It actually explains nothing. This is the first time I heard of Asperger’s syndrome, and I had to look it up. It turns out that it’s a mild form of autism, and apparently there is no connection between this condition and an increased propensity for violence. Check out the New York Times opinion by Priscilla Gilman, Don’t Blame Autism for Newtown for more details.
If it could be shown that the number of mentally ill people increased in parallel with the frequency of IMM, that would indeed be a viable alternative explanation. Many, including Cramer, point to the shift in the treatment of mentally ill during the Reagan administration. But the curve of IMM incidence doesn’t show a threshold-type behavior we would expect, if this were the primary cause.
As my fellow editor Mike Hochberg pointed out, where are the data? Can somebody show me how the numbers of chronically mentally in the US changed over the last four decades?
Furthermore, Cramer points to the observation that the homicide rate in the US declined during the 1990s, and that it coincided with the so-called “incarceration revolution.” The implication, as I understand, is that a lot of criminally insane were locked up and the result was decreasing murder rates. Fine, but the incidence of IMMs actually accelerated during the 1990s.
More generally the divergent trends between homicides and IMMs presents a serious difficulty to any alternative explanation. If IMMs are simply another type of homicide, why did the overall murder rate declined, starting in the 1990s, while IMMs kept on trending up?
It gets even more interesting. According to Grant Duwe, who specializes on the study of mass murder, and whose work I have already referred to earlier, they actually declined after 2000:
Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century. (from here)
Note that there is no contradiction between Duwe’s data and mine because we use different criteria and thus count different types of events. Duwe counts any murder that caused 4 or more fatalities, including criminal and family disputes, while my primary criterion is indiscriminancy, meaning the application of the social substitutability principle, and at least one fatality.
But the divergent trends between homicides and IMMs are a serious problem for any alternative explanation. It is not a problem for the structural-demographic model because it posits that homicides (crime) and political violence are distinct conceptual categories, and it is not necessary for them to move together. While they share some of the causal factors, other drivers are different. In historical data for the societies that I studied homicide rates and political violence rates do not necessarily move in parallel. Whatever reasons caused the homicide rate to decline in the 1990s, the structural-demographic processes of popular immiseration and elite overproduction have continued to trend up, and so we expect that political violence should have also gone up (which it did).
Cultural contagion
I have already discussed this alternative explanation in my response to Bryan Vila, but let’s recapitulate the main points here.
1. I agree that the media coverage plays a role in the epidemic of IMM. However, this mechanism works together with the structural-demographic explanation. It is not an alternative hypothesis. In my analogy with a forest fire, structural-demographic conditions tell us whether there is enough flammable material, while cultural contagion mechanism explains how a spark that falls on the flammable material develops into a conflagration. Both are needed.
2. Cultural mechanisms are particularly important in determining how forms of political protest and political violence are ritualized. Which forms become part of the cultural repertoire of any particular social group. So when a Tibetan monk wants to protest oppression and injustice he goes to a public place and sets himself on fire. When an Arabic youth wants to do the same she straps on a suicide belt, goes to a public place, and blows up herself and whoever is nearby. When an American wants to do the same, he arms himself to the teeth, goes to a public place, and murders as many people as he can shoot until he is killed by the police.
Does economic reasoning explain acts of madness?
Finally, I return to this objection to my original Freakonomics post (see it in the first installment): “Also, [Turchin] tried to explain acts of madness using economic reasoning, which, again, is not that convincing to me.”
By this point it should be clear that I certainly do not explain IMM incidence by any kind of rational choice mechanism, which includes economic reasons. Murder-suicides are quintessentially irrational acts. As I explained earlier in this post, economic conditions, however, can change the environment in ways that may elicit more, or fewer such acts.
It is ironic that my critic posted his disagreement in the Fall of 2008, before it was widely appreciated how serious the Great Recession was going to be. This severe economic downturn, then, can serve as a natural experiment testing the hypothesis that worsening economic conditions should result in an increased incidence of IMMs.
Here’s what the data say:
As we can see, the incidence of IMM tends to jump during years when male unemployment grows. In 2009, which was probably the worst year of the Great Recession, there were 21 rampages – more than during the entire two decades of the 1950s and 1960s (16 rampages).
Originally Published on December 15, 2012 here.We’ve all been there.
You’re out seeing one of your favorite bands perform live. The mood is jovial and everyone is having a great time. You think nothing could possibly bring you down when—suddenly—the audience begins clapping on the 1 and 3.
It’s easy to feel helpless in this sort of situation. It’s easy to feel trapped. It’s easy to abandon your faith in humanity and curse the gods for having ever afflicted the world with music in the first place.
Fear not.
Fortunately for all of us, there are people like Harry Connick Jr. The renowned New Orleans jazz singer and pianist is not the kind of person who will let himself become a victim when the crowd begins clapping off beat.
No, Harry Connick Jr. does not throw up his hands and surrender to a lack of rhythm. Harry Connick Jr. rolls up his sleeves and gets to work solving the problem.
Case in point: this video of his performance for a rhythmically-challenged French audience.
While knocking out a rendition of his 1999 tune “Come By Me,” Connick puts his crowd on the right track by heroically adding an extra beat to one of the song’s measures. The clueless onlookers have no idea what hit them, but at least one member of his band is enthused by the move (you can see him raise his arms triumphantly in the background).
The whole thing goes down around the 0:38 mark. Check it out.Over the last century, the explosion of the human population has been accompanied by the growth of cities worldwide. The increased presence of large cities presents unique global challenges regarding environmental sustainability.
Megacities, those containing more than 10 million people, are the largest metropolitan complexes in the world. There were only eight of them in 1970, but there are now 27. Megacities are often perceived as having high levels of poverty and pollution, but the category also contains some of the wealthiest cities in the world. They are viewed as prime candidates for the generation of innovative, sustainable solutions to reduce global environmental burdens.
Recently, a team of scientists quantified the energy and material flows that power the world’s 27 megacities using their 2010 populations. This study was focused on understanding the use of energy, water, concrete, steel, and waste, as its authors tried to quantify the economic and physical characteristics that influence resource flows at multiple scales.
For context, the 27 megacities had a combined population of 460 million in 2010, equal to 6.7 percent of the global population. But they had a gross domestic product of 14.6 percent, substantially above what you'd expect from their population alone.
The cities' water consumption was lower than the population would lead you to believe, at only 3.0 percent of global usage. Total water consumption is highest in New York (10.9 million MegaLiters), which was followed by Guangzhou (9.8 million ML), Shanghai (9.75 million ML), and Los Angeles (6.2 million ML). In other megacities, water use ranges from 0.28 million ML in Jakarta to 4.19 million ML in Tokyo.
For most types of energy, usage was consistent with scaling laws observed for cities over a wide range of populations. Megacities consume 26,347 PetaJoules, which is 6.7 percent of the global energy use—roughly in line with the percentage of the global population that lives there. Megacities consume 9.3 percent of global electricity and 9.9 percent of global gasoline. Annual energy consumption in megacities for 2011 ranged from ~78 PJ for Kolkata to ~2,824 PJ for the New York Metropolitan Area.
Megacities account for 12.6 percent of the total global waste production, a number in line with their percentage of the global GDP. The higher economic activity in larger cities results in high quantities of goods and materials that eventually leave the city as wastes. New York has the highest solid waste production in both absolute and per capita terms.
The scientists were also able to gain some understanding of factors that underlie the energy and material flows through megacities. Scientists found per capita electricity use in megacities to be significantly correlated with urbanized area per capita. The team suspects that lower-density megacities like LA and New York have greater building floor space per capital, resulting in higher electricity consumption for lighting and other building applications. (Microscale analysis demonstrates that electricity is strongly correlated with building floor area.)
The rapid growth exhibited by megacities makes accessing resources a challenge. More than half of the 27 megacities grew by more than 10 percent over the 10 year period ending in 2011. Resource flows for many of the megacities grew faster than the rates of population growth. Six megacities exhibited a doubling of electricity consumption over that decade; nine others exhibited an increase in electricity usage that was more than three times the rise in population. Analysis also revealed that growth in electricity use and transportation fuel use are significantly correlated with growth in GDP, while water use and solid waste production are not.
Clearly these 27 megacities represent a large percentage of the global resource use. While the rapid growth in population may stress city resources, there is a clear need to develop sustainable solutions in the megacities.
PNAS, 2015. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1504315112 (About DOIs).State-owned Chinese companies will cease to work with US consulting companies like McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group over fears they are spying on behalf of the US government.
US consulting companies McKinsey, BCG, Bain & Company, and Strategy&, formerly Booz & Co., will all be snubbed by state-owned Chinese companies, the Financial Times reported, citing sources close to senior Chinese leaders.
“The top leadership has proposed setting up a team of Chinese domestic consultants who are particularly focused on information systems in order to seize back this power from the foreign companies,” a senior policy adviser to the Chinese leadership was quoted by the FT as saying.
“Right now the foreigners use their consulting companies to find out everything they want about our state companies,” the adviser said.
McKinsey is the largest global consulting group operating in China, and about one-third of clients are state-owned enterprises. McKinsey has 650 employees in China.
Last Thursday China announced that all foreign companies would have to undergo a new security test. Any company, product or service that fails will be banned from China. The inspection will be conducted across all sectors - communications, finance, and energy.
China has already banned Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system from government computers, according to Chinese state media agency Xinhua.
“Under President Xi Jinping, technology and implementation will look to be converging, so foreign tech firms should be very worried about their prospects,” Bill Bishop, an independent consultant based in Beijing, told the FT.
Chinese officials have said that government ministries, companies, universities, and telecoms networks are victims of US hacking, and will try to avoid using US technology in order to protect “public interest”.
The dictate follows the US Justice Department’s indictment of five Chinese military officers it suspects of committing cyber crimes against a number of major US companies, including US Steel, Westinghouse and Alcoa. The US accused the army officers of stealing trade secrets and even published their photos.
Beijing responded by calling the US a ‘robber playing cop’, and more recently said the US is a “mincing rascal” and involved in “high-level hooliganism”.
The US-China fallout came after revelations made by NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the US uses economic cyber espionage to spy on international competitors, including China.
The dispute is only the latest setback in relations between the world’s two largest economies. Issues like Ukraine, Syria, and North Korea have been divisive topics between the two superpowers.A few months ago, I flicked a fag in the street. Should’t’ve. Was daft. Got caught. Written out one of them £80 fines.
Couple of weeks later, a letter comes through saying that I can either pay the fine (boo) or attend a ‘Fine or Time’ event. The letter strongly urges that i take part in the event, and explains that it’s 3 hours of picking up litter.
Through about 20% wanting to write about it, 10% civic mindedness, and 70% I’m-not-paying-eighty-quid-for-flicking-a-fag, I went along to the event yesterday.
It was actually not bad; the time passed fairly quickly and everyone seemed to be there for the same thing. It was a nice day; sun was out. We met outside the Jury’s Inn in town, and I knew these were my people as I saw them all smoking as we waited, making a point to go and put their fag out on top of the bin.
The facilitator was jovial, letting us all know that we could choose to see it as a punishment or an opportunity. He handed out gloves, litterpicks, high vis vests and binbags. And suncream, which I thought was weird, but I’m sunburnt now so aye. We got on our way, working in a circle of about four miles, spreading out across the pavement with our litterpicks. I’m pretty handy with one now; picking up dowts with them is an art. Nobody really complained; I think we all understood why we were there.
We covered quite a large area, and made it a bit cleaner. But if we’d stayed on the first street, the dozen of us wouldn’t have removed all the litter. It all felt a bit futile and depressing. There was no point putting the road signs, pieces of wood and glass in our bags, we were told, as they’d burst them and possibly injure us.
But it’s amazing the sheer amount of rubbish in such a small part of Glasgow. There were some areas where we had to just give up; we stood picking up rubbish from massive piles for a while, before being asked to move on by the facilitators.
I asked the guy what the point was; what was the actual point if we couldn’t properly clean it up? Wasn’t there anything more useful to do? He explained that that wasn’t important – it made it look a little bit better, for a little while, which was better than nothing. He told me we could spend all day on one street and make it look immaculate… but then it would be the same later that week – if not that day.
To be honest, I feel like the short term cleaning up the streets isn’t the goal in this scheme. During the process, we all got talking about litter, and were disgusted by the stuff we found. Maybe this scheme’s making people more mindful of their environment, and making them think twice about dropping stuff.
The organiser told us about the attitudes of children that came along on litter picks, how they changed so quickly to chide others for dropping litter. He also told us that quite a few people had been to one of these events and then came back to volunteer.
Whether or not this scheme is making a tangible, short term difference in the amount of litter in the city, it felt like it was making a long term difference in the minds of everyone taking part.
I’ve just ordered one of those wee disposable ashtrays on Amazon…
AdvertisementsUPDATE 5:46 p.m. EST: The Clementi family's lawyer, Paul Minardi, has released a statement confirming that Tyler committed suicide:
"Tyler was a fine young man, and a distinguished musician. The family is heartbroken beyond words. They respectfully request that they be given time to grieve their great loss and that their privacy at this painful time be respected by all," he said, according to ABC.
ABC also reports that Clementi posted an update to his Facebook page on Sept. 22 at 8:42 p.m. that read "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."
A Facebook page in memory of Clementi has more than 450 supporters as of this update.
**Scroll down for video report**
A Rutgers University freshman is believed to have taken his own life last week shortly after he was broadcast engaging in sexual activity with another man.
According to WPIX, officials believe the student, who the New York Daily News has identified as 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, jumped from the George Washington Bridge last week. His car was found nearby with his computer and cell phone inside.
WPIX reports that the Clementi's alleged roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another first-year student, Molly Wei, were charged with invasion of privacy for secretly leaving a camera in his bedroom on Sept. 19 and posting footage of an ensuing sexual encounter on the internet.
In New Jersey, it is a fourth-degree crime to collect images showing sexual content or nudity without the subject's consent, and it is a third-degree crime to transmit the relevant content.
Ravi and Wei, both 18, have been charged with two counts of invasion of privacy for the events that transpired on Sept. 19; Ravi received two more for attempting to record another of the Clementi's encounters on Sept. 21.
According to Student Activism, Ravi allegedly posted to Twitter about taping Clementi's sexual encounter: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay." Two days later, Ravi tweeted: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."(Gawker has the screenshots of Ravi's Twitter feed, which has since been deleted.)
Ravi and Wei have both been released from police custody, Ravi on $25,000 bail and Wei on her own recognizance. According to the Star-Ledger, Rutgers officials are likely to take disciplinary action against the students. As Rutgers spokeswoman Sandra Lanman said, "The university takes these matters seriously and has policies to deal with student behavior."
If convicted for third degree offenses, the Ravi and Wei could face up to five years in prison. Neither gave comment to news sources who contacted them.
WATCH: WPIX reportAmid my frequent worrying that the rise of the YouTuber means I’m going to starve to death in a couple of years’ time, I take occasional solace that there’s one aspect of games that even those new frontier-folk can’t replicate the experience of either – VR with a game that truly suits it, which in this particular case is Elite: Dangerous. Words or videos cannot describe it, but so help me I’ll give it a shot anyway.
I have a love/mild disdain relationship with the Oculus Rift, a first-gen version of which I’ve had sat around for some time but very rarely use. Whenever I do rig it up – which involves far too many trailing cables, and that’s part of the problem – I will then spend a short while marvelling at the first couple of minutes of whatever I’m playing with it. Ooh! *Gazes*. Wow! *Cranes neck in all direction*. Incroyable! *Moves head in slow figure-8 pattern*. Then I’ll try to actually play the game and it all goes horribly wrong.
Most of that’s down to the ultra-low resolution of this initial model meaning text is unreadable unless it’s typed a mile high. Some of it is because very few games have full, official support for the headset, so their interfaces and menus precariously dangle somewhere at the furthest edge of my over-exerted peripheral vision. A lot of it is because successfully using a keyboard or gamepad when you’ve got a piece of black plastic strapped to your eyes is about as easy changing a tyre during a total eclipse.
Even so: those first few minutes. ‘Immersion’ is a bit of a dirty word to me, because it’s a term that’s been much-abused by marketing people over the years, squandered on anything from “ludicrously long and involved storyline about nothing” to “really big explosions” to “but look, you can see your own legs!” Perhaps the fight to reclaim to it, to make it once again mean “I really do feel as though I have been transported to another place and now exist within it, at least until I realise I’ve lost track of where my hands are on the keyboard so I’m going to have to take these damn goggles off”, can begin here.
Let me stop moaning and get back to the wonder of modern VR. I’ve never written about it before because I’m not sure how to. Yeah, there’s all the practical stuff, about wires and artificial blindness and discombobulated menus, but the part that matters, the part that’s about my brain saying “wow wow wow” in a hundred different wordless ways, how do I that? How does one of those charismatic YouTubers who’re inadvertently destroying my hopes of a stable career do it either? Well, probably by actually saying “wow wow wow” in an engagingly sonorous tone, but even so: we’re in the realm of the purely sensory and first-hand experience is the only way to get any true sense of what it’s like.
My case in point today: finally getting around to rigging up the Rift with Elite: Dangerous, as part of my impending forays into its ‘Premium Beta.’ It took some fiddling, because it always does (and this remains the major reason I struggle to see this tech ever going mainstream, regardless of how many Zuckerbucks are ploughed into it), but once that was done, I found myself sat in space. Sat in space. Low-resolution space with a distracting visible pixel grid, yes, but space. Star-speckled, inky-black enormity above and around me, the soft hum and twinkling lights of a ship’s cockpit below and also around.
The game even rendered a body – arms, torso, legs – which seemed to connect to my own neck at just the right point, and while they were not my own hands I saw twitch around the throttle or toy with the rudder, they did feel a part of me. I knew I could do what they were doing, I knew that they would react to and replicate my pushing forwards on the thrust or yawing the stick to the left. A gap between man and machine was bridged, at least in part and at least for a time. And all I did for a good fifteen minutes was sit there, beneath the stars – in the stars – and look around. Living the smallest part of a dream humanity has always had: to be up there, to leave land behind, to feel like part of the infinite.
See? You see? I am trying to describe the indescribable, and all I can manage is cloying purple prose. The Rift/extremely pretty space game combo is doing something to my senses that I haven’t experienced before, and I don’t know how words or video can possibly convey that.
In any case, the spell was broken the first time I tried to target something. Oh, it’s a lovely thing to simply turn my head down and left and see the targeting menu pop up in a gold-orange hologram shimmer, such a natural gesture and such an improvement upon the non-VR version of the game’s protracted button combo. A split-second after that though, suddenly I’m squinting to read the text, squinting to see where my selected target is on the mini-map, and most of all crushingly aware that I’m in a videogame, wearing something that makes me look like I’m doing budget Daft Punk cosplay, and battling the rising urge to wrench the thing off and just get on with playing the game and shooting some spaceships without complication.
Instead I gritted my teeth, squeezed my eyes into ferocious shapes until I could make out words that might be ‘Request Docking’, and proceeded towards the vast, rotating hexagon that was the nearest space station. My problems faded away as I made the approach, this majestic collision of nature unbound and humanity’s greatest technological vision (or at least a vision of that vision). Part of its great effect simply boils down that I’m moving my head as though I’m moving in space, which is a profoundly different thing to pulling a mouse of stick and making space move across a screen, but it’s coupled with the Rift’s total takeover of peripheral vision. A lot of it, too, is that Elite: Dangerous is a game which has clearly decided “let’s get the feeling of being in space right before we shovel feature after feature into this thing.” It looks right. It moves right. It sounds incredible, which is a big part of why it feels incredible.
In and around the space stations, “looming” is the only appropriate word, but it doesn’t begin to convey the enormity. What my eyes saw and believed was an impeccable science fiction fantasy: what anyone else walking into the room would have seen was a man with a box strapped to his head, holding what looked like a toy machine gun sawn in two in his hands, mouth gaping, head yawing wildly, completely lost to something that wasn’t there.
I feel no shame. Whatever I looked like, I was having an incredible journey to another universe, and that seems more important than a passer-by thinking I looked like a right dildo.
Yeah, I know, they should have sent a poet. And yeah, c’mon, you knew full well that quote was coming at some point.
There is, sadly, no way I am going to play an even remotely substantial part of Elite Dangerous while wearing an Oculus Rift, or at least not this version of the Oculus Rift, because although I’ll have these magical moments, I just won’t get anywhere. I can’t fight like this, I can’t know where I’m travelling to like this. It’s a song that begins beautifully, breathtakingly, but descends into atonal clanging after the first verse. The goggles, they do something, but not quite enough.
It will improve, hopefully when that second-gen headset is released, and though I retain many doubts about whether the Rift can be fleshed out to find mainstream acceptance or suitability for most games, I do suspect Elite will prove to be its first milestone game. It’s recreating something so specific and so otherwise impossible – something that is really part and parcel of what this game is trying to do, rather than just an additive gimmick.
More from Elite Dangerous – this time goggle-free – very soon.It has been thoroughly documented that the best video game released over the past year was Splatoon. It combines all of the elements of a great game (squids, kids, famous pop stars doing the news broadcast every few hours, a cat, choices in attire) and lets you ink turf and/or other inklings. If you haven't played it already, you probably stopped reading this to go get one for your WiiU.
A sign of a really great, well-thought out gift is one that you probably would have bought for yourself at some other time of the year. My Santa did just that, and I couldn't be happier! The pillow I received from my Santa is a wonderful addition to my own personal Bo |
you see the IP address (192.168.59.103) of the Virtual BOX VM where docker is actually creating and spawning containers.It was very easy to create the cluster because if you will notice all the images were already available on docker registry the only thing I had to do was to link them together via fig utility.
From the directory where fig.yml is located issues the command below to start and stop the containers.
fig start fig stop 1 2 fig start fig stop
Make sure you have Apache Storm installed locally and path is set.On my machine it looks like this.
export STORM_HOME=/Users/ahenrick/storm export PATH=$PATH:$STORM_HOME/bin 1 2 export STORM_HOME = / Users / ahenrick / storm export PATH = $ PATH : $ STORM_HOME / bin
Update IP address of nimbus host to point to docker IP where your nimbus host is running in storm.yaml.
vi ~/.storm/storm.yaml ## Update the nimbus host property like below. nimbus.host: "192.168.59.103" 1 2 3 vi ~ /. storm / storm. yaml ## Update the nimbus host property like below. nimbus. host : "192.168.59.103"
Important steps must be followed diligently.
1. Download source code from github, compile and start storm cluster.
git clone git@github.com:alvinhenrick/log-kafka-storm.git cd log-kafka-storm mvn clean install fig up 1 2 3 4 git clone git @ github. com : alvinhenrick / log - kafka - storm. git cd log - kafka - storm mvn clean install fig up
2. Open browser and go to these URL’s to confirm the Cluster is running.
Supervisor Log ==> http://192.168.59.103:8000/log?file=supervisor.log
Storm UI ==> http://192.168.59.103:8080/index.html
Openfire XMPP ==> http://192.168.59.103:9090/
3. Create Kafka Topic.The topic name is log-analysis.
#Open the new terminal and change directory to log-kafka-storm project../start-kafka-shell.sh # At the prompt enter this command to create topic. $KAFKA_HOME/bin/kafka-topics.sh --create --topic log-analysis --partitions 2 --zookeeper $ZK_PORT_2181_TCP_ADDR --replication-factor 1 1 2 3 4 #Open the new terminal and change directory to log-kafka-storm project.. / start - kafka - shell. sh # At the prompt enter this command to create topic. $ KAFKA_HOME / bin / kafka - topics. sh -- create -- topic log - analysis -- partitions 2 -- zookeeper $ ZK_PORT_2181_TCP_ADDR -- replication - factor 1
4. Setup Openfire XMPP Server and create users.Below is the slide show which guides through the process of setting up the server.The http URL is provided above to access XMPP server.
Create user admin set password as admin.
Create user storm set password as storm.
Create user ahenrick set password as ahenrick.
The application uses storm user to send notification to ahenrick.Download and install Openfire Spark IM Client.
Login with hostname 192.168.59.103 username ahenrick and password ahenrick.See screenshot below
5.Deploy the Topology to Cluster.
#Open the new terminal and change directory to log-kafka-storm project. storm jar./target/log-kafka-storm-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar com.log.kafka.storm.topology.LogAnalysisTopology 192.168.59.103 log-analysis-topology 1 2 #Open the new terminal and change directory to log-kafka-storm project. storm jar. / target / log - kafka - storm - 1.0 - SNAPSHOT - jar - with - dependencies. jar com. log. kafka. storm. topology. LogAnalysisTopology 192.168.59.103 log - analysis - topology
6.Download source code, build and run application to publish log messages to Kafka broker via logback Kafka Appender implementation.
git clone git@github.com:alvinhenrick/kafka-log-appender.git mvn clean install #Open the project in your favorite editor. Run the main class com.log.kafka.RogueApplication 1 2 3 4 git clone git @ github. com : alvinhenrick / kafka - log - appender. git mvn clean install #Open the project in your favorite editor. Run the main class com. log. kafka. RogueApplication
7.Verify the notification received in Openfire Spark IM.See screenshot below.
The topology deployed is performing following task :
Receive and parse the raw JSON log event data via Kafka Spout.
Extract and emit necessary fields via Trident API functions.
Update an exponentially-weighted moving average function.
Determine if the moving average has crossed a specified threshold.
Filter out events that do not represent a state change (for example, rate moved above/below threshold).
Send an instant message (XMPP) notification.
Here is the diagram for the topology implemented.
NOTE : If you are not running Docker on Mac OS via boot2docker and directly working on Linux machine please change the IP address to point localhost where ever you see 192.168.59.103.
Enjoy Reading!!!FILE - In this file photo made Friday, Dec. 18, 2015, Mansfield Lake Ridge running back Joseph Rowe (44) is tackled by Richmond George Ranch's Toby Ndukwe (40) and Myles Thompson (22) during the Texas UIL 5A Division I state high school championship football game in Houston. Texas is set to launch what state officials call the nation's largest effort to track brain injuries among youth and high school athletes, and hopes to use the data to gauge where rules and equipment changes are improving player safety. (AP Photo/Bob Levey, File) The Associated Press
By JIM VERTUNO, AP Sports Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — This week, Texas will launch what state officials say is the nation's largest effort to track brain injuries among young athletes.
The University Interscholastic League, Texas' governing body for public high school sports, is partnering with the O'Donnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center for the project, from which they hope to gauge whether rules or equipment changes are improving player safety and what more can be done to protect athletes.
A state as large as Texas, which has more than 800,000 public high school athletes, would be a key step in developing a national database of brain injuries in youths, officials say. Already, the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention is seeking federal funding for such a database.
"Until we understand what the frequency of concussions is across the state, or a region of the state, we can't determine when rule changes, equipment changes or things like recovery programs are really being effective," said Dr. Munro Cullum, a professor of psychiatry, neurology and neurotherapeutics who will lead the study.
All 50 states in recent years have passed rules or laws to address concussions in youth athletics from research to protocols for identifying concussions and setting rules for return to play. The CDC has estimated that up to 3.8 million concussions occur in sports and recreational activities each year, but some experts wonder if those numbers underestimate total brain injuries, as some individuals may not seek treatment for mild or moderate symptoms.
The Texas program will track about two-dozen sports, from football to girls' soccer, recording what caused an injury, recovery time and other data.
Other states have researched head injuries, too.
In Michigan, which requires schools to report concussions, a recent concussion study showed 755 schools reported 4,452 head injuries in the 2015-2016 school year. Football had the most— 1,907 — and girls' basketball ranked No. 2 with 454.
It tracked details such as whether the injury occurred in practice or a game, whether the athlete had to miss class and how long it took them to return to competition. That research is being shared with Michigan State University's Institute for the Study of Youth Sports.
The Texas study will collect more concussion data than it has before, University Interscholastic League deputy director Jamey Harrison said. Currently, Texas requires only one school from each district report concussions as part of a weekly injury reporting system, though each school in the football playoffs is required to report concussions.
"Right now it's a sample that is just a snapshot. It's not scientific," Harrison said. "We need to move beyond that."Debapriya Chatterjee, the niece of Mayor of Kolkata Sovan Chatterjee, has been accused of breaking traffic rules and assaulting a policeman on duty when she was stopped. But she's now got an unexpected supporter: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
According to reports, on the night of 22 May, Chatterjee's car first jumped a signal and hit a pedestrian, and later in the night struck a divider.
The Telegraph quotes the police official who had accosted her as saying, "She pushed me and said, 'Who are you to stop me?' She said she would get me fired and took away my pocketbook... I told her she couldn't take the notebook since I was on duty but she said she was the mayor's niece."
After the second incident the police had to detain Chatterjee and her friends and lodged a complaint against her.
The Indian Express reports, "Debapriya, however, lodged a general diary against the police officials for allegedly “misbehaving with her and abusing her”. Meanwhile, police lodged a suo motu complaint against Debapriya and her friends under section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty)."
But on Tuesday, the West Bengal CM came out strongly in Chatterjee's defence, blaming the traffic police constable on duty for seizing Debapriya's license unnecessarily, and saying she was only a 'little girl'.
"Why was the girl's driving license seized by the police?" the chief minister said, adding that there should be a probe which would allow the law to take its own course.
Chatterjee on Tuesday also defended herself and told Times Now that she was completely innocent.
"I never dropped names or called my immediate family after the incident," Chatterjee said.
She had earlier told The Indian Express earlier that there was no evidence she was driving under the influence of alcohol and the incident was 'a trap' to frame her.
Apart from pleading innovence to media outlets, 'Chatty debby', as she's known on Twitter, took on people on the social networking site over accusations they levelled against her.
Here are some of her tweets:
@RishMCFC @TimesNow how about you ask the channel if they will sack the journo for doing such a shoddy job? Not even getting my age right.. — Debapriya Chatterjee (@chattydebby) May 26, 2015
@chhuti_is get your facts right before flaunting your ignorance and maligning me on twitter. Foolish person. pic.twitter.com/rzt7JELcGV — Debapriya Chatterjee (@chattydebby) May 25, 2015
And though she may have deleted some other things she told people on Twitter, others had documented it:
While her fate now possibly rests in the hands of the agency that will conduct the probe into the incident, Chatterjee will no doubt draw a great deal of comfort from the fact that she's got the CM on her side already.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.The MMO genre can sometimes feel like a whimsical sea of shifting sands, but it’s not without its axioms. Open betas will almost always mean soft launches, game development benchmarks will take longer than expected, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will always be one of the best-conceived and poorly-executed MMORPGs ever made. Yet, sometimes the sands shift enough to reveal patterns for those who are good enough at predictions to get a glimpse of what awaits for MMOs, RPGS, and other games.
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I am not one of those gifted fortune tellers. Here are my MMO predictions for 2016!
Black Desert Online Will Surprise Gamers Everywhere by Being Good
If you’ve been following coverage for Black Desert Online closely, you may not be as unsuspecting as the gaming public in general as to what Pearl Abyss and Daum Games have in store. From what I’ve seen of the CBT content, Black Desert Online looks to be an extremely detailed MMORPG with astonishingly beautiful visuals and a myriad of gameplay systems that challenge what we’ve come to expect from contemporary MMOs. If the localization team can make the game feel like a triple-A title and not a hurried import, socks will be knocked off for sure.
EverQuest Next Will Go into Closed Beta, Announce Launch Date
With all of the changes that Daybreak Games have undergone recently, it’s anyone’s guess what is the status of EverQuest Next at this point. One has to think - or hope - that the erstwhile Sony Online Entertainment team has been able to stay the development course and gotten what they’ve needed from Landmark testing to move forward. CBT by the end of the year, with a proposed 2017 launch date, seems a generous estimate, but nonetheless possible.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen Will Make Me Want to Play Vanguard
Oh Vanguard, we hardly knew ye. And possibly, the person who knew you best, other than the peeps at SOE who took over its stewardship, was designer Brad McQuaid at what was once known as Sigil Games. Brad’s new company, Visionary Realms, and their indie project, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, may not be attempting to create a direct sequel to Vanguard or something even similar in scope or concept. Still, you’d think that some of the design tenets that the Sigil team held dear have to be alive and well within Visionary Realms’ approach. From what I’ve seen so far, I can guarantee that Pantheon is going to make me want to play Vanguard, and I hope that Visionary Realms’ game is going to scratch that itch.
Shroud of the Avatar Will Test the Boundaries of Old School, High Concept MMO Design
For most MMO and RPG players, Richard Garriott and the Ultima universe need no introduction. Ultima VII was the game that got me into western RPGs, and Ultima Online, MMORPGs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of our readers have similar stories. Garriott and Portalarium’s sandbox MMORPG, Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, seeks to employ several old school, high concept MMO systems, such as a player-driven economy, open PvP, and classless character progression, along with a single-player offline mode. It looks to be a newly-minted MMO experience with classic RPG design values at heart, and will be a test to demonstrate if the genre is still open to those ideals.
Guild Wars 2 Will Announce and Deliver Post-Heart of Thorns Living World Content
ArenaNet is known for being somewhat cagey about their future releases, which is a good thing, as they ordinarily give their content an appropriate amount of time to bake so that it’s polished come launch. With Guild Wars 2’s first expansion, Heart of Thorns, releasing over three years after the base game, it’s unlikely that we’ll hear anything about a second expansion for some time. However, the folks at ANet are intimately aware of the need for live updates to keep a game community fresh, and it’s more than likely that we’ll see some news for the next Living World season, with new content starting later this year.
What are your MMO predictions for 2016?I don’t go anywhere fancy, because I don’t want to go somewhere where there’s a rule about clothes. If someone says you’ve got to dress in a formal way, that’s basically saying to me, “You’re not welcome.” I’m already on edge, because I don’t really like going out, so I don’t want to have to wear clothing that isn’t me, such as a suit.
I have five pairs of cargo pants and five jumpers, and one has a shirt built in. It’s a grey V-neck jumper with a collar and a bit of the shirt sewn in. It’s trickery clothing. It looks smart – I could even put a tie on with it, if I wanted. I got it from River Island. I thought it was a two-for-one offer – a shirt and a jumper for 19 quid – until I got home. My partner Suzanne’s happy for me to wear my shirt and jumper all-in-one, but my walking trainers annoy her. They are a thick trainer that gives me support, because I have a bad back. There is no point me having a great dinner if my feet aren’t happy.
I know a lot of blokes are into man bags, but I prefer pockets and that’s what cargo pants offer. Dungarees should make a comeback – they had a decent-sized pocket on the front for an iPad, phone and keys.
How I get ready: Ella Eyre Read more
Since 2005, we’ve not had an iron or ironing board. We lived in a small flat and we had an ironing board behind the door, and every time you opened the door, it fell on you. I thought, “Right, we’re hardly ever using it – let’s get rid of it.” Once you’ve lived without one, you realise that if you put your clothes on early enough, the creases go. I don’t know what this obsession is with getting rid of creases – they’re even doing it to testicles now. You can have ’em ironed! Ridiculous.
• The Moaning Of Life Season 2 is out on DVD and Blu-ray.Katie Ledecky had a little more than 12 hours to recover from her victory in the 400-meter freestyle at Olympic Trials before swimming in preliminaries for the 200 freestyle.
Ledecky being Ledecky, she fired off the best time (1 minute, 55.6 seconds) of Tuesday morning, one that would put her fifth in the world rankings for 2016. She already holds the best time of the year, of course.
It was a daunting sign for any competitor hoping Ledecky has not fully matured as a sprinter.
“I’ve definitely gained a lot of speed in the last few months and it’s showing in these races,” she said. “I’ve gained a lot of confidence.”
Allison Schmitt of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, the 2012 gold medalist in the 200 freestyle, posted the fourth best time in morning qualifying at 1 minute, 57.77 seconds.
The 200 final on Wednesday evening projects as one of the most star-studded races of the week with Ledecky, Schmitt, Missy Franklin and Leah Smith all on track to make it.GOLD has surged to a record high and silver hit a new 31-year peak as investors' desire for safe havens trumped news of a Chinese interest rate increase.
The most actively traded gold futures contract, for June delivery, rose $US19.50, or 1.4 per cent, to settle at a record $US1452.50 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Thinly traded nearby April gold gained $US19.60, or 1.4 per cent, to settle at a front-month peak of $US1451.80.
"We're back to flight to quality in gold," said Michael Gross, broker and futures analyst with OptionSellers.com.
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Market participants were nervous after Moody's Investors Service cut Portugal's long-term government-bond rating and placed it on review for possible downgrade, heightening concerns that lingering problems in the euro zone's debt-laden periphery will weaken the global economic recovery.
Meantime, fighting continued in Libya, where 1.3 million barrels a day of oil exports have been cut off by the civil war that erupted in mid-February.
"The support for prices is largely attributable to persistent global uncertainty in the form of the ongoing conflict in Libya, a renewed focus on the European sovereign debt situation and a stronger oil price that has stoked fears over global inflation," Standard Bank precious metals analyst Marc Ground said in a note to clients.
Although oil futures fell after China raised interest rates for the fourth time in less than six months, Nymex May crude remained around $US108 a barrel, continuing to cause worry that the high prices will be a drag on the global economy.
High energy prices have also sparked worries about rising inflation around the world, with China's move highlighting efforts to head off problematic consumer price increases.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday downplayed inflation fears, but some of his colleagues have recently warned that tighter monetary policy may be needed to keep prices in check.
Gold and silver are considered hedges against inflation, and silver gained alongside gold in the latest session. Comex May silver rose US68.9 cents, or 1.8 per cent, to settle at $US39.183, its highest finish since January 21, 1980.
The latest market jitters kept the metals moving higher even after the People's Bank of China raised benchmark lending and deposit rates by 0.25 percentage point.
Such a move ostensibly would pressure gold because it is anti-inflationary and it would also mean less liquidity for gold investment in China, the world's No. 2 gold buyer after India.
Other precious metals also gained in the New York session, with Nymex July platinum gaining 0.5 per cent and June palladium rising 1.1 per cent.Image copyright PA
The grandparents and aunt of a five-year-old girl at the centre of a custody battle have been sentenced to 12 days jail for contempt of court.
It followed a decision by a High Court judge who ruled they had lied when asked where Alice Davies was.
The High Court hearing in London was told the child had since been found safe and well in Russia with her mother, Jacqueline, 49.
Brian and Patricia Davies from near Cardiff were released for time served.
The girl's aunt, Melanie Williams, was also released.
The couple, from Pentyrch, and Ms Williams, a mother of two, had been remanded in custody on Friday after Mr Justice Keehan at the Family Division of the High Court in London concluded they had lied when asked for information about the child's whereabouts.
Ms Davies and her daughter went missing in 2012 and were thought to have fled to Russia.
'Misguided loyalty'
Mr Justice Keehan had adjourned sentencing until Wednesday after hearing evidence in open court and ruling that Alice could be identified.
At the hearing, the court was told the girl had been located in Russia and would be returned to the UK by next week.
A lawyer representing Mrs and Ms Davies and Ms Williams told the court they had acted out of "misguided loyalty" and were "very contrite".
Mr Justice Keehan said in the light of Alice's discovery all three could be released.
He imposed a 12-day prison sentence on each and said they should serve half that sentence.
He said time spent on remand would form part of the sentence and therefore all three could be released on Wednesday.
The judge said Alice and her mother had been found as a result of media reports.
He suggested that Ms Davies had been working in Russia.
Legal proceedings
The judge said her employers had told her about what had happened to her parents after seeing media reports and added: "The fact that this matter was heard in open court and the press were present has caused Jacqueline Davies' employers to inform her of what has happened."
He said Ms Davies had then made contact with the High Court and told staff that she would return to the UK on Monday.
The legal proceedings followed a custody dispute between Ms Davies and her young daughter's father, Julian Brown, a 49-year-old gas engineer from Aldershot, Hampshire.
The courts have ruled that Mr Brown should have access to his daughter, but she was taken out of the country before that order could be enforced.
Following the hearing, Mr Brown said: "I'm delighted. I haven't seen Alice for nearly two years.
"I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes to plan and I'll see her next week."
Mr Brown had asked the judge not to impose jail terms on Mr and Mrs Davies and Ms Williams.
Ms Davies is due to appear at a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in Birmingham on Tuesday.The Price of Freedom
“Freedom always comes with a price.” – C.S. Lewis
When I decided to leave the Watchtower organisation a year ago, I underestimated just how deeply the consequences of my actions would affect every aspect of my life. It’s been a year filled with highs and lows of emotions, and everything in between.
One of the lows is the deep sense of sadness over lost relationships with my loved ones who are still in the organisation. I met my best friend at a kingdom hall at the age of 12. We played with a skipping rope outside the kingdom hall in Austerville, South Africa, while the adults finished cleaning the hall. We studied the Bible together with a mature family friend as our Bible study conductor, whom we sometimes drove crazy with our giggles over silly things, as girls that age often do. We grew in the faith, engaging in the door-to-door ministry, Watchtower preparation for Sunday meetings and other wholesome activities. Her entire family practically adopted me, and so did the entire congregation. My own blood relatives (with whom my relationship was already precarious) were replaced with my new spiritual family as they were too ‘worldly’ to form real ties with.
When we got older, my best friend and I lived far from each other, but we always caught up at family functions, congregation get-togethers and, of course, the conventions. We talked about how we were doing spiritually, my occasional pioneering, the Bible studies I was conducting, her university studies and the guilt she sometimes felt for pursuing higher education. We also spoke about my kingdom hall building adventures; they were my favourite: visiting different cities and meeting different families who were strangers but brothers and sisters in the faith with whom we shared a common goal. The love and hospitality they extended to us always deepened my conviction that I was indeed in the one true religion.
All those bonds, all those experiences, all the memories we shared… all swiftly cut bluntly the minute I decided my conscience would not allow me to support this organisation, after finding out some disturbing truths about it. No explanations were required from me by my loved ones as the organisation paints all those who leave with the same brush; they have made themselves enemies of God, so, therefore, must be avoided at all costs. I don’t know what hurts most, the shunning or knowing that they may never know the real reasons why I left.
Although I mourn the lost relationships, I am constantly reminding myself that life goes on. Thankfully, the new relationships I have formed have opened up a whole new world of human relationships I never knew existed: love and compassion for others regardless of their beliefs, respect for other people’s views, empathy and understanding for those who have different lifestyles to my own, open and honest communication, seeing others as equals, and enjoying this journey called life together. I am truly blessed to have found such awesome people in my life who have not lived up to Watchtower’s negative description of ‘worldly’ people and have enriched my life in many ways!
From a young age, I came to realise how unfair life was. My first memory of a place called home was a 50 square meter tin shack in Orange Farm, South Africa, with a single workaholic mom for a parent. The hope of a paradise earth, in which all would have beautiful homes, delicious food to eat, and swim with dolphins, was all too appealing. I was absolutely certain about the future of the world and had an understanding of the world’s current events, something I believed to be a privilege only revealed to our special organisation. That knowledge not only made me swell with pride as a member, but it also motivated me to work harder in the organisation. Most of all, my religion gave me hope.
When I see injustices and human suffering now, I no longer have that rock solid certainty that I had before. Going from a state of knowing it all to a state of not knowing can make one feel disempowered, helpless and hopeless. It has taken me some time to humbly accept that I do not have all the answers. However, what I am certain of is the fact that I am here, we are here, sharing this wonderful home called earth, and it is within each and every person’s reach to make a difference in some way, using whatever talents have been bestowed upon them. That knowledge motivates me to be the best person I can be and to assist others whenever it’s within my reach.
I used to think being a good person was closely related to being religious and attending some meetings in a kingdom hall. This belief became deeply ingrained in me and became a natural part of my life. When I stopped attending meetings, I had some mild withdrawal symptoms; I suddenly had so much time on my hands and I felt guilty about that. Not belonging to a religion made me feel like I was a bad person. I felt my spiritual need would never be fulfilled without belonging to an organised religion. But now, I see things differently. I spend my time on activities I love, which makes me a happier person. I’ve met a lot of atheists who are morally upright and wonderful people, which, no doubt, proves that being religious is not a prerequisite for being a nice person. As far as not having a religion is concerned, I have come to see that religion is certainly not a prerequisite for being a spirituality-minded person. I do not need a congregation or a building to feel in touch with my spiritual side. All I have to do is go out in nature and my spiritual need is fulfilled.
Another issue that leaves me with a heavy feeling in my heart is the hope of the resurrection, which was a source of great comfort to me when my dear mother passed away. Now that I am no longer certain of that hope, as I am questioning everything that I was taught as a Witness, the very thought of the resurrection never becoming a reality makes me grieve in a different way. This is something that is still a huge struggle for me. That is a loss I still need to come to terms with.
Some of the highs have come from the so-called “cheap thrills of the world” – which, of course, were not the main reason I abandoned the religion, but have simply come about as a mere consequence of living life as ordinary people do. I marvel now and sometimes laugh cynically when I recall how some of these “cheap thrills” would have gotten me disfellowshipped or in some sort of trouble as a Witness: having friends who do not have the same beliefs as I do, regularly socialising with workmates outside of work, celebrating certain holidays, getting a tattoo, living with a male housemate, pursuing a career, investing in my hobbies, just to mention a few.
Of all the things I’ve lost, what I certainly do not miss is the pressure that is constantly being put on Witnesses to do more for the organisation. The question always lingered in the air about whether or not I was doing enough; the subliminal pressure that fellow Witnesses put on me, perhaps unknowingly, made matters worse. I also do not miss the fear of inadvertently disappointing or stumbling others, which fear caused me to live a restricted life in which I could never be my authentic self. This certainly caused a lot of anxiety and depression.
I must admit that I still have the occasional bout of depression since leaving the Watchtower. It usually stems from feeling misunderstood and lonely, missing my mom, anger that I’ve been robbed of a regular life, that I’ve wasted many years of my youth in a cult, feeling like a late bloomer among my peers who have so much more knowledge than I do on certain matters, especially matters of sexuality, not wanting to get too attached to people because, hey, once bitten twice shy.
When all seems murky and all these emotions overwhelm me, gratitude is my lifeline. Gratitude for the wonderful people in my life who make me feel loved and valued. Gratitude that I have the opportunity to start afresh in life and do all the things I wanted to do as a Witness but couldn’t, like pursue a career and my hobbies, without feeling like I’m doing something wrong. Gratitude for nature, which calms me and grounds me. Gratitude that I have me. I’ve learnt to be good to myself and to rely on myself. Most of all, I’m grateful that I’m finally free to me ME!
My freedom has come at a high cost, yes, but I am ever so grateful that my eyes were opened, I was set free; and now… the possibilities are endless.
#ThinkingWitnesses
(The original article appeared on the authour’s personal blog: Autumn Child)In an online community of Korean real estate investors, there are murmurs of people buying apartments at ridiculously low prices.“It only cost me 35 million won [$31,250] to buy a small apartment in Dongdaemun District,” read one post, referring to a popular district in central Seoul.“I managed to buy an apartment near a subway station by only paying 50 million won,” read another post. “Do you think I will be able to sell the property at least 20 million won more expensive after fixing all the problems in the unit?”These people have been investing in real estate through an unconventional method. Normally, they would either buy a new apartment or sign a jeonse contract, a type of lease in Korea where a tenant puts down a massive deposit for two years or more and the landlord returns the deposit when the tenant moves.Instead, these investors are buying apartments currently under jeonse contracts by directly contacting landlords and taking ownership of homes while tenants are still living in them.This is how so-called gap investment works. If the price of a unit is, say, 400 million won and the tenant has paid 350 million won in jeonse, an investor can offer to buy the home from the landlord by paying just 50 million won. The investor still takes on the burden of returning the 350 million won jeonse deposit when the tenant moves out, but if the apartment price skyrockets in that time, the investor can still make a profit.This type of investment started becoming popular about two to three years ago when the housing market was hot. Profiting from this scheme requires housing prices to go up continuously. Since home prices have begun improving this year, more people are interested in buying apartments through gap investment.Gap investment is more easily found in neighborhoods where demand for jeonse is high. Investors tend to look for apartments where the gap between the jeonse deposit and actual home price is small.The smallest gap can be found in Seongbuk District, northern Seoul, where the average jeonse deposit is 83.3 percent of the home’s price. This was followed by Dongdaemun District, central Seoul, at 81.2 percent; Guro District, southwestern Seoul, at 80.6 percent; and Seondaemun District, western Seoul, at 80 percent. Demand in Nowon District and Gangbuk District in northern Seoul, where there are many small and cheap apartments, was also are very high.“Gap investor demand is focused on small apartment units near subway or bus stations,” said a real estate agent in Guro District. “It appears that they believe housing prices in Seoul will never go down.”The pricey region south of the river, including the districts of Seocho, Songpa and Gangnam, don’t see as many gap investors because jeonse prices are about 60 percent of the sale price.Gap investors come from all over the country. There are many people from the surrounding areas of Gyeonggi and Incheon buying apartment units in Seoul. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, non-Seoul residents buying apartments in the capital accounted for 19.5 percent of all transactions made in the first four months of the year.As gap investment soars, some neighborhoods have noticed the cost of jeonse contracts going up. Mr. Lee, 45, who lives in Bundang, Gyeonggi, purchased a 59-square-meter (635-square-foot) apartment in Seongbuk District, northern Seoul for 440 million won and set the jeonse at 390 to 400 million won. He said he found a renter very quickly.Some point out that home prices could rise faster if jeonse costs go up. “When gap investors believe they will be able to make enough profit from selling back their units, they tend to sell it to someone who actually wants to live there,” said Seo Jae-phil, a realtor in Nowon District. “Gap investors are like wholesale dealers or middlemen in the real estate market.”Gap investors don’t make a profit all the time. If home and jeonse prices don’t go up, they might even lose their principal. There are various uncertainties in the housing market as there is high possibility that President Moon Jae-in might strengthen regulations on the market. Changes in the interest rate might take a toll as well.“Landlords might not even able to pay back the jeonse deposits if housing prices don’t rise anymore,” said Park Won-gap, a researcher at KB Kookmin Bank. “Renters should try to avoid apartments where the gap between jeonse and home prices is small.”BY HWANG EUI-YOUNG, KIM YOUNG-NAM [kim.youngnam@joongang.co.kr]Indian music streaming service Dhingana has quietly closed the shutters on its service, ending months of speculation about its future after it lost a key partnership.
A brief farewell note on the Dhingana website — first spotted by Medianama — simply says that “all good things must come to an end” and thanks its users. No explanation for the closure is given:
Dhingana had raised venture funding — its most recent $7 million round closed in 2012 — and hired its first external CEO less than one year ago, but ultimately it came unstuck after its biggest music label partner — T-Series — declined to renew its licensing agreement in December.
“We were not able to see much traction in the service and secondly we couldn’t agree on the commercials and both parties thus decided to part ways in an amicable manner,” T-Series president Neeraj Kalyan told TechCrunch at the time of the break-up.
Speaking at the time, CEO Rohit Bhatia told Medianama only that the service was in the process of ‘restructuring’. However, the service appears to have paid the ultimate price for its break-up with |
to core and casual, with "relatable characters" and a "great cinematic story."
Development of Destiny 2 going great. Still on track for FallGreat cinematic story. Relatable characters. Accessable to core and casual9 February 2017
On the less definite side of things Destiny 2's gameplay is rumoured to built around making planets feel more lived in and fully featured with towns, outposts all with missions of their own. The buzzword apparently being "play-in destinations." There's also a slightly less substantiated mention of a bigger Cabal role this time.
Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!Dead or Alive 5: Last Round Will Introduce A New Female Character
By Sato. September 30, 2014. 10:28am
Team Ninja are developing the latest version of Dead or Alive 5, titled Dead or Alive 5: Last Round for current and previous generation consoles. This week’s issue of Famitsu magazine shares a little on what the new title will feature. [Thanks, Game Jouhou.]
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round will be the final entry in the Dead or Alive 5 series, so it will include content from previous versions of the game as well as some new stuff for fans to look forward to.
According to the magazine report, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round will introduce a new female character. The report emphasizes that this isn’t a returning character from the series.
The new female character is also being developed using Koei Tecmo’s new “Soft Engine,” which is the name given to their new engine that was made to better depict the “softness” and “warmth” of a character’s body.
Additionally, there will also be a new male character, but Famitsu’s report doesn’t specify whether he’s a recurring character or not. Dead or Alive 5: Last Round will also have additional hairstyles, and the return of “The Danger Zone” stage from Dead or Alive and Dead or Alive 2.
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is slated for release in Japan and the West sometime in Spring 2015 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. DLC purchased from Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate on previous generation consoles will be transferable to current generation consoles as well.Sunday night the Colts ran a trick play so baffling it made me question why the NFL didn't immediately call off the game and preemptively end their season to avoid something so stupid from happening again. I took a while attempting to analyze it.
At its core, the play's main flaw was that Griff Whalen, the WR-turned-center snapped the ball when nobody was expecting him to. But the play was also riddled with other flaws so massive that I couldn't figure out what the purpose of the play was outside of Whalen's mistake, or how the Colts' coaching staff allowed it to come into existence.
Tuesday morning, punter Pat McAfee gave the actual reasoning for the play and how it failed on an Indianapolis radio show and -- I can't believe I'm going to say this -- I think it's an even bigger coaching failure than I previously thought.
First, McAfee explained what the team was trying to do:
"The whole idea there was on fourth-and-3 or less, we shift to an alignment to where we could catch them misaligned," he said. "They tried to sub some people in. Catch them with more men on the field -- 12 men on the field. And if you get a certain look, you have three (or) two yards to make a play." "So, you're trying to manipulate the (receiving team) into thinking they have to sub their defense back on," he said. "We are sprinting to the sideline in hopes to make the other team think we are subbing our offense back onto the field. So, when they think the offense is coming back on the field, your hope is that they think their defense has to come back on the field. As soon as their defense comes back on the field, we snap it, steal 5 yards and we get a first down."
OK, that's a thing. That's an actual football strategy. I'm on board with this. If you can convince the opponent to switch units, you'll almost definitely catch them with 12 men on the field and get a free first down.
There's actually some decent sideline acting: The Colts released a screenshot showing their offense huddled on the side of the field, as if ready to come on:
And if you look at the replay, you can see backup QB Matt Hasselbeck urging the punt team off the field -- like a backup QB might if they were actually signalling the punt team off the field:
But I think it's a bit flawed in execution. The shift looks like the disciplined hustle of a team shifting rather than the disorganized scramble of a unit trying to shift off the field. They even remain in formation. It just doesn't look enough like a punt unit leaving the field to convince a disciplined opponent. They get into their new formation well before the Patriots have ever considered swapping their team out.
And there's the three or four seconds when the new formation is in place and the safety-turned-QB Colt Anderson is still sprinting over to assume his new position. This needed to be disguised better. As the entire defense watches him get in place, the jig is up: They know this isn't a unit swapping, but rather a trick play. It's dead in the water.
I'll acknowledge that there was an actual strategy and premise here, which is better than I thought Sunday night. I'm still skeptical of whether the Colts should have bothered trying this.
The Patriots are a really well coached team, and a lot of their defensive players are already on their special teams unit. They probably know well enough not to switch from special teams to defense unless offensive players begin coming onto the field. According to NFLPenalties.com, the Pats haven't been called for a Defensive 12 men on the field penalty this year, nor were they called the entirety of last year's regular season or postseason. Designing a trick to catch them seems futile. This still seems like a kinda bad idea.
But then McAfee explained something more damning:
"The gunner who became the center all week was (safety) Clayton Geathers," McAfee said via the Colts' official website. "Clayton Geathers gets injured in the second quarter. Insert Griff Whalen who had never done it before. So, Griff Whalen is now the new center in a play he's never practiced before." "We added something to try and draw them offsides if they don't do their substitution," he said. "Griff never got the heads up this was happening, because it's not in the playbook. Stanford guy, reads the playbook, knows everything he has to do, but if he's not there for an audible that's added, he can't know." "Griff has no idea we're trying to draw the guy offsides," said McAfee, "because in the play it says if we get under center, snap it. So Colt Anderson (the quarterback on the play) is trying to draw a guy offsides to pick up an easy five yards. If not, we just don't snap it. We take a delay of game." "Griff goes... ‘If I feel him right now, I'm supposed to snap it.' So this is a 100% miscommunication," said McAfee. "It's literally a miscommunication."
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh jeez
oh no
jeez
As noted, it was obvious from the beginning that the screw-up was that Whalen snapped the ball when he shouldn't have. There were other problems, but that was the big one that made this all look so silly. Now we know why: He was in a role he had never filled before, with the team doing something he didn't know they were trying to do.
According to McAfee, this play had two successful scenarios. Either the Colts snapped the ball with the Patriots having 12 men on the field, or the Colts snapped the ball with the Patriots offsides. The most important thing here -- perhaps the only important thing! -- is that the person snapping the ball have a damn good idea of when to snap the ball.
The only person the Colts had trained to fill this role got hurt, and the team still ran the play.
That's a massive coaching failure. When a player filling a critical role in a trick play comes out of the game, you have to just throw it away. Those types of plays require everybody to execute nearly perfectly to function. You can't just throw in another person and expect them to pick it up on the fly.
The job of a coach is to put their players in a position to succeed. Chuck Pagano and the Colts' staff put their players in a position to fail. At first this looked like an individual screw-up on a weird play that maybe could've worked. Now we know it's worse than that.
* * *
SB Nation presents: The most impressive teams in Week 6Multi-Mission BrahMos Cruise Missile Claimed to be Fastest in the World.
The Indian Air Force conducted the first-ever successful air launch of the BrahMos cruise missile from a Sukhoi Su-30 MKI multirole aircraft on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017. According to an official statement from the Indian Air Force (IAF), “The IAF is the first air force in the world to have successfully fired an air-launched Mach 2.8 surface attack missile of this category.” The missile is reported to have been fired at test target in the Bay of Bengal.
The BrahMos is a large, 28-foot long (8.4 meter), 5,500-pound (2,500 kilogram), two-stage solid fuel and ramjet powered cruise missile. The SU-30MKI that launched the BrahMos had modifications to landing gear, hard points and airframe to support the extra weight of the missile. One report suggests that up to 50 SU-30MKIs will be modified or built to carry one of the 200 air-launched BrahMos in the next years.
According to a quote from Indian defense officials in a story published Wednesday, Nov. 22, by the India Times, “The integration on the aircraft was very complex involving mechanical, electrical and software modifications on the aircraft. The IAF was involved in the activity from its inception.”
The BrahMos cruise missile is a joint development of Russia and India. In various versions the large, fast cruise missile can be launched from surface ships, submarines and now from combat aircraft. Russia is responsible for a reported 65% of the missile’s components, with India providing the majority of the remaining missile components. The design of the BrahMos is based on the Russian P-800 Oniks sea-skimming cruise missile.
Performance of the BrahMos includes a quoted air-launched range of 250 miles (400 kilometers) and a warhead weighing 660-pounds (300-kilograms). This combination of range and payload makes the weapon a significant threat to large surface ships such as aircraft carriers and fortified land targets. The fast speed of the missile may mean anti-missile systems, especially shipboard ones, may have a difficult time intercepting the BrahMos. The BrahMos is also reported to be “nuclear capable”.
The BrahMos missile and Wednesday’s air-launch demonstration send a clear message to other regional powers (such as Pakistan) as well as countries that already have and are developing aircraft carrier capability, most notably China, following the introduction of a Chinese aircraft carrier program in 2011 and subsequent commissioning of their first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning (CV-16) Type 001 aircraft carrier, in 2012.
Relations between India and China, the two most populous countries on earth with the two fastest growing economies, are generally constructive but have been strained over a regional dispute in Bhutan, a country between China and India in the Himalayas. The dispute does not threaten the two countries strategic relationship given their co-dependence on trade.
India does have a massive coastline to its south that lies above major strategic sea lanes for the transport of nearly every commercial and military commodity moved by sea. It is also a major route for oil tankers. Because of the strategic importance of the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, the BrahMos cruise missile is an important asset in the Indian arsenal and especially relevant in its new air-launched variant.The archdiocese has disclosed to The Age that it is providing significant financial support to four clergy released from jail after serving sentences for child sex abuse.
Victim support groups say more clergy found either by police or internal church investigations to have abused children are likely to be receiving financial support from different Catholic orders outside the Melbourne archdiocese's control.
Convicted paedophile priests are receiving financial support from Melbourne's Catholic archdiocese. Credit:Michele Mossop
A spokesman for the Melbourne archdiocese said church law required the bishop to ''ensure appropriate financial support is provided to all priests''. ''The archdiocese contributes to rental support and health insurance for four priests who have had their faculties to function as a priest withdrawn, been convicted of child sex offences and completed any term of imprisonment imposed by the courts.''
A fifth paedophile priest within the Melbourne archdiocese, Victor Rubeo, was also receiving financial support until his death in December last year, on the day he was to face a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court over 30 fresh child sex abuse charges.Mosques in the UK could be designed without minarets to look like “quintessentially English” places of worship, the former Conservative Party chairman Baroness Warsi has suggested.
Lady Warsi, the first Muslim woman to sit in the Cabinet, is urging architects and designers to come up with a new model for Islamic places of prayer as part of a drive to develop an authentically “British” brand of Islam.
That could involve abandoning the distinctive towers from which the call to prayer is traditionally issued in an effort to blend in more closely with their surroundings, she said.
And in some places that might even involve mosques which resemble village churches, she added.
“If the principal reason no longer exists, with someone having to physically go up to the minaret, should we take more local cultural reference points from this country instead?" Baroness Warsi
She likened the debate over the place of mosques in towns to arguments in previous centuries about baroque churches such as St Paul’s Cathedral in London, which were seen by some as “foreign” and Roman Catholic.
The peer, who served as faith minister in the Coalition government, is setting up a new foundation in her name to promote religious tolerance, said she wanted to start a national debate about places of worship in the 21st century and is planning a design completion to come up with new plans for mosques.
The call for a new generation of mosque first emerged emerged in the Tablet, the Catholic magazine, following questions at the peer’s inaugural lecture as Visiting Professor St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Full details of the design competition are expected to be issued in the New Year.
Speaking to The Telegraph, she explained: “The phrase that I keep coming back to, which is rooted in Islamic thinking, is that Islam is like a river that takes the colour from the bed over which is flows, the bed being the country in which it is found.
“There has to be a debate about cultural reference points in religious buildings, how does it find its identity in the place in which it is built?
“If you look at mosques around the world they are very differently shaped and sized; they have different features, some have minarets and some don’t have minarets.
Photo: REX Shutterstock
“The minaret is traditionally used somewhere where the call to prayer would be issued from the top of the minaret.
“If the principal reason no longer exists, with someone having to physically go up to the minaret, should we take more local cultural reference points from this country instead?
“That’s what we want to have a debate around and a potential design competition.
“What I would like to see is the quintessential English mosque.
“It is not for me to say what that would look like.”
Thought-provoking national debate started by @SayeedaWarsi regarding what do we want from Our mosques @John_Bingham https://t.co/as3WYMocBj — Qari Asim MBE (@QariAsim) December 16, 2015
She added that there was “no reason why” mosques might not be built resembling English village churches.
Photo: Getty Images
“The only requirement is for it is to have a place for the imam to stand, to be facing Mecca when you pray and to have places for people to wash before prayer,” she said.
“I think a nod to the heritage and the culture that you find yourself in can be very helpful.
“I want to see an Islam which sits comfortably within Britain and a Britain that sits more at ease with Islam.
The apparent similarities between the Muslim minaret and traditional church towers may be more than coincidental.
The practice of including a tower from the call to prayer was issued is likely to have originated in Syria date in the mid 7th or early 8th century when Damascus, a former Christian metropolis, became the capital of the Islamic caliphate under the Umayyad dynasty.
Some churches in the region already included towers at the time – but often used as a form of outdoor pulpit rather than a place for bells.Van Kane • March 26, 2015
Four Ideas to Bust the Floor on Outer Planet Mission Costs
In 1972 and 1973, NASA launched two simple spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and 11, to Jupiter. They were charged with scouting the way for the more sophisticated spacecraft that would follow. Since then, the outer solar system has been the realm of large, expensive missions: the Voyagers, Galileo, and Cassini.
Large missions costing well over $1B have proven very successful, but they are launched at the rate of approximately one per decade and outer solar system destinations have had to vie with Mars for these rare slots.
At last month’s Outer Planet Analysis Group, scientists and engineers presented three proposals in competition for selection in NASA’s cheapest category of planetary missions, the Discovery program. One other proposal may eventually vie for a slot in NASA’s mid-range New Frontiers program.
The road to lower costs outer planet missions has been paved by NASA’s first two New Frontiers missions, the $700M New Horizons mission en route to Pluto and the $1.1B Juno mission en route to Jupiter. But can the cost of a mission to the outer solar system be cut to $450M, the limit for a Discovery mission?
The three Discovery proposals take very different approaches.
Jonathan Lunine Enceladus Life Finder
Jonathan Lunine Enceladus Life Finder
The Enceladus Life Finder (ELF) team proposes to take the tightly focused, minimalistic path.
We now suspect that many of the icy worlds in the outer solar system harbor oceans beneath their icy crusts. Among those bodies, Europa and Enceladus are special because their oceans appear to rest atop their rocky cores, providing access to elements and minerals believed essential to life. These rocky surfaces are also are believed to have hot hydrothermal springs that could provide the energy needed for the complex chemistry needed to support life. For other icy worlds, the oceans are sandwiched between layers of ice and not in contact with their rocky cores, making Europa and Enceladus priorities for exploring potentially habitable worlds.
Enceladus so far is unique in having plumes of water that steadily jet from its surface, spilling the contents of its ocean into space where they can be easily sampled by a passing spacecraft. (Hubble Space Telescope observations suggest that Europa may also have plumes, but repeat observations have failed to confirm the initial sighting. Any plumes may be episodic, repeating only every few years.)
The Cassini spacecraft currently at Saturn has already sampled the plumes, but its instruments were designed in the 1990s, and weren’t designed to study the highly complex molecules that could indicate life. The ELF spacecraft would narrowly focus on sampling these plumes with modern, highly sensitive instruments.
The mission would enter orbit around Saturn and then make ten flights through Enceladus’ plumes.
ELF’s instrument payload would consist of two mass spectrometers that “weigh” atoms and molecules to measure composition. The spectrometers would analyze particles in the plume that are a mixture of frozen ocean water and particles from the seafloor. One of the mass spectrometers would be optimized to study the liquids that originate from the ocean and the other the solid particles that likely originate from the rocky core. A third instrument might be included that would test whether any amino acids found have predominately left- or right-handed structures. (Life on Earth predominately creates left-handed forms, and it’s suspected that life that originates elsewhere will similarly favor one form over the other instead of a random mixture likely from abiotic chemistry.) The spacecraft’s navigation camera also would image the plumes to judge their activity at the time of each flyby.
To appreciate the simplicity of the ELF proposal, you need to consider previous concepts for exploring Enceladus following Cassini’s last flyby late this year. When Decadal Survey considered this decade’s priorities for exploring the solar system, several Enceladus options were considered. The simplest would have been a multi-flyby spacecraft like ELF, but that would also have included two cameras and an ice penetrating radar in addition to the mass spectrometers. The preferred mission would have studied Enceladus both during flybys and from orbit about the moon with a somewhat different, but equally rich instrument compliment. These concepts would have generated volumes of data that would have investigated the structure of Enceladus, its ocean, and ice shell along with the chemistry of its internal ocean. Unfortunately, the estimated costs of these missions were over $1.5B.
(Quoted mission costs often vary based on the specifics of what’s included; in this post, I’ve tried to quote the costs for the items included the widely-quoted $450M cap for Discovery missions. NASA’s final cost for a full mission including launch and operations would be higher than the costs I’m including here.)
Alfred McEwen Io Volcano Observer
Alfred McEwen Io Volcano Observer
The Io Volcano Observer would take a different tact than the ELF mission. Like the proposed Enceladus mission, the IVO spacecraft would observe Jupiter’s volcano-rich moon during several flybys. Unlike the Enceladus mission, the Io mission would carry four instruments – a two camera suite, a thermal imager, a magnetometer, a mass spectrometer – along with a student-built instrument to map volcanic hotspots. The spacecraft’s radio system would do double duty by also allow precise tracking of the spacecraft’s speed during flybys to study the distribution of matter within this moon. This would be a data rich mission, and the spacecraft would carry an experimental high data rate optical communications system in addition to the traditional radio system.
While ELF would focus on one investigation – the chemistry of the ocean – IVO would perform an integrated series of studies to understand Io as a world and a member of the Jovian system. The mission’s goals are divided between understanding the sources and extent of its intense volcanic activity, the effects of the injection of its volcanic plume material into the wider Jovian system, and long term monitoring of Europa for plumes and Jupiter’s atmosphere. The nominal mission would last 22 months, but an extended mission might carry on for an additional 6 years to monitor Io through time. If the extended mission occurred, then we might have three spacecraft simultaneously studying the Jovian system in the early 2030’s: IVO in a polar Jovian orbit with periodic flybys of Io, Europe’s JUICE mission with broad studies of the Jovian system and a focus on the icy moon Ganymede, and NASA’s Europa mission.
Jim Bell Kuiper
Jim Bell Kuiper
The third Discovery proposal takes an entirely different approach to exploring the outer solar system on a budget. The Kuiper mission would launch a space telescope dedicated to studying the outer solar system.
The Kuiper proposal addresses two problems. First, we cannot afford to have spacecraft at each of the major outer planets to observe their weather, their magnetospheres, and their moons. This dedicated outer solar telescope would be able to examine each of these worlds multiple times each day to study these worlds as dynamic systems. Scientists will be able to observe how storm systems in their atmospheres exchange energy, how variations in auroral activity provides clues to the state of their magnetospheres, and how volcanic and plume activities on the moons Io, Europa, and Enceladus vary over time.
The second problem is that we don’t understand key questions about the formation of the outer solar system. We suspect that the outer planets migrated during the early ages of the solar system, but there are competing theories as to whether that migration was smooth or more chaotic. As the planets’ orbits shifted, they would have flung smaller bodies about. The Kuiper telescope would analyze the spectra of thousands of small bodies ranging from Jupiter’s orbit to the distant Kuiper belt to analyze their compositions. The mixture of compositions at different distances from the sun would allow astronomers to distinguish between the competing theories.
Telescopic observations have always played a crucial role in studying the outer solar system. Earth-based telescopes, however, have key limitations – any solar system target is visible for only a few hours each day and our atmosphere blurs vision and blocks key wavelengths of light. The science proposed for the Kuiper mission could be done by the Hubble Space Telescope, but its observing time is precious and little is allocated to solar system studies.
The Kuiper mission would be smaller than Hubble (a 1.2 meter primary mirror versus the Hubble’s 2.4 meter mirror) but would be dedicated to observing the outer solar system. The spacecraft would be parked in an orbit around the L2 Lagrange point beyond the moon where it could observe the sky without Earth occultations and would be beyond stray Earth light.
Tsou Enceladus sample return
In addition to the three Discovery mission proposals, a fourth mission concept was proposed, the LIFE Enceladus Sample Return. A previous incarnation of this mission was proposed for the last Discovery competition but wasn’t selected. Like the ELF mission, the LIFE mission would make multiple flybys through Enceladus’ plumes and would use a mass spectrometer to study their chemistry. Unlike ELF, the LIFE spacecraft would collect dust plumes in a fashion similar to that done by the Stardust spacecraft that collected comet dust samples in the mid-2000s. The samples would later be returned to Earth where far more sensitive measurements would be made than could ever be done by instruments on a spacecraft. The cost estimates presented by the LIFE team puts the mission outside the current scope of the Discovery program, and the team is building support to add an Enceladus sample return mission to the New Frontiers candidate mission list for the 2020s.
After 2017, there are no plans to have a spacecraft operating in the outer solar system until the late 2020s at the earliest. That decade gap will exist because outer planet missions in the past have had to be infrequent because of their costs. The four proposals presented at last month’s meeting represent the planetary community’s attempt to find a new class of much lower cost missions that could fly more frequently. The Kuiper telescope would be an entirely new approach to the problem that could begin providing data in the early 2020s. The missions to Io and Enceladus face a tougher challenge because they propose to do missions for half the cost of any previous outer planet mission orbiter.
Missions to both Enceladus and Io have been studied before, and the costs were two to four times that of the cost cap for Discovery missions ($450M). Teams that propose missions are generally fairly open about the great science their missions would do if they are selected to fly. These teams tend to be much more reluctant, however, to discuss the specifics of how they would accomplish their goals within the tight cost caps of a Discovery competition – that is their secret sauce. The teams proposing ELF and IVO are seasoned veterans and their credibility gives me hope that the outer solar system may open to low cost missions. We can assume that they have had a laser focus on finding ways to reduce costs to a fraction of what previous studies have assumed. Estimating development cost, however, is always part art. NASA will perform its own assessment of mission risks and costs, and its reviewers may be more risk adverse and conservative than the mission proposers in assessing likely costs and risks.
For this Discovery competition, NASA’s managers have changed the rules in a key way that will help outer planet proposals. In previous competitions, the costs of mission operations had to be included in the mission cap. A mission to Mars with an operations lifetime of two to three years had an inherent advantage over an outer planets mission that might take five to seven years to reach its target and then require another year or two of operations. Now NASA has excluded “reasonable” mission operations costs from the cost cap (which means it picks up those costs separately). This goes a long way to leveling the playing field between inner and outer solar system Discovery proposals.
In the last Discovery competition, a mission to land on a lake in the north polar region of Saturn’s moon Titan made it to the list of finalists. (The Mars InSight geophysical lander was the winner.) If either ELF or IVO is selected this time, then outer solar system will have been opened to exploration by a new, low cost class of missions. If neither mission is selected, then the experience learned from these proposals will become part of the community experience that is likely to sharpen future Discovery proposals for the outer solar system. I believe that eventually an outer planets Discovery proposal will find the right formula for selection; I hope that this happens sooner rather than later.Police will study hypnosis to help them encourage suspects to tel the truth [PA]
Investigators from across Britain have been invited to a free taster workshop at the University of Chester next June.
It will be held by hypnosis specialist Tom Silver and aims to teach officers how to produce "the deepest and most receptive states of hypnosis".
Pc Mark Hughes, an investigative skills trainer with Cheshire Police who organised the session, said forensic hypnosis could be "another tool in the armoury".
He told Police Review: "Putting people in a receptive brainwave state makes it likelier that the truth will come out.
"Forensic hypnosis is a scientific approach, and special helmets monitor brain activity and those who lie have 'wide-awake brainwave patterns'."
Officers who want to take the methods further can sign up for a six-day course costing £1,370.
Mr Silver is better known as a celebrity hypnotherapist on US television, with appearances on programmes including the Montel Williams and Ricki Lake chat shows.
His website boasts his mission is to "bring brainwave understanding to everyone" and help people utilise the "science of the mind".
Pc Hughes added: "Forensic hypnosis does not prove guilt but it can give new lines of inquiry when traditional methods have failed."This post has been updated.
An increasing number of Indian companies—especially technology startups—are taking steps to retain women employees, starting with extended maternity leaves.
For instance, online retailer Flipkart said it would now offer 24 weeks of paid maternity leave, up to four months of flexible work hours, and the option for new mothers to take up to a year off without salary.
Here is the new policy that the e-retailer posted on Twitter on June 30:
“At Flipkart, we want to create a world class work environment. We want to support women employees achieve work-life balance as they continue to focus on their careers,” Mekin Maheshwari, chief people officer at Flipkart told Quartz.
“With the introduction of these policies, Flipkart aims to create a safe, secure and an inclusive work atmosphere,” he said in an emailed response.
Last month, mobile advertising startup InMobi said it would give its female employees up to six months of maternity leave.
“Today, maternity is a key milestone when significant number of women choose to stop working. However, only a few organizations in India, largely in the fast moving consumer goods or the banking and financial services space offer generous benefits to working mothers,” Rajesh Sridhar, a senior associate, human resource analytics, at InMobi, wrote in a LinkedIn post last month.
These developments come as companies in India struggle to retain female talent.
According to a 2012 Booz & Company report, though an estimated 5.5 million women join India’s workforce every year, many of them leave soon after having children, stymied by societal restrictions and discrimination and barriers at the workplace. The study ranked India 115th out of 128 countries when it comes to empowering women at the workplace.
Women are also particularly absent in the country’s boardrooms. A recent survey by Grant Thornton revealed that just 15% of leadership roles in India are held by women, an abysmally low figure that ranks the country third from the bottom in the list.
As per India’s Maternity Benefit Act of 1961, all companies are required to provide female employees with 12 weeks of paid maternity leave. But many women have complained about the discrimination they face even before they become pregnant.
Women often have to deal with intrusive questions about their pregnancy plans and also report encountering companies that blatantly shy away from hiring those who are pregnant or about to be married.
And the discrimination doesn’t end when new mothers return from leave. Working mothers are often given unimportant projects, and lesser career-enhancing opportunities, because bosses feel they cannot put in long hours.
Given the difficulties, it’s no surprise that women in India are leaving their jobs in droves.
“While providing renewed maternity benefits is a commendable step towards retaining women employees, reintegrating them back to the workforce is fundamental. It is crucial to ensure that performance management systems are fair and do not penalize women for maternity breaks,” Shachi Irde, executive director of Catalyst India Women’s Research Center, told the Times of India newspaper.
Flipkart and other startups aren’t alone in rolling out a red carpet for women employees. Some bigger and older firms have also done the same.
In May, IT firm Accenture began to offer five months of paid maternity leave to its employees, up from 12 weeks.
In June, PNB MetLife India Insurance, an insurance services firm, said it would give employees who opt to have children through surrogacy four weeks of maternity leave.
And others like Infosys plan to revamp existing policies. In December last year, Vishal Sikka, chief executive at Infosys, said the company has formed a team to simplify maternity leave policies.Story highlights Raids came after possible threats to football fan gatherings, state broadcaster reports
Terror investigation led to raid, Belgian prosecutor's office says
(CNN) Belgian authorities questioned 40 people and arrested 12 of them in an overnight raid related to a terrorism investigation, the federal prosecutor's office said.
The operation Friday into Saturday included searches of dozens of houses, according to a statement from the prosecutor's office.
The searches were spread through 16 municipalities.
"The investigatory results necessitated an immediate intervention," the prosecutor's office said. "The investigation continues. In the interest of the investigation, currently no further details can be given."
Belgian state broadcaster RTBF reported Saturday that the overnight raids were made after messages were intercepted indicating attacks were being planned. The possible targets were places where Belgian football fans congregate to watch Euro 2016 games.
Read MoreImage copyright EPA Image caption Republic fan Jamie Monaghan and Northern Ireland fan Jim Spratt collected the awards in Paris
Jamie Monaghan's trip to France to follow the Republic of Ireland at Euro 2016 was the journey of a lifetime.
And although it ended in heartbreak when the Boys in Green were beaten by the hosts in Lyon, the County Louth teenager went back in France once more.
He was chosen to accept an award for Irish supporters from the mayor of Paris in the city's fanzone under the Eiffel Tower on Thursday night.
Northern Ireland's Green and White Army were also given the prestigious prize.
Jamie found friendship with fans of both the Republic and opposing teams on his Euro tour.
Image caption Jamie received the prestigious Grand Vermeil from Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo
He was one of thousands of Republic fans who flocked to France to watch Martin O'Neill's men reach the competition's knockout stage.
Such was the strength of the support, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo decided to award the Medal of the City of Paris, known as the Grand Vermeil, to both them and Northern Ireland fans for their "exemplary sportsmanship" during the tournament.
She said Parisians had been "charmed and impressed by their goodwill, their singing and their good humour".
Deserving
Jamie, from Togher, near Drogheda, suffers from a rare genetic condition called trisomy 9 mosaicism, meaning he cannot walk or talk.
But that didn't stop him from attending every one of the Republic's games with his dad Philip, mum Annette and sister Aoife.
Image copyright Anette Monaghan Image caption Jamie was joined on his journey around France for Euro 2016 by dad Philip and sister Aoife
Aoife said the football-mad 17-year-old was "all deserving" of his selection to receive the award for his fellow Irish fans.
He met Mayor Hidalgo and Geraldine Byrne Nason, the Irish ambassador to France, who grew up in the same Drogheda estate as Philip, for a mayoral reception before collecting the medal before France took on Germany in Euro 2016's second semi-final.
"We thought that it was all over but it's not," Aoife laughed.
"Jamie got a great reception [at the tournament], everyone loved seeing him in the wheelchair," Aoife said.
"He's really social - it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, he'll want to shake your hand.
"All the fans were really good to him, they came up to him and some gave them their flags - we got a French flag and a Belgian flag."
Image copyright Aoife Monaghan Image caption The Paris mayor decided to honour Irish fans for their "exemplary sportsmanship" during Euro 2016
Jamie made his way around France in a customised wheelchair with some extra-special features.
Before the family headed for Euro 2016, Philip called in a favour and managed to get the Irish squad to sign his son's wheels.
Headlines
"My dad went all out and sprayed the wheel covers green, white and gold and sent them for the players to sign," Aoife said.
"And fair play to them, they did.
"Dad literally got electrical tape in green, white and gold and decorated the whole frame - there are very few parts of that wheelchair that aren't green, white and gold!"
Image copyright Aoife Monaghan Image caption Jamie and his dad were unmistakable in the grounds around France as they flew his tricolour flag
A draw in the Republic's opening match against Sweden in Paris was followed by a brutal beating |
‘0440’, }}
# A class with parametersclass apache (String $version = ‘latest’) { package {‘httpd’: ensure => $version,
# Using the class parameter from above before => File[‘/etc/httpd.conf’], } file {‘/etc/httpd.conf’: ensure => file, owner => ‘httpd’, content => template(‘apache/httpd.conf.erb’),
# Template from a module } service {‘httpd’: ensure => running, enable => true, subscribe => File[‘/etc/httpd.conf’], }}
Puppet Interview Question # 13) How can you configure systems with Puppet?
Answer # You can configure systems with Puppet either in a client/server architecture, using the Puppet agent and Puppet master applications, or in a stand-alone architecture, using the Puppet apply application.
Puppet Interview Question # 14) What are Catalogs in Puppet?
Answer # A catalog is a document that describes the desired system state for one specific computer. It lists all of the resources that need to be managed, as well as any dependencies between those resources.
Puppet configures systems in two stages:
Compile a catalog. Apply the catalog.
Puppet Interview Question # 15) Explain the agent/master architecture in Puppet?
Answer # When set up as an agent/master architecture, a Puppet master server controls the configuration information, and each managed agent node requests its own configuration catalog from the master.
In this architecture, managed nodes run the Puppet agent application, usually as a background service. One or more servers run the Puppet master application, Puppet Server.
Puppet Interview Question # 16) How can Puppet agent nodes and Puppet masters communicate with each other?
Answer # Puppet agent nodes and Puppet masters communicate by HTTPS with client verification.
The Puppet master provides an HTTP interface, with various endpoints available. When requesting or submitting anything to the master, the agent makes an HTTPS request to one of those endpoints.
Client-verified HTTPS means each master or agent must have an identifying SSL certificate. They each examine their counterpart’s certificate to decide whether to allow an exchange of information.
Puppet includes a built-in certificate authority for managing certificates.
Agents can automatically request certificates through the master’s HTTP API. You can use the puppet cert command to inspect requests and sign new certificates. And agents can then download the signed certificates.
Puppet Interview Question # 16) Can you explain stand-alone architecture in Puppet?
Answer # Puppet can run in a stand-alone architecture, where each managed node has its own complete copy of your configuration info and compiles its own catalog.
In this architecture, managed nodes run the Puppet apply application, usually as a scheduled task or cron job. You can also run it on demand for initial configuration of a server or for smaller configuration tasks.
Like the Puppet master application, Puppet apply needs access to several sources of configuration data, which it uses to compile a catalog for the node it is managing.
Puppet Interview Question # 17) How can you explain installing Puppet agent in Linux?
Answer # Install the Puppet agent so that your master can communicate with your Linux nodes.
1. Install a release package to enable Puppet Platform repositories.
2. Confirm that you can run Puppet executables.
The location for Puppet’s executables is /opt/puppetlabs/bin/, which is not in your PATH environment variable by default.
The executable path doesn’t matter for Puppet services — for instance, service puppet start works regardless of the PATH — but if you’re running interactive puppet commands, you must either add their location to your PATH or execute them using their full path.
To quickly add the executable location to your PATH for your current terminal session, use the command export PATH=/opt/puppetlabs/bin:$PATH. You can also add this location wherever you configure your PATH, such as your.profile or.bashrc configuration files.
For more information, see details about file and directory locations.
3. Install the puppet-agent package on your Puppet agent nodes using the command appropriate to your system:
Yum – sudo yum install puppet-agentApt – sudo apt-get install puppet-agentZypper – sudo zypper install puppet-agent
4. (Optional) Configure agent settings.
For example, if your master isn’t reachable at the default address, server = puppet, set the server setting to your Puppet master’s hostname.
For other settings you might want to change, see a list of agent-related settings.
5. Start the puppet service: sudo /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet resource service puppet ensure=running enable=true.
6. (Optional) To see a sample of Puppet agent’s output and verify any changes you may have made to your configuration settings in step 5, manually launch and watch a Puppet run: sudo /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet agent –test
7. Sign certificates on the certificate authority (CA) master.
On the Puppet master:
1. Run sudo /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet cert list to see any outstanding requests.
2. Run sudo /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet cert sign <NAME> to sign a request.
As each Puppet agent runs for the first time, it submits a certificate signing request (CSR) to the CA Puppet master. You must log into that server to check for and sign certificates. After an agent’s certificate is signed, it regularly fetches and applies configuration catalogs from the Puppet master.
Puppet Interview Question # 18) What is Puppet codedir?
Answer # Puppet’s codedir is the main directory for Puppet code and data. It contains environments (which contain your manifests and modules), a global modules directory for all environments, and your Hiera data.
Puppet Interview Question # 19) Where do you find codedir in Puppet?
Answer # Puppet’s codedir can be found at one of the following locations:
*nix Systems: /etc/puppetlabs/codeWindows: %PROGRAMDATA%\PuppetLabs\code (usually C:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\code)non-root users: ~/.puppetlabs/etc/code
Puppet Interview Question # 20) In Puppet where codedir is configured?
Answer # The location of the codedir can be configured in puppet.conf with the codedir setting, but note that Puppet Server doesn’t use that setting; it has its own jruby-puppet.master-code-dir setting in puppetserver.conf. If you’re using a non-default codedir, you must change both settings.
Advanced Puppet Interview Questions
Puppet Interview Questions # 21) What is a main manifest or site manifest in Puppet?
Answer # Puppet always starts compiling with either a single manifest file or a directory of manifests that get treated like a single file. This main starting point is called the main manifest or site manifest.
Puppet Interview Questions # 22) What is Puppet apply?
Answer # The puppet apply command requires a manifest as an argument on the command line. (For example: puppet apply /etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/manifests/site.pp.) It can be a single file or a directory of files.
The puppet apply command does not automatically use an environment’s manifest. Instead, it always uses the manifest you pass to it.
Puppet Interview Questions # 23) What is modulepath in Puppet?
Answer # The Puppet master service and the puppet apply command both load most of their content from modules. (See the page on module structure and behavior for more details.)
Puppet automatically loads modules from one or more directories. The list of directories Puppet will find modules in is called the modulepath.
Puppet Interview Questions # 24) What is base modulepath?
Answer # The base modulepath is a list of global module directories for use with all environments. It can be configured with the basemodulepath setting, but its default value is probably suitable for you unless you’re doing something unusual.
The default value of the basemodulepath setting is $codedir/modules:/opt/puppetlabs/puppet/modules. (On Windows, it will just use $codedir\modules.)
Puppet Interview Questions # 25) What is SSLdir?
Puppet stores its certificate infrastructure in the ssldir directory. This directory has a similar structure on all Puppet nodes, whether they are agent nodes, Puppet master servers, or the certificate authority (CA) master.
Puppet Labs Interview Questions
Puppet Interview Questions # 26) What the ssldir directory contains in Puppet?
Answer # The ssldir directory contains Puppet certificates, private keys, certificate signing requests (CSRs), and other cryptographic documents.
The ssldir directory on Agent nodes and Puppet masters contain a private key (private_keys/<certname>.pem), a public key (public_keys/<certname.pem>), a signed certificate (certs/<certname>.pem), a copy of the CA certificate (certs/ca.pem), and a copy of the certificate revocation list (CRL) (crl.pem).
They usually also retain a copy of their CSR after submitting it (certificate_requests/<certname>.pem). If these files don’t exist, they are either generated locally or requested from the CA Puppet master.
Puppet Interview Questions # 27) What is cache directory (vardir) in Puppet?
Answer # Puppet’s cache directory, sometimes called vardir, contains dynamic or growing data that Puppet creates in the course of its normal operations. Some of this data can be mined for interesting analysis, or to integrate other tools with Puppet. Other parts are just infrastructure and can be ignored.
Puppet Interview Questions # 28) Where the vardir can be stored in Puppet?
Answer # Location of the vardir directory Puppet Server’s cache directory defaults to /opt/puppetlabs/server/data/puppetserver.
The cache directory for Puppet agent and Puppet apply can be found at one of the following locations:
*nix Systems: /var/opt/puppetlabs/puppet/cachenon-root users: ~/.puppetlabs/opt/puppet/cacheWindows: %PROGRAMDATA%\PuppetLabs\puppet\cache (usually C:\Program Data\PuppetLabs\puppet\cache)
Puppet Interview Questions # 29) What are Environments in Puppet?
Answer # Environments are isolated groups of Puppet agent nodes.
A Puppet master serves each environment with its own main manifest and module path. This lets you use different versions of the same modules for different groups of nodes, which is useful for testing changes to your Puppet code before implementing them on production machines.
Puppet Interview Questions # 30) What are the types of environemts?
Answer # The main uses for environments fall into three categories: permanent test environments, temporary test environments, and divided infrastructure.
Puppet Real Time Interview Questions
Puppet Interview Questions # 31) What are Permanent test environments in Puppet?
Answer # In a permanent test environment, there is a stable group of test nodes where all changes must succeed before they can be merged into the production code. The test nodes are a smaller version of the whole production infrastructure.
Puppet Interview Question # 32) What are Temporary test environments in Puppet?
Answer # In a temporary test environment, you can test a single change or group of changes by checking the changes out of version control into the $codedir/environments directory, where it will be detected as a new environment. A temporary test environment can either have a descriptive name or use the commit ID from the version that it is based on.
Puppet Interview Questions # 33) What is Divided infrastructure in Puppet?
Answer # If parts of your infrastructure are managed by different teams that don’t need to coordinate their code, you can split them into environments.
Puppet Interview Questions # 34) What are modules in Puppet?
Answer # Modules are self-contained bundles of code and data. These reusable, shareable units of Puppet code are a basic building block for Puppet.
Nearly all Puppet manifests belong in modules. The sole exception is the main site.pp manifest, which contains site-wide and node-specific code.
Puppet Interview Questions # 35) What is Module layout in Puppet?
Answer # On disk, a module is a directory tree with a specific, predictable structure:
<MODULE NAME> manifests
files
templates
lib
facts
examples
spec
functions
types
Puppet Real Time Scenarios
Puppet Interview Question # 36) What are the Types of plug-ins in modules of Puppet?
Answer # Puppet supports several kinds of plug-ins:
Custom facts (written in Ruby).External facts (executable scripts or static data).
Custom resource types and providers (written in Ruby).Custom functions written in Ruby.Custom functions written in the Puppet language.Custom Augeas lenses.Miscellaneous utility Ruby code used by other plug-ins.
Puppet Interview Questions # 37) What is puppet module command?
Answer # The puppet module command provides an interface for managing modules from the Puppet Forge. Its interface is similar to several common package managers (such as gem, apt-get, or yum). You can use the puppet module command to search for, install, and manage modules.
Puppet Interview Questions # 38) Explain the process of installing modules from the command line in Puppet?
Answer # The puppet module install command installs a module and all of its dependencies.
By default, it installs into the first directory in Puppet’s modulepath, which defaults to $codedir/environments/production/modules.
For example, to install the puppetlabs-apache module, run:
puppet module install puppetlabs-apache
Puppet Interview Questions # 39) Explain the process of Installing modules from the Puppet Forge?
Answer # To install a module from the Puppet Forge, use the puppet module install command with the full name of the module you want.
The full name of a Forge module is formatted as username-modulename. For example, to instal puppetlabs-apache:
puppet module install puppetlabs-apache
Puppet Interview Questions # 40) How to check the installed modules in Puppet?
Answer # Use the puppet module list command to see which modules you have installed and which directory they’re installed in.
To view the modules arranged by dependency instead of location on disk, use the –tree option.
Puppet Master Interview Questions
Puppet Interview Questions # 41) How to uninstalling modules in Puppet?
Answer # Use the puppet module uninstall command to remove an installed module.
Puppet Interview Questions # 42) What are the core commands of Puppet?
Answer # Core commands of Puppet are:
Pupper Agent
Pupper Server
Puppet Apply
Puppet Cert
Puppet Module
Puppet Resource
Puppet Config
Puppet Parser
Puppet Help
Puppet Man
Puppet Interview Questions # 43) What is Puppet agent?
Answer # Puppet agent manages systems, with the help of a Puppet master. It requests a configuration catalog from a Puppet master server, then ensures that all resources in that catalog are in their desired state.
Puppet Interview Questions # 44) What is Puppet Server?
Answer # Puppet Server compiles configurations for any number of Puppet agents, using Puppet code and various other data sources. It provides the same services as the classic Puppet master application, and more.
Puppet Interview Questions # 45) What is Puppet apply?
Answer # Puppet apply manages systems without needing to contact a Puppet master server. It compiles its own configuration catalog, using Puppet modules and various other data sources, then immediately applies the catalog.
Puppet Interview Questions # 46) What is Puppet cert?
Answer # Puppet cert helps manage Puppet’s built-in certificate authority (CA). It runs on the same server as the Puppet master application. You can use it to sign and revoke agent certificates.
Puppet Interview Questions # 47) What is Puppet module?
Answer # Puppet module is a multi-purpose tool for working with Puppet modules. It can install and upgrade new modules from the Puppet Forge, help generate new modules, and package modules for public release.
Puppet Interview Questions # 48) What is Puppet resource?
Answer # Puppet resource lets you interactively inspect and manipulate resources on a system. It can work with any resource type Puppet knows about.
Puppet Interview Questions # 49) What is Puppet config?
Answer # Puppet config lets you view and change Puppet’s settings.
Puppet Interview Questions # 50) What is Puppet parser?
Answer # Puppet parser lets you validate Puppet code to make sure it contains no syntax errors. It can be a useful part of your continuous integration toolchain.
Puppet Command Cheat Sheet
Puppet Interview Questions # 51) What are Puppet help and Puppet man?
Answer # Puppet help and Puppet man can display online help for Puppet’s other subcommands.
Puppet Interview Questions # 52) What are the sub commands in Puppet?
Answer # Puppet’s command line tools consist of a single puppet binary with many subcommands. The following subcommands are available in this version of Puppet:
Core Tools: These subcommands form the core of Puppet’s tool set, and every user should understand what they do.
puppet agent puppet apply puppet cert puppet master puppet module puppet resource puppet lookup
Occasionally Useful Subcommands
Many or most users will need to use these subcommands at some point, but they aren’t needed for daily use the way the core tools are.
puppet config
puppet describe
puppet device
puppet doc
puppet epp
puppet help
puppet man
puppet node
puppet parser
puppet plugin
Niche Subcommands: Most users can ignore these subcommands. They’re only useful for certain niche workflows, and most of them are interfaces to Puppet’s internal subsystems.
puppet ca puppet catalog puppet certificate puppet certificate_request puppet certificate_revocation_list puppet facts puppet filebucket puppet key puppet report puppet status
Unknown or New Subcommands: These subcommands have not yet been added to any of the categories above.
puppet generate
Puppet Interview Questions # 53) Explain Puppet server?
Answer # Puppet Server is an application that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and provides the same services as the classic Puppet master application. It mostly does this by running the existing Puppet master code in several JRuby interpreters, but it replaces some parts of the classic application with new services written in Clojure.
Puppet Interview Questions # 54) What is Hiera?
Answer # Hiera is a key/value lookup used for separating data from Puppet code. Hiera is Puppet’s built-in key-value configuration data lookup system.
Puppet’s strength is in reusable code. Code that serves many needs must be configurable: put site-specific information in external configuration data files, rather than in the code itself.
Puppet Interview Questions # 55) Why Puppet uses Hiera?
Answer # Puppet uses Hiera to do two things:
Store the configuration data in key-value pairsLook up what data a particular module needs for a given node during catalog compilation.This is done via:
Automatic Parameter Lookup for classes included in the catalog
Explicit lookup calls
Puppet Interview Questions # 56) What is PSON in Puppet?
Answer # PSON is a variant of JSON that puppet uses for serializing data to transmit across the network or store on disk. Whereas JSON requires that the serialized form is valid unicode (usually UTF-8), PSON is 8-bit ASCII, which allows it to represent arbitrary byte sequences in strings.
Puppet uses the MIME types “pson” and “text/pson” to refer to PSON.
Puppet Interview Questions # 57) How PSON is different from JSON?
Answer # PSON does not differ from JSON in its representation of objects, arrays, numbers, booleans, and null values. PSON does serialize strings differently from JSON.A PSON string is a sequence of 8-bit ASCII encoded data. It must start and end with “ (ASCII 0x22) characters.
RELATED INTERVIEW QUESTIONSIs Mark Zuckerberg in over his hoodie as Facebook CEO?
Facebook's stock price slide has raised doubts about Mark Zuckerberg's role as CEO. Some say he should hand the reins to a more seasoned executive.
"There is a growing sense that Mark Zuckerberg, talented though he may be, is in over his hoodie as CEO of a multibillion-dollar public company," said Sam Hamadeh, head of research firm PrivCo. "While in many cases a company founder can, and does, grow into the job, things are happening so quickly that there is precious little time here for Zuckerberg to do that."
In that scenario, Zuckerberg would remain as the creative force propelling Facebook's technological innovation. But the 28-year-old would cede the CEO title to someone better suited to overseeing operations and building rapport with finicky investors — mundane but essential duties for which Zuckerberg has shown little appetite or aptitude.
Should Mark Zuckerberg, the social media visionary but neophyte corporate manager, step aside as CEO to let a more seasoned executive run the multibillion-dollar company?
The deepening slide in Facebook Inc.'s stock is fueling talk once considered implausible on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.
Doubts about the Facebook founder intensified Thursday as the stock closed below $20 for the first time. The shares, which slipped to $19.87, have shed nearly half their value since Facebook's disastrous initial public offering three months ago.
Thursday's selling was driven by the expiration of provisions that had barred Facebook's venture capital backers from unloading their shares. Trading volume was abnormally heavy, a sign of the fury with which some of the company's earliest investors ran for the exits as soon as they could.
"This was the most anticipated IPO in many years and it was like an exploding cigar," said Barry Ritholtz, head of research firm Fusion IQ. "Every investor thought they were about to become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, and they had this blow up in their face."
The danger, Ritholtz said, is that the drooping stock price could tag the company itself with a "stink of failure" that could make advertisers less willing to use Facebook.
Facebook's troubles stem from numerous factors, including investors' overinflated expectations, the company's unproven strategy for mobile advertising and an IPO that was mangled by both the Nasdaq stock market and Facebook's investment banks. Its first-ever earnings as a public company, released last month, beat analysts' expectations as revenue grew 32% year over year. Still, the stock plunged as investors were spooked by rising costs and slowing growth.
Only some of those problems are attributable to Zuckerberg, analysts say. And given that he is the company's largest shareholder, with ironclad control over all decisions, nothing would happen without Zuckerberg's assent.
Still, restless investors blame Zuckerberg for several missteps, such as pricing the IPO at a stratospheric $100-billion valuation.
Facebook boosted its IPO price days before the offering, with several large shareholders selling unexpectedly large chunks of their holdings. The moves were seen as siphoning extra profit for the company and big shareholders at the expense of subsequent investors.
The enormous valuation left Facebook little room for error, and was seen as hubris by a company that at the time saw few obstacles in its path.
Zuckerberg's indifference to traditional corporate etiquette — he wore sneakers and his trademark hoodie for Facebook's first big investor meeting — is viewed as disrespectful of the corporate world he needs to win over.
"His behavior is what I would expect of someone his age — the hoodies and everything else," said Chris Whalen, senior managing director at Tangent Capital Partners in New York. "He's trying to appeal to his audience instead of being responsible to his investors. His job now is to run the company."One week after the fix, the BMW was in perfect tune and I had instituted the recommendations Hughes outlines below to all my vehicles. Nick Ienatsch
Earlier this year my air-cooled 2009 BMW boxer sat for seven months with no internal combustion. A Battery Tender kept the disconnected battery charged and I had added Sta-Bil fuel-stabilizer while it sat. No float bowls to drain because it’s fuel-injected. Ready to ride, I rolled it out, checked the tires, and connected the battery. The engine spun over perfectly, the starter motor strong and quick. In fact, I had quite a few minutes to admire the strength of the battery and the enthusiasm of the starter motor because the engine wouldn’t fire. It's hard for me to remember the last time a bike failed to run—things just don’t break like they used to. I confirmed that there was gas in the tank, pulled a plug, and saw spark. “Can you hear the fuel pump whine?” asked my friend Chris Geiter. He had already walked me through removing a fuel injector to see if it was squirting fuel. It wasn’t.
I will admit here that there’s a perverse joy when things go wrong because of the enjoyment so many of us have in fixing things. The injectors didn’t spray, but I was having fun removing injectors for the first time. Geiter had me examine the injectors and the wiring, walking me through some basic checks over the phone. It was very similar to a college professor helping a “challenged” four-year-old learn to read. No fuel pump whine. Geiter, a lead tech/genius at DynoJet, had found the problem. Next call was to the dealer. “Yep,” the young man said, “those pumps go bad if you let it sit too long. They’re around $360.”
Mike Hughes of Irish Mike’s Performance holds up brittle and broken plastic and rubber parts he has replaced due to ethanol in our gasoline. He uses a multimeter and fuel tester to gauge the amount of ethanol. Nick Ienatsch
I hung up stunned and a little bit angry. I pulled all the bodywork and checked the fuel-pump wiring (no fuses on this bike). There were no visual problems, and so I started muttering something about German engineering. Then I remembered meeting Mike Hughes, purveyor of Irish Mike’s Performance in Henderson, Nevada. He was close and I figured that perhaps he could rebuild the pump, or get a deal on one, or somehow help get this boxer running again. Turns out he could, and for only $20. “Bring me the pump," he told me in his brogue. "We’ll soak it overnight, I bet it’s gummed up with ethanol.” I didn’t believe this was the problem (two dealers had already told me I needed a new fuel pump) but I took the pump to Irish Mike’s anyway. The next day my bike was running and I started studying a problem that I had only heard theoretically: Ethanol in our fuel.
As motorcyclist, why should we care about ethanol? We should care because the EPA wants to increase the percentage of ethanol in our fuel from the current 10% to 15%, and as Mike Hughes showed me, the current level is already reaping havoc on our motorcycles. The AMA’s American Motorcyclist magazine has been following the ethanol issue and the EPA’s “Renewable Volume Obligations” to force more ethanol into the marketplace, but in one of its latest issues, the magazine tells us that it’s our ambivalence and unfamiliarity with the downsides of ethanol that is one of the biggest problems. Until my BMW wouldn’t fire, ethanol was a word I ignored at the gas pump. After spending a few hours with Hughes, ethanol is a dirty a word that is costing riders a lot of money and long-term usage will only make things worse. Here’s the real story from a man in the trenches, as Hughes shows us the problems and offers some solutions when it comes to damage caused by ethanol.
Just about every fuel in the Las Vegas area checks in at 10% ethanol, and Hughes stays busy fighting the downsides of alcohol in your fuel tank. He’s got some tips we all need to incorporate in our bike ownership ritual. Nick Ienatsch
Problems for Motorcyclists Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water vapor directly from the atmosphere. It’s also a terrific solvent or cleaner. So we’re inviting water into our fuel systems and we’re either scouring all sorts of deposits anywhere ethanol reaches or attacking components that were never intended to come into contact with a solvent. “Twenty percent of my repair business, maybe more, is due to ethanol,” Hughes claims. “I’m either replacing parts that ethanol has eaten, cleaning residue out of places like fuel injectors and fuel pumps, or fixing all the issues that water in fuel causes.” A KTM team Hughes tunes for has lost two races due to failed fuel injectors directly related to ethanol. He has personally replaced dozens of Ducati fuel tanks due to ethanol’s damage. “Ducati flew a 55 gallon drum of America’s ethanol to Italy to study because they were having so many fuel-related issues in this country,” Mike tells us. A MotoGuzzi California sat at the workbench because it wouldn’t run. “This Guzzi sat too long, like your BMW. My experience is that anything over 28 days has the fuel and alcohol separate and it won’t rejoin. I’ve had Aprilia RSV4s in here that won’t idle, all due to ethanol.” Hughes spends a lot of time replacing in-tank fuel lines, filters, screens…and fuel tanks themselves. He’s seen ethanol eat foam air filters, dissolve fuel-filter screens and leave “nasty deposits” on carburetor bodies, deposits that sometimes eat the aluminum of carburetors. Solutions for Motorcyclists Removing ethyl alcohol from our fuel, or at least reducing it, doesn’t appear to be a viable solution due to alcohol’s benefits (raises octane rating, renewable energy produced from agricultural feedstocks) and massive infrastructure. What helps is that Mike Hughes is in the trenches as a tech, but he’s also an enthusiastic rider. Those two ingredients have motivated him to find fixes and solutions as a businessman and enthusiast. I will describe the solutions in photos and captions but each of us can make our voices heard to the EPA regarding ethyl alcohol in our fuel.
This is a Sealey injector tester and to avoid needing tools like this, Hughes recommends an ethanol stabilizer and says the Bel Ray product is the best. “Normal fuel stabilizer does nothing to help the ethanol issue.” Hughes used to recommend leaving your fuel tank full, but now he feels emptying the tank completely is the best long-term-storage solution. Nick Ienatsch
This is what my fuel pump soaked in overnight: Berryman Chem-Dip. The carburetors sitting on the can were completely corroded and worthless a week ago. Hughes stripped them and dipped them in Chem-Dip. Nick Ienatsch
Hughes dug these beauties out of a box of similar corrosion. Ethanol attacks some types of rubber and plastic, so Hughes recommends Gates submergible fuel hose. It’s $45 per foot, but will fix the fuel-line problem you see in this picture. Nick Ienatsch
Can you see the cracking in this MV tank? That’s the result of ethanol reacting poorly with the plastics. Hughes has had great luck sealing the inside of fuel tanks with Caswell Gas Tank Sealer. He says it’s a much easier and cleaner process than many of us have experienced with other products. And Hughes adds, “Have you noticed that the Panigale tanks are aluminum?” Nick Ienatsch
Here's a closer look at what Hughes suggests for sealing the inside of fuel tanks. Nick Ienatsch
Hughes cleans a lot of injectors with this Motion Pro injector cleaner. He cautions against any manual cleaning due to chance of marring the exact clearances. “Can I just run a piece of safety wire through it?” “No, get away from my toolbox, journalist.” Nick Ienatsch
Ethanol took the coating off the in-tank fuel pump on the left, and gee, where do you think that coating went? Yep, to the fuel filter and if that failed, to the fuel pump and through to the valve train and pistons. Motivated to pay attention? Me too. Nick Ienatsch
Here is an in-tank BMW fuel system from a 2007 1200, very similar to my ’09. The dealership replaced the fuel pump under a recall, but a few days later the bike quit running. Mike discovered that the plastic fuel hose had swelled and split due to alcohol’s effect on plastic. Nick Ienatsch
Mike's permanent fix involves Gates submersible hose, new clamps and a “safety-wire suspension” system that inhibits kinks and distortion. Yeah, he’s good and I believe my twin will be needing this fix soon. Nick Ienatsch
One of the best pieces on ethanol myths was written by Tom Burden on West Marine’s site, with information from Mercury Marine. Burden makes it clear that E10 is okay for most marine engines but E15 is not. He cautioned internal-combustion fans to check the pump labels. Some of his biggest concerns centered around the separation of gasoline and a “corrosive mix of ethanol and water” during long-term storage. It’s a good read, and reasonably presented. Nick Ienatsch
Yes, that’s 100-octane non-ethanol fuel available at the pump in Las Vegas, thanks to Rebel stations (at $7.99 per gallon). Hughes likes to mix 100 into his fuel tanks on occasion, simply for the all-gasoline advantages. Hughes advises to buy your fuel from the busiest gas station in your area to get the freshest ethanol mix. “In my experience, if ethanol sits more than 28 days it starts to separate.” Nick Ienatsch
Hughes likes this Bel Ray fuel/ethanol additive best. If an additive or stabilizer doesn’t specifically list ethanol stabilization, it will not reduce or eliminate the separation of ethanol that causes so much harm and hardship. Nick IenatschFeminism means a lot to me. I've spent my entire life surrounded (almost solely) by strong, powerful women, and that's something I don't ever intend to change. It's not that I avoid or dislike men (which way too many people seem to think is what the word "feminism" means), it's just — women are great, and women's rights are incredibly important to me. So, I definitely wouldn't date a guy who doesn't proudly call himself a feminist, which is why I added "feminists only" to my dating profile.
Well, to be specific, I added, "Feminists only (but seriously, if one more guy asks me for nudes, I'm done with men)." Because I really am. I'm done with the culture that made me feel ashamed when I sexually assaulted at 16. Done with the, "Well, you shouldn't have worn that dress," comments colleagues gave me when I was upset that men had shouted and purred at me as I walked to work. Done with the fact that women make 78 cents to a man's dollar (for women of color, the pay divide is even greater ).
I switched my app settings to cover everyone from age 20 to 55 to see what men across generations had to say on the matter. To me, men who claim to be feminists should be willing to stand right beside me and say, "Hey! I'm on your team! I'll fight for your rights!" And I'd expect nothing less from a potential suitor. Given the current political climate and rise of the #MeToo movement, I was sure that all my matches would all quickly and confidently announce that yes, they were totally on board with feminism — who wouldn't be?
But (spoiler alert!) some men are fools, and many are still crazy blind to the fact that feminism is A) not about bringing men down, and B) So. Freaking. Necessary. Here are six men's thoughts on why they do or don't call themselves feminists. Prepare to roll your eyes ad nauseam.
Jean, 37
Jean started by complimenting my dog, which is basically the key to my heart. When I asked if he was really a feminist, though, everything went downhill. Fast.
Jean proclaimed that feminism was B.S., because women can "obviously do whatever they want." Oh, and apparently all feminists have armpit hair (some do, some don't, and now I'm tempted to grow mine out of pure spite).
As I explained to Jean, it's easy to claim something is divisive or unnecessary if you've never experienced, you know, millennia of patriarchal nonsense. But Jean stood by his position that feminism was not the answer. Now, I should note that Merriam-Webster offers two definitions of the word "feminism." The first is "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes;" the second is "organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests." I would love to hear if Jean's got any better ideas on how to address issues like the wage gap, but sadly, I never heard back.
Aadil, 27
Aadil's profile mostly featured photos of his abdomen, and his bio read "B*tches, beer, and fighting," (yup, really). So, I assumed he was pretty far from a feminist. Turns out I was right.
At first, he claimed to be a fifth-wave feminist (which isn't a thing yet), and then described himself as a "humanist." Personally, I have a lot of issues with the term humanism. From where I sit, feminism is labeled as such because equality can only be achieved by advocating for the oppressed — or, at least the more oppressed of two groups (in this case, women). But I put my own frustrations with "humanism" aside to ask Aadil what it meant to him.
Then he turned around and made a joke about men dominating women, because — as his bio explained — fighting is one of his favorite things. See ya never, Aadil!
Steven, 23
Steven was off to a rough start.
One of my middle school teachers once told us that things really "evened out" between the sexes after women earned the right to vote in 1920. He explained that once women's suffrage was granted, men were no longer expected to give up their seats on trains to ladies, that a balance was struck. I remember thinking, "Why is this anecdote about men giving up their seats part of a lesson about women fighting for, and gaining, certain rights?" And Steven's argument feels like the same kind of ridiculous red herring.
Chivalry and feminism are not mutually exclusive, for one, but doesn't claiming that they are feel like a way to detract from the larger issues at play? I think a lot of men are afraid of acknowledging that they're a part of the problem, so they say things like, "Hey, we pay for dinner!" and expect that to somehow make up for the fact that so much of our culture treats women as little more than sex toys. FYI: it definitely does not.
Oh, and P.S., Steven: This may be "my perspective" of feminism, but guess what? As the resident woman in this conversation, my perspective is kind of the one that matters here.
Patrice, 25
After chatting with Steven, I started pacing around my living room and ranting about burning the patriarchy to the ground. Then Patrice messaged me, and he really turned my frown upside down.
This was my absolute favorite answer. It was honest and candid and just... thank goodness for Patrice. We all have work to do, for sure, but I was so excited that Patrice acknowledged that and proudly explained how his own views had been shaped by the feminine influence in his life.
Isaac, 27
I decided to switch up my question |
ial as executor and directed that his wake be "...conducted by those with no financial ties to me and can look each other in the eyes and say they really cared personally for Gary Colemen [sic]",[64] turned out to be superseded by a later one replacing Mial with Gray,[65] and directing "...that there be no funeral service, wake, or other ceremony memorializing my passing."[66][67]
Questions were also raised as to whether Price, who approved discontinuing Coleman's life support, was legally authorized to do so. The controversy was exacerbated by a photograph published on the front page of the tabloid newspaper The Globe depicting Price posed next to a comatose, intubated Coleman, under the headline, "It Was Murder!"[68]
The hospital later issued a statement confirming that Coleman had completed an advance health care directive granting Price permission to make medical decisions on his behalf.[69] An investigation by Santaquin police was closed on October 5, 2010, after the medical examiner ruled Coleman's death accidental, and no evidence of wrongdoing could be demonstrated.[70][71]
While Coleman's final will, signed in 2005, named Gray as executor and awarded his entire estate to her, Coleman and Price married in 2007. Although they divorced in 2008, Price claimed in a court petition that she remained Coleman's common-law wife, sharing bank accounts and the couple presented themselves publicly as husband and wife until Coleman's death, an assertion that, if validated by the court, would make her the lawful heir.[66]
In May 2012, Judge James Taylor ruled that while Price had indeed lived in Coleman's home after their marriage ended, their relationship at the time of his death failed to meet Utah's standard for a common-law marriage.[72] The disposition of his ashes remains unreported. Price said, were she granted disposition, she would scatter the ashes at the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Utah as a tribute to Coleman's lifelong love of trains.[73]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Video games [ edit ]
Postal 2 at E3 in Coleman promotingat E3 in Los Angeles California on May 15, 2003
Coleman portrayed a fictional version of himself in Postal 2, providing the voice and motion capture. He also portrayed Kenny Falmouth in The Curse of Monkey Island.
Music videos [ edit ]Port Covington is the place for Amazon to build its second headquarters campus, Amazon HQ2. That might seem an unusual statement from the Baltimore County executive, since Port Covington is located in Baltimore City. But a project of this scope requires a broader vision, one that recognizes that a strong and vibrant Baltimore City is good for Baltimore County, the region and the state.
This is not a time for local leaders to be blinded by parochial interests. Certainly Baltimore County has viable location options, but with Amazon’s very specific needs and timelines, these sites won’t make the highly competitive cut. Port Covington in Baltimore City is shovel ready for HQ2.
When you look at the way people actually live and work, we are one interconnected Central Maryland region anchored by Baltimore City. Every day, thousands of people live in the city and work in the counties. And vice versa. With one regional voice, we have the best chance to bring Amazon and tens of thousands of jobs to Maryland and hypercharge development of Port Covington.
Together, we offer Amazon an affordable business climate, spot-on location, forward-leaning tech workforce, and a quality of life that blends urban, suburban and rural lifestyles.
Amazon already knows a lot about Baltimore and Central Maryland. They’ve researched us up and down and selected the Baltimore region for major operations in Dundalk and Cecil County. They know how easy it is to hop on Acela to D.C. or New York and fly out of BWI airport for a Seattle or London meeting. They see entrepreneurial energy from companies such as Under Armour, Pay Pal Credit and tech talent recruiter Allegis Group, and the steady leadership of corporate giants such as T. Rowe Price and McCormick.
Amazon does not have to look far for technical expertise and university brainpower. University of Maryland Baltimore County is recognized nationally for its IT and cyber programs and business partnerships, including a cyber incubator. Baltimore coders might be graduates of Johns Hopkins, Towson University, Morgan State University, University of Baltimore or the Maryland Institute College of Art.
The 50,000 workers at Amazon and their families are as likely to live in a city loft in Federal Hill as a luxury apartment in downtown Towson, or a suburban neighborhood in Catonsville or Columbia.
Baltimore is a mix of urban cool near comfortable county neighborhoods. We share a love of steamed crabs and chef cuisine, world class arts and entertainment, weekends in the mountains or down the ocean, Orioles baseball and Ravens football. We are quirky, eclectic, welcoming and creative. Nowhere else can claim to be the home of filmmaker John Waters, video game pioneer Sid Meier and electronic music composer Dan Deacon.
Baltimore City’s strength and economic vitality are good for Baltimore County, good for the region and good for Maryland. The impact of these jobs will benefit all of us. I urge officials across Maryland to send their own letters in support of Port Covington as the location of choice for Amazon’s HQ2.
Kevin Kamenetz is Baltimore County executive, president of the Maryland Association of Counties and past president of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council. He can be reached at kevin@baltimorecountymd.gov.Judge's gavel. (Photo: Kuzma Getty Images/iStockphoto)
A former Phoenix police officer who pleaded guilty to stealing more than 2,000 narcotic pills that were in police custody was sentenced to nearly four years in prison by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Friday.
William B. McCartney, 40, will serve three years and nine months in the Department of Corrections followed by three years of probation, according to the sentence Superior Court Judge Peter Reinstein handed down Friday morning. Reinstein will recommend to the Department of Corrections that McCartney be transferred to an out-of-state prison to serve his sentence.
McCartney was arrested in 2011 after an internal audit showed that bags containing prescription painkillers, like oxycodone, that were handled by him were tampered with and replaced with over-the-counter medication.
McCartney said during the hearing that he stole the painkillers because he was addicted to them. He said his addiction stemmed from an operation on his hand that he injured while on duty.
"I know what I did was wrong, horrible and unethical," McCartney said.
McCartney and his lawyer, David Cantor, asked the judge for the minimum sentence stipulated in his plea agreement of three years due to his achievements as a police officer and his contributions to society. But prosecutor Edward Leiter asked for a five-year sentence and said other police officers need to learn from McCartney's experience.
"The message needs to be sent, frankly, to all police officers that if you engage in this type of activity … you will be appropriately punished," Leiter said.
Five or six cases were directly impacted by McCartney's theft, but no cases were dismissed, Leiter said. McCartney's actions were a direct breach of public trust, Leiter said.
Three members of McCartney's family spoke during the hearing. They said McCartney was a good man whose life spiraled out of control due to his addiction to painkillers.
"We will all continue to love, support and be here for him," his brother, Ken McCartney, said as he cried at the podium.
McCartney was extradited from Pennsylvania in July 2012 after being arrested in June. He had previously been arrested in 2011, but was released soon afterward as the case was further investigated.
McCartney had been in the Phoenix Police Department since 1999 before his 2011 arrest, according to court documents. He resigned shortly after being arrested in 2011 and moved with his family to Pennsylvania.
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The defendant's family made impassioned pleas to Reinstein. They said they acknowledged the severity of the crime, but pointed to McCartney's record as a citizen and police officer.
"He has always been a generous person," Ken McCartney said.
The lead detective on the case, Theron Quass, said during the hearing that McCartney had legal ways to treat his pain and get counselling for his addiction but chose to steal the drugs instead.
"He was clearly not honest, clearly addicted to drugs," Cantor said in reply to Quass' statements.
Linda Staley, McCartney's sister, said his addiction was hidden from family members, doctors and friends. She said he has made an attempt to become clean after he realized he had a drug problem.
"I am proud, as a sister, that he is here today," Staley said in reference to him taking responsibility by pleading guilty.
Reinstein said McCartney's history as a police officer and good family man were mitigating factors in his sentencing, and he said McCartney was lucky to have his family support him. However, Reinstein also said he betrayed the trust of the people by stealing the narcotics.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1rZWtCKMOSCOW (Reuters) - Opponents of Vladimir Putin branded his election victory an insult to the Russian people on Wednesday, trying to inject life into protests which risk fading after his return to the Kremlin.
Co-founder of the League of Voters Georgy Vasilyev speaks during a news conference to discuss the results of the recent presidential election in Moscow, March 7, 2012. A group of leading Russian cultural figures, tied to the opposition, has created the League of Voters with a self-stated goal of ensuring fair elections following mass protests at the results of last December's parliamentary poll. REUTERS/Anton Golubev
The statement by the protest Organizers signaled their determination to press on with demonstrations against the former KGB spy despite his triumph in Sunday’s election and the detention of hundreds of people at rallies on Monday.
But the message from the League of Voters, which unites nationalists, liberals and leftists as well as independent groups, offered little new for demonstrators increasingly demoralized by their inability to change a political system dominated by Putin despite three months of protest.
“Against the backdrop of widespread violations, the League finds it impossible to recognize the results of the 2012 presidential elections in Russia,” the League said in a statement issued at a news conference.
“The elections were not fair because the vote-counting and the way the results were compiled were marked by systematic fraud which greatly distorted the result of how voters expressed their will.”
The Central Election Commission has said there were no major voting irregularities in the election and Putin, returning to the presidency after eight years as head of state until 2008, said he won a clean victory.
Putin, who has served as prime minister for four years, has won a new six-year term and could rule as long as Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, whose 18 years in power have been called the “years of stagnation.”
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, swiftly dismissed the opposition criticism and indicated it would not be taken into account. “All assessments have been made. The matter is closed,” he told Interfax news agency.
INSULT TO RUSSIAN SOCIETY
Official results showed Putin won more than 63 percent of votes in the election, but independent international monitors said the poll was skewed to favor the prime minister.
The United States and the European Union have called for all reports of voting irregularities to be investigated but also underlined the need to keep cooperating with Russia.
The League of Voters, which was born from protests that were sparked by allegations of fraud in a parliamentary poll on December 4 won by Putin’s party, said that “civil society in Russia was insulted” by Sunday’s election results.
“The Russian presidency as an institution, the Russian electoral system and the state authorities in Russia as a whole were discredited,” it said in the statement.
Citing handwritten vote tallies collected by its observers, the group said results from 33 polling stations in Russia’s second city of St Petersburg had been falsified to give Putin an extra 15 percentage points after voting ended.
“You can imagine what the situation was like at polling stations which were impossible to monitor,” said Georgy Vasilyev, a film producer and member of the League of Voters.
Police detained hundreds of people who attended unsanctioned rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg on Monday and protesters who refused to leave after a Moscow rally that had been permitted.
The police said they had acted in accordance with the law and Peskov defended the intervention.
But some opposition leaders have said they fear Putin has decided to use force to smother their protests. The next test of their staying power will be on Saturday when they plan to protest in Moscow.
The committee of the League of Voters sit at table on the stage during a news conference to discuss the results of the recent presidential election in Moscow, March 7, 2012. A group of leading Russian cultural figures, tied to the opposition, has created the League of Voters with a self-stated goal of ensuring fair elections following mass protests at the results of last December's parliamentary poll. REUTERS/Anton Golubev
“We must make this protest different... It must be dedicated to the surge of material on violations that are flooding in from all sides,” said journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, a protest organizer.
But he acknowledged it would be hard to maintain the momentum of protests as indignation over vote fraud dissipates.
“People are tired now,” he said. “People are taking this to heart psychologically and personally so of course we will see a period of ‘drop-off’ from primary, basic, brutal activism.”China plans for nuclear growth
20 November 2014
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China's nuclear generating capacity is set to triple over the next six years, according to an energy development plan published by the State Council.
The State Council published the Energy Development Strategy Action Plan, 2014-2020 on 19 November. The plan aims to cut China's reliance on coal and promote the use of clean energy.
China currently has 19.1 GWe of installed nuclear generating capacity. According to the plan, this will reach 58 GWe of capacity by 2020, giving China the third largest nuclear generating capacity after the USA and France. In addition, by 2020, China should also have a further 30 GWe or more of new nuclear generating capacity under construction.
The plan calls for the "timely launch" of new nuclear power projects on China's eastern coast and for feasibility studies for the construction of inland plants. It says that efforts should be focused on promoting the use of large pressurized water reactors (including the AP1000 and CAP1400 designs), high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTRs) and fast reactors.
The plan also says that research should be conducted into fuel reprocessing technology. In addition, it calls for the active promotion of basic research into nuclear power and the research and development of nuclear safety technology. It also says that research should be conducted to "improve the nuclear fuel cycle system."
Fast reactors - make maximum use of uranium resources by generating a certain amount more fuel than they consume - are seen as the main technology for China's long-term use of nuclear energy. Under previously announced plans, deployment of PWRs is expected to level off at 200 GWe by around 2040, with the use of fast reactors progressively increasing from 2020 to at least 200 GWe by 2050 and 1400 GWe by 2100.
Cleaner energy
The plan sets a cap on annual energy consumption at 4.8 billion tonnes of the standard coal equivalent by 2020. This would limit the annual growth rate of primary energy consumption to less than 3.5% per year over the next six years.
Annual coal consumption will be held below 4.2 billion tonnes until 2020, the plan says. Its share of the energy mix will be reduced from the current 67% to 62% by 2020. The plan places responsibility on areas around Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta to cut their coal consumption in order to reduce air pollution. The share of natural gas, meanwhile, will be raised to over 10%.
Meanwhile, the share of non-fossil fuels in the total primary energy mix will increase from 9.8% in 2013 to 15%, according to the plan. Installed capacity of hydro, wind and solar power is expected to reach 350 GWe, 200 GWe and 100 GWe, respectively, by 2020.
Last week, China announced plans to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and "to make best efforts to peak early." It also intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to some 20% by 2030.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News
Related topicsAlmost half of the country's workers say they are living paycheque to paycheque and more than one-third are feeling crushed by their debt loads.
An annual survey of employees by the Canadian Payroll Association (CPA) paints a bleak picture on the personal finance front, with 24 per cent of those surveyed saying they probably could not come up with $2,000 in the event an emergency arose within the next month.
More than one-third of respondents – 36 per cent – said they feel overwhelmed by their level of debt and 12 per cent indicated they doubt they will ever be completely free of debt.
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Forty-eight per cent of those surveyed said it would be difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque were delayed just one week, up slightly from the annual poll's average of 47 per cent over the past three years.
The report, released Wednesday, comes in the wake of economic data indicating Canada experienced two consecutive quarters of contraction – technically speaking, a recession – although home sales in August (except in Alberta) were strong and a report last week showed 12,000 net jobs were created last month.
The overall jobless rate, however, remains stubbornly high at 7 per cent.
"Canadians are saying they are still having a difficult time making ends meet and they are not putting enough aside to reach their own retirement goals," said CPA chief executive officer Patrick Culhane.
While 62 per cent of respondents said they are able to meet their savings goals, 47 per cent said are putting away only 5 per cent or less of their net pay, in stark contrast to the recommended retirement savings rate of at least 10 per cent of net pay.
More than one-third – 35 per cent – of those polled said they expect to work longer than they had initially planned five years ago, with their average retirement age target having risen to age 63 from 58 over that time period.
Three-quarters of respondents – 76 per cent – said they have squirrelled away less than one-quarter of what they will need in retirement, up slightly from an average of 74 per cent over the past three years.
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Among those 50 and above, 48 per cent stated they are less than one-quarter of the way to reaching their nest egg goal.
But half think they will need more than $1-million in savings to retire comfortably, according to the poll.
When it comes to expectations, 33 per cent said they anticipate that the economy will improve over the next year, down from an average of 41 per cent over the past three years, and 27 per cent see the economy worsening, up from the three-year average of 17 per cent.
The online survey is based on responses from 3,605 employees from different industry sectors across Canada. The poll was conducted between June 29 and Aug. 7 by Framework Partners, a market research and strategic planning firm.
CPA says the survey is consistent with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, "but as a non-probabilistic methodology was used, a definitive margin of error cannot be expressed."In the same SEC filing that revealed that Activision was in a conflict with two senior Infinity Ward employees over charges of insubordination, Activision-Blizzard also stated that Blizzard is currently working on multiple sequels in the Diablo franchise.
“Blizzard is currently developing new games, including a new expansion pack to the World of Warcraft franchise, Cataclysm, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, which will be released with the new and improved Battle.net, and sequels to the Diablo franchise.”
Little more information is available at this time. Blizzard has stated in the past that it is aiming to release games in their core-franchises, including Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, on a more regular basis. The highly anticipated Starcraft 2 has been split into three separate instalments, of which the first instalment is slated for a release later this year. It is unclear if Diablo III will suffer a similar fate.President Obama issued more than $890 billion worth or regulations during his tenure in the White House, according to a new study from the center-right American Action Forum (AAF).
This included $24 billion in midnight regulations issued in January.
“The costs of these $890 billion in burdens must be borne by someone, and it is the American people who inevitably end up paying for these rules in some form,” said Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at AAF.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued $344 billion worth of regulations during the Obama administration, according to the study, which was by far the most expensive set of rules from any federal agency.
The Department of Energy became the second-most expensive agency, issuing $194 billion in regulatory burdens over the last eight years.
As it worked to implement ObamaCare provisions, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued $104 billion in regulations.
The Department of Transportation issued $58 billion in regulatory burdens, while the Department of Labor dropped $56 billion worth of rules during the Obama administration.
This amounted to the Obama administration averaging more than $111 billion in regulatory burdens each year, according to AAF. By comparison, the George W. Bush administration averaged $42 billion.Update: The American Mustache Institute has pulled its endorsement of Herman Cain in light of recent sexual harassment allegations. Read more here.
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Herman Cain and his mustache. (Richard Drew/AP)
No, not the Republican presidential nomination which Cain is actively seeking. (A move his mustache, we assume, supports.) The pair is up for the 2011 Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year award.
Jimmy “The Rent Is Too [Darn] High” McMillian, retired astronaut Mark Kelly and over a dozen other stached gentlemen are up for the title, given out by the American Mustache Institute (AMI.) A full list of nominees can be viewed and voted for here.
“The Goulet award is not a best mustache contest but recognizes the person who best-represents or contributes to the Mustached American community over the past year,” according to the AMI.
It’s easy to see why Cain has been nominated. If elected president, the former pizza CEO would be the first president since William Howard Taft to sport this type of facial hair. Palash R. Ghosh of the International Business Times sees the potential: “If he wins the U.S. presidency, I certainly hope he doesn’t shave it off and begins a new trend of mustachioed leaders.”
Cain has tough competition in Kelly, who stood by his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, as she recovered from a gunshot wound to the head. Kelly’s mustache also spent time in space this year.
The AMI is a facial hair advocacy group that’s based in silliness and charitable giving. This, for example, is on the group’s disclaimer page: “Wearing a ‘Dictator’ mustache may lead to repeated beatings.”
In reality, the AMI is trying to create buzz for its October charity event, the Stache Bash, which kicks off the group’s Movember. Donations will benefit the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG, while the group will continue benefitting mustached men everywhere.
(Hat tip to Politico’s Emily Schultheis )I don’t plan on subscribing to Apple Music when my free trial of the service runs out. It’s not really something I care to pay $10 a month for. I’m not an avid music listener; I sometimes put some hip hop on in the car, but that’s about it. For me, paying $10 every month for access to a large library of music that I don’t plan to use to the fullest extent just isn’t worth it, and I prefer to own what music I do listen to.
I also hate the idea of subscription software, like Adobe’s current Creative Cloud offering. Like my music, I’d rather own my software outright than pay a monthly fee to have access to it. The same is true for just about every other subscription service that’s out there.
So it might surprise you to find out that I think Apple should get into the TV and movie subscription business. What’s more, I’d be willing to pay every single month for access to that service. Why the difference of opinion on this topic? Keep reading and find out.
Screen vs. Speakers
One of the big differentiators between movies and music is the type of content that each one presents. Movies (and TV shows) tell a story that’s typically intended to be best received on its first viewing. In other words, once you’ve seen a movie or a show, you know what’s going to happen, and some of the drama, suspense, or surprise is taken out of it. Sure, you may say a movie is “just as good” on the second or third viewing, but in most cases, that’s just not going to be the case.
Music, on the other hand, doesn’t rely so much on drama and surprises to draw people in. A song or album truly can be “just as good” every time no matter how much you listen to it. It’s a whole different medium.
It makes sense to want to build a library of songs you enjoy, create playlists, and listen to the same songs many times over. With movies, unless it’s a real favorite, most people prefer to watch one just once or twice. The same usually goes for TV shows. One can binge-watch a series once, move on, go back and re-watch it again later, but eventually the show will get old.
So there’s a big difference in the “use case” for music versus movies and TV shows. How does that tie in to the idea of a movie subscription service?
For starters, it helps define how people would use the service, and what types of features it should offer. While Apple Music needs the ability to add songs to your library and create playlists, the chances of someone wanting to create a playlist of movies (aside from a Netflix style queue) don’t seem very high. Apple could forgo the parts of Apple Music that caused so many problems (the management) and opt for something much simpler.
Here’s what I propose: a streaming service that lets subscribers choose any movie or TV show from the iTunes Store and watch it. Subscribers could watch unlimited movies and TV shows whenever they want.
If that sounds an awful lot like Netflix, that might be because it is. The big difference between the two competitors then would be content. Apple has a much larger selection of new and current shows that Netflix just can’t match. In the same way that Apple Music subscribers are able to listen to new albums on release day, subscribers to this service would be able to watch new TV shows the day after they air, and new movies the day they release on iTunes.
By The Hour
“But, Mike,” I’m sure you’re thinking, “It’s not quite the same! Movies and TV shows are so much more expensive than music!” Glancing over the prices on the iTunes Store, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Actually, as it turns out, that’s not the case at all.
To demonstrate how music is, in all seriousness, much more expensive than a TV series or movie let’s do a little bit of math. Bear with me here, because this is going to take a little time to explain, but it’s an important point in understanding why a service like this makes sense.
First, we’ll establish some basic references to use in our formula.
I looked at the prices of a few popular recent movie releases to determine what a likely price might be for a new release. Here’s what I found:
Given these numbers, it’s safe to say that unless a movie is set at a special price to drive sales (like Mad Max above), $20 is a reasonable asking price for a recently-released action blockbuster.
Based on the average lengths of movies and songs, let’s assume that every song is exactly four minutes long, and that every movie is exactly two hours long.
Now, let’s say you’ve got two hours to kill.
Assuming that you want to listen to a nice mix of artists and genres and don’t want to hear any songs repeated during your listening session, you’ll need to buy 15 songs to fill up your hour. At $1.29 a pop on iTunes (not buying full albums to ensure a mix of styles and artists), those songs will cost you $19.35 for one hour of listening.
The total you have to spend on music for two hours will come out to $38.70.
If the songs are shorter than four minutes, that price goes up even more. At three minutes a song, you’ll spend $25.80 per hour, or $51.60 for two hours.
Now compare that to a movie. Our two-hour movie costs $20 and fills up our entire break. That’s $18 lower than the price for enough music to fill the same period of time—nearly 50% cheaper.
The gap grows as those movies get cheaper. Picking up Mad Max: Fury Road would save you even more money, and grabbing a slightly older release like The Imitation Game would cut your price in half again—about a quarter of the total music price.
Let’s bring TV shows into the mix. I looked at prices for the most recent full seasons of four different shows on four different types of networks featured on the iTunes Store home page to get an idea of pricing:
Because TV shows have to make room for commercials, most episodes don’t come out to exactly 60 minutes. For The Walking Dead and The Blacklist, the actual runtime per episode is 43 minutes. For Homeland, it averages at around 50 minutes. Rick and Morty runs 22 minutes.
Using these numbers, I came up with the actual price-per-hour for each show:
The Walking Dead – $2.40
The Blacklist – $3.65
Homeland – $3
Rick and Morty – $5.40
The obvious outlier here is Rick and Morty, which is mostly due to the fact that Apple charges the same price for a 22-minute episode as a 43- or 50-minute episode.
For these same prices, you can get anywhere from 1-4 songs—not even enough to fill half an hour. Thus, it can be concluded that TV shows and movies actually cost a lot less than music per hour.
But of course, none of these are actually sold “by the hour,” so what does it matter? Quite a bit, when you’re talking about streaming. With the current model, your inability or unwillingness to pay for those additional songs or episodes can put a stop to your purchases.
With streaming, the only limiting factor is the amount of free time you have to watch your show or movie. If you have two hours, nothing can stop you from watching two full hours of TV
In essence, streaming media is being sold “by the hour.” You’re not paying for an individual movie, or episode, or even a season pass. You’re paying a flat rate for an all-you-can-watch entertainment buffet. Every episode and movie you watch makes the subscription a little more “worth it.”
So how does the fact that movies and TV shows are cheaper by the hour than music play into this? Well, basically it means content providers will be missing out on less money when people choose to subscribe instead of buy. When you listen to an hour of streaming music instead of buying, that’s $19.35 that could be divided up between Apple, the label, the artist, and other contributors. Instead, a much smaller number is shared between the involved parties.
For content with a lower overall cost to you, like a TV show, Apple, the studio, and other involved parties are missing out on a much lower number in the ballpark of $3, or $10 for a movie. That loss can likely be made up for by factoring in the number of people who will watch a show they might have skipped before because it now costs them nothing to do so.
There are some other interesting factors that would come into play with such a service that don’t impact the music industry. For example, people can’t watch movies while driving or at work, though many choose to listen to music at these times. As a result, there may not be enough hours in the day for movie and TV streaming to reach the same levels of usage that music does.
It could be argued that less content being streamed at the same subscription fee as a music service (or a higher fee) means a larger piece of the pie for those who get paid, which helps negate potential losses even more.
Financially, it seems there’s less risk in putting movies and TV shows on a streaming platform than music. With services like Netflix already doing just that with great success, slapping Apple’s logo on a similar offer could be just thing we need to push the cord-cutting movement into the mainstream.
Apple vs. Netflix
A service like this makes even more sense when you consider the launch of the major Apple TV revamp next month and recent rumors that Apple is trying to get into producing original content. Launching original shows like House of Cards was a big step for Netflix, and taking that same step could help Apple set itself apart from the competition.
So how would a service like this be priced? I’m not sure. Apple Music is $10 a month, and Netflix has three plans at $8, $9, and $11. It seems like $10 could be a competitive price point for Apple as well, though I’ll also say that I’d be willing to pay a bit more than that.
While some may suggest that Netflix’s price is possible because the service doesn’t carry all of the latest titles, and that Apple streaming those titles would allow them to boost the price, I’m not convinced. After all, Apple managed to keep its own music price competitive while still making better content deals than Spotify and others.
Whether premium cable networks like HBO and Showtime got on board with this idea could also impact the cost, but with each of those networks already offering their own standalone streaming platforms, their compliance wouldn’t be necessary to make this service a cord-cutter’s dream.
In fact, if Apple released this service next month, I’d strongly consider dropping Netflix immediately. The only thing holding me back, ironically, would be Netflix’s original content. That’s the reason Netflix makes shows, after all: to lock people in so they don’t want to leave. Maybe that’s why Apple wants to create its own series, too. I certainly hope so.Several months ago, the queer feminist community was abuzz with news of an upcoming film titled Stonewall, slated to release September 25. The film aims to portray the events leading up to the Stonewall riots, a series of radical protests led by queer women of color that eventually sparked the modern Gay Rights movement.
After watching the trailer, which premiered August 4th, it became apparent that director Roland Emmerich had repeated an offense committed all too often in Hollywood: whitewashing history. In doing so, the director missed a great opportunity to highlight the black and brown trans womyn of color, butch lesbians, drag queens, homeless queer people, sex workers, gay, bi, and pansexual people that were integral in inciting the riots in the first place, many of which are still alive.
Whitewashing and ciswashing history, especially when depicting events as radical as the Stonewall riots, comes as an insult to many queer people, including the activists themselves. Since the trailer was released on August 4th, over 20,000 people have signed a petition vowing to boycott the film. The creator of the petition stated,
It is time that black and brown transwomyn and drag queens are recognized for their efforts in the riots throughout the nation. From the preview alone, we know that will not be happening. Majority of characters casted are white actors, cis men play the role of transwomyn, and folks who began the riots do not seem to be credited with such revolutionary acts.
WE ARE CALLING A BOYCOTT OF STONEWALL. Do not throw money at the capitalistic industry that fails to recognize true s/heros. Do not support a film that erases our history. Do not watch Stonewall.
This boycott is just the latest in a series of protests that have been made possible on a national scale, and it’s fast success speaks volumes of the veracity of the activists involved, as well as social media’s impact on feminism’s influence.
(The real leaders of the Stonewall Riots.)
As social media has grown to become one of the most influential communication channels in human history, its rise in popularity as a medium has helped change the way that feminist activism works, often for the better. Social media has made it possible for feminists to participate in national boycotts, publicly call out rapists and abusers, and organize public protests.
Occupy Wall Street was one such campaign that used social media as a means of organizing public protests. Over 600,000 people currently like the page on Facebook, and the movement spread to over 1500 cities across the globe, with Facebook pages popping up in most major cities.
Social media’s impact has also incited revolution across the globe. Last year, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched the streets of Kiev to call for the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych and his government, which and resulted in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. According to research compiled by University of Southern California’s Public Administration Department, 49% of Ukraine’s citizens learned about protests through social media.
The invention of the hashtag in particular has been revolutionary for giving disenfranchised groups a voice when they would normally not be given the platform. In fact, the hashtag is credited by some as being the feminist’s most powerful tool.
Twitter campaigns like #blacklivesmatter (created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, pictured above) call attention to the ways in which Black people are deprived of their basic human rights and dignity |
38.3 31.9 20% Developed Asia 16.4 17.6 -7% 10.3 11.3 -9% Emerging Asia 57.7 55.2 5% 10.5 8.7 21% GLOBAL 366.6 355.4 3% 116.8 106.3 10% Source: GfK Point of Sales (POS) Measurement data in 75+ markets, monthly data to the end of August 2017, plus weekly data to 30 September 2017. Percentages are rounded.
Arndt Polifke, global director of telecom research at GfK, comments, “Although unit sales may be down in some regions, the increase in ASP reveals the fantastic opportunity to grow the value of the smartphone market. This is welcome news for manufacturers, particularly in regions such as Western Europe where saturation has resulted in declining sales volumes year-on-year.
"The industry has clearly been switching its focus to drive sales value, and top tier global brands, such as Apple, Google, HTC, Huawei, LG, Moto, Nokia, Samsung and Sony, either already have, or will release, new premium models in an effort to upsell customers to their flagship devices. At the same time, premium features are increasing in importance to consumers, so we expect to see more emphasis on water and dust protection, battery power and memory, high resolution sound, camera and video capabilities, bezel-less design and even biometric sensors on new launches.”
Western Europe: Revenue grows despite market saturation
Smartphone demand totaled 30.9 million units in 3Q17 in Western Europe, down seven percent year-on-year. The combination of the saturated market and delayed launch of the iPhone X has led to a year-on-year decline for the fourth consecutive quarter.
Demand in Germany is set to decline by seven percent year-on-year and both Great Britain and France are expected to experience an eight percent fall. However, sales value in the region rose four percent year-on-year, driven by an 11 percent increase in ASP.
As a result, GfK raised its 2017 smartphone revenue outlook for the region to six percent year-on-year. The shift towards very high end devices is a clear trend in this region, with one out of eight smartphones sold in this quarter priced above USD 900, compared to one out of 16 in 3Q16.
Central and Eastern Europe: Revenue up 26 percent
Smartphone demand continues to recover in Central and Eastern Europe, with a nine percent increase year-on-year in 3Q17, bringing demand to 22.3 million units. Sales value, however, increased at a faster rate of 26 percent year-on-year, driven by a shift in consumer demand towards higher-priced devices.
The improvement in the region’s demand in 3Q17 is mainly due to strong growth in Russia (up 10 percent year-on-year) and the Ukraine (up 19 percent year-on-year).
The outlook is also positive, with 2017 smartphone demand forecast to grow nine percent year-on-year to 85.2 million.
North America: A slight fall in 3Q17 but a positive outlook to round the year off
In North America, smartphone demand totaled 49.3 million units in 3Q17, down one percent year-on-year. This represents a return to decline, following growth in 2Q. However, the outlook for 4Q17 is positive, as major product releases have been announced for this quarter.
GfK forecasts 2017 smartphone demand to total 201 million units, a growth of one percent year-on-year.
Latin America: Brazilian sales give the region a boost
In this region, smartphone demand reached 27.8 million units in 3Q17, a rise of 11 percent year-on-year. Demand in Brazil remains the driver of this sterling regional performance. Brazil experienced a 17 percent increase in demand in 3Q17 compared to the previous year.
GfK has raised its 2017 forecast for Latin America to growth of nine percent year-on-year.
Middle East and Africa: Egypt returns to growth
Smartphone demand totaled 45.2 million units in the Middle East and Africa, up eight percent year-on-year. This increase in sales has been driven by a faster-than-expected recovery in Egypt, where demand returned to growth in July 2017 for the first time since November 2016.
Overall, GfK forecasts smartphone demand to grow by five percent year-on-year in 2017. This is driven primarily by Sub-Saharan and South African countries, where smartphone penetration remains relatively low.
China: Unit demand up, with prices set to increase further as new models are launched
In China, smartphone revenue is up 20 percent year-on-year in 3Q17. This growth was driven by a 15 percent year-on-year rise in ASP, while demand increased five percent year-on-year, reaching 117 million units. Launches from key domestic brands that were postponed to 3Q17 contributed to the positive performance of this quarter.
Overall, smartphone demand in China is expected to total 464 million in 2017, a growth of four percent year-on-year. In value terms (USD), 16 percent year-on-year growth is forecast.
Developed Asia*: Declining demand in South Korea continues to bite
Smartphone demand in the region reached 16.4 million units in 3Q17, down seven percent year-on-year, weighed-down by a 15 percent year-on-year decline in South Korea.
GfK’s 2017 forecast for the region has been lowered to minus four percent year-on-year, with smartphone demand totaling 70.1 million units.
Emerging Asia*: Still on track to post the strongest growth across all regions in 2017
In emerging Asia, smartphone revenue increased 21 percent year-on-year in 3Q17, while demand increased five percent year-on-year, reaching 57.7 million units.
Demand growth in India and Indonesia in the quarter moderated to three percent and five percent, respectively, year-on-year. In Malaysia demand grew by 25 percent year-on-year, representing the sixth consecutive quarter of growth. Bangladesh also saw strong demand in the quarter, with growth of 22 percent year-on-year.
GfK forecasts smartphone demand in emerging Asia to total 238 million units in 2017 (up 11 percent year-on-year), the strongest of all regions this year.
Smartphone sales
2017 vs. 2016 Units sold (in million) Sales value (in billion USD) 2017 sales 2016 sales Y/Y % change 2017 sales 2016 sales Y/Y % change Western Europe 126.7 131.0 -3% 56.6 53.5 6% Central and Eastern Europe 85.2 78.0 9% 21.0 16.8 25% North America 201.1 198.5 1% 80.6 77.5 4% Latin America 115.4 105.9 9% 36.2 30.9 17% Middle East & Africa 176.8 168.9 5% 41.9 42.1 0% China 464.3 448.5 4% 154.3 133.1 16% Developed Asia 70.1 72.9 -4% 44.7 46.1 -3% Emerging Asia 238.6 214.5 11% 43.0 34.5 25% GLOBAL 1,478.2 1,418.2 4% 478.3 434.5 10% Source: GfK Point of Sales (POS) Measurement data in 75+ markets, monthly data to the end of August 2017, plus weekly data to 30 September 2017. Percentages are rounded.
Yotaro Noguchi, product lead in GfK’s trends and forecasting division, concludes, “This quarter’s results reveal the complexity of the global smartphone market and explain why, when it comes to forecasting performance and meeting future demand, manufacturers really do need to examine and understand the nuances of each individual market.”
-ends-
Download (PDF)When David Petraeus visited the Harvard Kennedy School in 2009, one of the meetings he requested was with author Doris Kearns Goodwin. Petraeus, who holds a PhD in International Relations from Princeton, is a fan of Team of Rivals and wanted time to speak to the famed historian about her work. Apparently, the great general (and current CIA Director) is something of a bibliophile.
He’s increasingly an outlier. Even as global literacy rates are high (84%), people are reading less and less deeply. The National Endowment for the Arts has found that “[r]eading has declined among every group of adult Americans,” and for the first time in American history, “less than half of the U.S. adult American population is reading literature.” Literacy has been improving in countries like India and China, but that literacy may not translate into more or deeper reading.
This is terrible for leadership, where my experience suggests those trends are even more pronounced. Business people seem to be reading less — particularly material unrelated to business. But deep, broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.
Note how many business titans are or have been avid readers. According to The New York Times, Steve Jobs had an “inexhaustible interest” in William Blake; Nike founder Phil Knight so reveres his library that in it you have to take off your shoes and bow; and Harman Industries founder Sidney Harman called poets “the original systems thinkers,” quoting freely from Shakespeare and Tennyson. In Passion & Purpose, David Gergen notes that Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein reads dozens of books each week. And history is littered not only with great leaders who were avid readers and writers (remember, Winston Churchill won his Nobel prize in Literature, not Peace), but with business leaders who believed that deep, broad reading cultivated in them the knowledge, habits, and talents to improve their organizations.
The leadership benefits of reading are wide-ranging. Evidence suggests reading can improve intelligence and lead to innovation and insight. Some studies have shown, for example, that reading makes you smarter through “a larger vocabulary and more world knowledge in addition to the abstract reasoning skills.” Reading — whether Wikipedia, Michael Lewis, or Aristotle — is one of the quickest ways to acquire and assimilate new information. Many business people claim that reading across fields is good for creativity. And leaders who can sample insights in other fields, such as sociology, the physical sciences, economics, or psychology, and apply them to their organizations are more likely to innovate and prosper.
Reading can also make you more effective in leading others. Reading increases verbal intelligence (PDF), making a leader a more adept and articulate communicator. Reading novels can improve empathy and understanding of social cues, allowing a leader to better work with and understand others — traits that author Anne Kreamer persuasively linked to increased organizational effectiveness, and to pay raises and promotions for the leaders who possessed these qualities. And any business person understands that heightened emotional intelligence will improve his or her leadership and management ability.
Finally, an active literary life can make you more personally effective by keeping you relaxed and improving health. For stressed executives, reading is the best way to relax, as reading for six minutes can reduce stress by 68%, and some studies suggest reading may even fend off Alzheimer’s, extending the longevity of the mind.
Reading more can lead to a host of benefits for business people of all stripes, and broad, deep reading can make you a better leader. So how can you get started? Here are a few tips:
Join a reading group. One of my friends meets bimonthly with a group of colleagues to read classics in philosophy, fiction, history, and other areas. Find a group of friends who will do the same with you.
One of my friends meets bimonthly with a group of colleagues to read classics in philosophy, fiction, history, and other areas. Find a group of friends who will do the same with you. Vary your reading. If you’re a business person who typically only reads business writing, commit to reading one book this year in three areas outside your comfort zone: a novel, a book of poetry, or a nonfiction piece in science, biography, history, or the arts.
If you’re a business person who typically only reads business writing, commit to reading one book this year in three areas outside your comfort zone: a novel, a book of poetry, or a nonfiction piece in science, biography, history, or the arts. Apply your reading to your work. Are you struggling with a problem at work? Pick up a book on neuroscience or psychology and see if there are ways in which you can apply the lessons from those fields to your profession.
Are you struggling with a problem at work? Pick up a book on neuroscience or psychology and see if there are ways in which you can apply the lessons from those fields to your profession. Encourage others. After working on a project with colleagues, I’ll often send them a book that I think they’ll enjoy. Try it out; it might encourage discussion, cross-application of important lessons, and a proliferation of readers in your workplace.
After working on a project with colleagues, I’ll often send them a book that I think they’ll enjoy. Try it out; it might encourage discussion, cross-application of important lessons, and a proliferation of readers in your workplace. Read for fun. Not all reading has to be developmental. Read to relax, escape, and put your mind at ease.
Reading has many benefits, but it is underappreciated as an essential component of leadership development. So, where have you seen reading benefit your life? What suggestions would you have for others seeking to grow their leadership through reading?Get the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
MPs were debating Universal Credit after the government abstained on a motion to 'pause and fix' the rollout of the scheme last week.
Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke, who has ultimate responsibility for the bungled benefit shake-up, failed to appear at today's debate, sending deputy Damian Hinds in his place.
Mr Hinds said the "general commentary" from last week's motion had been heard, adding: "I've also taken away a number of points that were raised for action.
"There were some individual cases and also policy and process matters. These included how we can improve arrangements for direct rent payments, our approach in cases of domestic abuse, process for housing benefit debt recovery.
Mr Hinds said staffing levels are increasing to complement the roll-out of UC.
He added the Government's gradual approach means it can "continually adjust and evolve" the programme.
But Labour's Debbie Abrahams said she was "disappointed" that the secretary of state had not turned up.
She said: “I always welcome the minister to his place, but I would like to ask why the Secretary of State isn’t here to answer.
“Obviously I understand that emergencies do happen, but I haven’t had any satisfactory response from his office when I rang earlier, and apparently Downing Street are none the wiser either.”
She was one of many MPs who spoke passionately about the effects of the policy on her constituents.
Seema Malhotra warned people were being evicted because of the policy
(Image: Parliament TV)
The MP for Feltham and Heston said she was surprised about the Tories' lack of denial about the seriousness of the situation.
She spoke out about her constituents who were suffering raising the case of a mum of three who has been forced to sleep on her cousin's floor because she had been evicted due to not paying her rent because of Universal Credit delays.
Ms Malhotra said: "This isn't about us versus the government, this is about real people, our constituents suffering."
Carolyn Harris said she anticipated'mayhem' when Universal Credit hits Swansea
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She said: "During the summer holidays I became aware of the empty shelves in my local food bank. These shelves are empty because mothers couldn't afford to feed their children. They were relying on free school meals."
The Swansea East MP set up a lunch club to help those children. She anticipated that she and her team might feed 500 children over a ten day period but they ended up providing meals to 6,638.
She asked: "How on earth are constituents going to cope at Christmas? With less money coming in and even greater demand for money going out."
Ms Harris pleaded: "Will the government please open your eyes look at the situation you are creating?" The passionate Welsh MP asked ministers to put the rollout on hold until the problems with the benefit are ironed out.
Angela Eagle warned her constituents will be forced to go to food banks for Christmas
(Image: Parliament TV)
Labour former minister Angela Eagle said a pause in UC was "urgent".
She added: "In Wallasey the roll-out will begin halfway through November, six weeks later it's Christmas.
"The (Department for Work and Pensions) will not be open on Christmas Day, which means many of my constituents will have to wait until the new year for any assistance, which is why our local food bank is looking to collect 15 tonnes of extra food to deal with the demand."
She urged the Government to listen to Parliament and take action to "alleviate this obviously avoidable hardship".
Jack Dromey hits out at Tories' demonisation of benefit claimants
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The MP for Birmingham, Erdington warned "disaster looms for tens of thousands of Birmingham citizens" who face moving on to Universal Credit on 13 December.
Mr Dromey hit out at the Tories for demonising those who are forced to rely on benefits to survive.
He told the heart breaking story of his consituent Angela who has two disabled sons and who was attacked while out with her son in his motorized wheelchair. He said things changed for the mum after George Osborne's speech about "shirkers and strivers".
Mr Dromey said ministers had learnt nothing from mistakes of the past.
Laura Smith says six-week wait is a penny pinching exercise
Last week she shared her experience of benefit delay as a single parent while working as a teacher.
She said that the House has heard some horror stories - but they weren’t stories.
The six week wait is forcing people into further debt. Said her constituency of Crewe is already one of the most indebted places in the country with almost 4,000 children in poverty.
Ms Smith said the six week wait “is nothing more than a penny pinching exercise” said she couldn’t be expected to explain to her constituents that “the government six week wait is there to teach them how to better manage their finances”.
She also questioned the government's stock defence about getting more people into work asking: “What type of work is that? Secure work? Work that pays a real living wage? We all know what lies behind those unemployment figures, poverty pay and precarious work."Share. This episode does not stink! This episode does not stink!
Download Nintendo Voice Right Here
Everyone's favorite Nintendo podcast re-emerges this week, but with a few surprises. IGN's Jose Otero takes over hosting duties for a special NVC mini-episode with guests Brian Altano, Andrew Goldfarb, and Marty Sliva. The crew gathers to talk about last week's major Wii U Virtual Console release, Earthbound.
It took 19 years for Earthbound to slip out of the Nintendo vault. Thankfully, you won't have to wait as long for the next episode of this podcast.
Exit Theatre Mode
Just a quick note: We're currently experimenting with how to best tackle NVC each week, so expect a few format changes in the future as we figure things out. Please leave us feedback on iTunes and in the comments below this story.
Download Nintendo Voice Right Here
IGN editor Jose Otero hijacked Nintendo Voice Chat this week, and he's curious to hear your thoughts about this week's episode. Follow him on twitter and let him know what you think.There was a point late into the filming of “Men in the Arena” that director and St. Louis native J.R. Biersmith realized his relationship with the documentary’s subjects was fundamentally altered. A journalist by trade, this was a different challenge than he was used to — but then again, everything in Somalia, where Biersmith had traveled to shoot the documentary about the national soccer team, was a challenge unlike anything he was used to.
Saadiq Mohhamed, one of the stars of the team, had been arrested in Nairobi during a crackdown on Somalis living in Kenya, where he was playing for a league team.
“He texted me over WhatsApp, ‘J.R., the police got me while I was walking to watch a soccer game,’” Biersmith said. “I thought: I’m the first person he reached out to? Something has changed in our relationship.”
St. Louis native J.R. Biersmith documents the lives of Somali soccer players Saadiq Mohammed and Saad Hussein in "Men in the Arena," as they struggle to make their way on the Somali National Team through turmoil in their country and eventually find their way to a new home in St. Louis.
Why Somalia?
Biersmith had been filming Saadiq and his best friend Sa'ad Hussein for several months, using their experiences on the underfunded, newly recreated Somali National Football Team as a lens through which to view the impact of Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group which has wreaked havoc on Somalia since the mid-2000s.
Biersmith, who previously worked at a newspaper in Florida, felt called to Somalia to help elevate the conversation about broken politics and warfare that has plagued the country for decades and sent refugees fleeing from the country.
“It was the national team, Somalia was just getting a recognized government and FIFA had just installed turf in one of the national stadiums,” Biersmith told St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh. “It felt like that was the one cultural piece that was working.”
The story of two rivals-turned-friends, Sa'ad and Saadiq, who were playing on this national team with no formal training, practicing on a dirt field for a team that hadn’t scored a goal since 2011, was an irresistible hook. The team is consistently ranked 204 out of 209 FIFA teams, but Biersmith saw in the players and the team’s fans an indefatigable spirit he wanted to capture.
“You see this place that you imagined was beautiful but it still has this special splendor … even in the chaos and the decay, there’s something beautiful. I think it is buttressed by these people who live in these structures that are torn apart but there’s this smile, this resilience, this energy on the ground.”
Understanding the impact of Al-Shabaab
While Al-Shabaab had been pushed out of Mogadishu, where the Somali National Team practices, the terrorist group still holds vast tracts of the Somali countryside, where Sa'ad grew up with his family. At one point in the film, you learn that no member of the Somali National Football Team has escaped the terror unscathed. Players lost parents, sisters, brothers, aunts to the horrific tactics of the group. In Sa'ad’s case, he barely escaped from their clutches alive after surviving a public lashing in his home village.
"Soccer allows culture and [Al Shabaab] can't control that."
The group has a particular hatred of soccer and, for a while, the sport was banned in the country, before AMISOM reclaimed Mogadishu, the capital city. Those who are caught affiliated with soccer are duly punished.
“Soccer allows culture and they can’t control that,” Biersmith said. “That’s the piece in filmmaking that I thought was so important. The National Theatre is bombed in 2012 and it is starting to just feel like an institution that is offering some cultural value... it gets bombed and the president of [Somalia’s] Olympic committee and [national] football federation get killed in that same attack. Soccer is like the next step of culture evolving, people getting excited and rallying around something, so they tried to ban it.”
Making a vulnerable documentary
One of the greatest challenges of the documentary was getting Saadiq and Sa'ad to open up — both about soccer and about their experiences with Al-Shabaab. Because of soccer’s place in the eyes of the terrorist organization, speaking openly about it is asking for trouble.
Biersmith said that the team members are largely numb to this fear because it has persisted so long.
“Fear has been suppressed,” Biersmith said. “The hardest part is that they don’t even want to say the word. As a filmmaker, you’re trying to probe and push and get them to share their story. They don’t want to. They are scared. That’s the greatest challenge of the film: Getting them to be vulnerable, trust me. How are you going to trust the white guy from America when you hear these stories for years, like, can we trust these people? They have an instilled incredible fear, to the point they can’t speak. Their sacrifice is so humbling and courageous … even though they don’t realize how courageous it is.”
That’s why, when Saadiq texted him about his unwarranted arrest, Biersmith knew his relationship had to change from the typical, objective documentarian, to a friend who was looking out for Saadiq’s future. So Biersmith started looking for a chance for Saadiq to try out soccer in America.
Finding a new home in the United States, St. Louis
The process was lengthy, as there are already nearly 1 million Somalis displaced near the region with a further 1.1 million displaced within in Somalia. Somalis are the second largest African group trying to make the deadly trip across the Mediterranean to a better life in Europe. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wasn’t even able to take a meeting, but Biersmith’s personal advocacy for Saadiq eventually worked and he was able to obtain a U.S. visa to go train at FC Dallas Academy.
Now, Saadiq has found a new home in St. Louis, where he is living with Biersmith’s sister while waiting to find out his eligibility to play soccer for Saint Louis University, where he can also obtain an education.
“There’s an African flair, energy,” Biersmith said. “It’s undeniable what he causes you to feel when you’re in his presence. As hard as it is for him to make this adjustment in America and the pressure from home, I said: don’t ever forget how you make people feel.”
While Saadiq was settling into life in America his friend Sa'ad remained in Somalia. Recently, he was able to join Saadiq in St. Louis through a refugee visa. Their reunion was documented in a well-read Sports Illustrated article that published in late March.
"[Sa'ad] risked his life to share his story for this film," Biersmith said.
His path has diverted away from soccer, though he still plays recreationally with Saadiq, as he devotes himself to learning the English language and finding a job here through the International Institute.
“It’s really been beyond touching to see this community say that these two risked their lives to tell their stories, they’re victims of terrorism too … and to see not just my sister but her friends and family who have gone beyond,” Biersmith said. “They’re not a burden on the system, the community is stepping up to support them. Every time you’re in their space you realize this city is really special. That’s an amazing thing they inject into a room. It is fun to see St. Louis embrace them that way.”
The documentary “Men in the Arena” is in the final round of editing and Biersmith will first self-distribute the movie with limited theater releases. He hopes to pair up with MLS cities to show the movie and to sell the documentary to a network from there. Because of Saadiq, Saad and his own ties to the area, the movie, of course, will also have a St. Louis release too.
St. Louis on the Air brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh and producers Mary Edwards, Alex Heuer and Kelly Moffitt give you the information you need to make informed decisions and stay in touch with our diverse and vibrant St. Louis region.Strangers form a human chain to rescue a trucker whose vehicle was teetering on the edge of a cliff on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Screenshot: WTAE-TV
BEDFORD, Pa., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Motorists on the Pennsylvania Turnpike banded together and formed a human chain to rescue a truck driver whose semi was about to go over an embankment.
Arlyn Satanek, a trucker who witnessed the incident Friday, said the truck in front of him was clearly having difficulty on the snow-covered road east of Bedford and it soon began smoking and shooting off debris.
"At that point I was on my brakes with everything I had and hoping I didn't lose control," Satanek told WTAE-TV. "I saw the truck out in front of me pretty much finishing his wipe out and cutting of the entire two lanes of traffic and angling down over the cliff."
Satanek said the driver appeared to be trapped in the cab of the vehicle as it teetered on the edge.
"I'm sitting there in a daze, and I realize people are running to the truck," Satanek told WPXI-TV.
Satanek said the motorists didn't appear to be concerned for their own safety.
"It was just like everyone knew in that moment we have to reach him, 'Let's lock into this and get this guy up.' It was awesome," Satanek said. "I decided I knew they had him, and I wanted to get a picture, I want to remember this."
He said the rescuers formed a human shield to reach the driver and pull him to safety.
"To me, it just looked like this spontaneous, instinctive thing, that everyone just started hooking their arms together," Satanek said. "It was absolutely amazing."
He said the truck driver was back on his feet after a few minutes.
Satanek said he was amazed by what he witnessed.
"It helped remind us that we are all people, and it is our responsibility to help other humans," Satanek said.
"I don't know any of their names, what their faces looked like. I can only say they made a terrible situation a little bit better by helping someone out that was really in need," he said.Getty Images, Justin Sullivan Apple has made a $14 billion acquisition... of itself.
CEO Tim Cook tells Daisuke Wakabayashi of Wall Street Journal that over the past two weeks, Apple has purchased $14 billion, or roughly 3%, of its own shares.
Cook says he was "surprised" by the drop in Apple's stock after its earnings, and he wanted to be "aggressive" and "opportunistic" with the buybacks.
Cook said this buyback "means that we are really confident on what we are doing and what we plan to do." In general, big share buybacks like this send a signal that a company believes it's underpriced.
Anonymous Apple analyst Sammy The Walrus IV pointed out on Twitter that this is the equivalent of Apple buying, "four Nests and a Motorola."
Wakabayashi asked Cook if this was a sign Apple would shy away from making big acquisitions.
Cook's response is fascinating: "We have no problem spending ten figures for the right company, for the right fit that's in the best interest of Apple in the long-term. None. Zero."
This should provide a jolt for Apple tomorrow.
It should also get an interesting reaction from Carl Icahn, who has been hounding Apple to be more aggressive with its mountain of cash.
As of last quarter, Apple had $159 billion in cash.Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish says there are no plans to try to get winger Wilfried Zaha back on loan from Manchester United.
Zaha, 20, signed for United in January but stayed on at Palace to help them win promotion to the Premier League via the Championship play-off final.
"Wilfried deserves his chance to go to Manchester United with a view to making it there," Parish told BBC Radio 4.
"I think he is good enough and will figure in their first team."
Analysis Wilfried rose to the occasion in the play-offs. He is a huge threat. He takes a lot of attention off everybody else in the team. He is going to be a huge loss but who are you going to sell for £15m who isn't going to be a loss? Look at Arsenal, they lost Robin van Persie and he was a huge loss to them. Wilfried Zaha is Crystal Palace's Van Persie. Maybe he wants that challenge of putting a Manchester United shirt on and seeing what he can do - playing the Champions League and for the champions. I'm sure he hasn't moved there to have another season at Crystal Palace but I don't know what his thoughts are at the moment.
Parish added: "We are certainly not thinking about loaning him back.
"We will be planning for life without him. If he does get loaned out to another Premier League club then obviously we would want to be in the mix."
England international Zaha scored twice in the Championship play-off semi-final against Brighton and won the penalty in the final against Watford, which Kevin Phillips scored to secure the Eagles their lucrative ticket back into the top flight.
Promotion could be worth £120m to Palace as they ended an eight-year absence from the Premier League.
The club's revival comes after they entered administration in January 2010 before being bailed out by a consortium, led by Parish, which also included Stephen Browett, Martin Long and Jeremy Hosking, in the summer of that year.
Palace have been relegated in each of their four Premier League seasons and Parish is concentrating on getting the measures in place with manager Ian Holloway to make sure it does not happen again.
"The hard work starts now," said Parish. "It's a lot of money but there's a lot of things to try to do with it, not least to try to stay in the division. I'm already speaking to Ian and trying to plot a route to do that.
"We have to improve the infrastructure of our club. When you're not in the Premier League and don't have access to those funds for so many years you fall behind terribly.
"Selhurst Park is not the best now and we really need to work on that but by the same token we desperately want to try to give a good account of ourselves and stay up.
"I will be sitting down with the manager, who understands what we are trying to achieve as a club in the long term, and we will be making some sensible decisions about how much we can apportion to each."
He added: "We know it will be tough but I think the bottom of the Premier League isn't radically different from the top of the Championship. If we keep the nucleus and spine of the squad we have got and add to it carefully then I think we will give ourselves a good chance.
"We have got a manager who nearly did it [achieved top-flight survival] with Blackpool and he is our wild card. He has just got something which pulls out the best from people."Welcome back to Top Shelf Prospects, the daily column that brings you the next crop of professional hockey players. Each day I will bring you a new player profile or topical article in the lead-up to the 2013 NHL Draft. Be sure to bookmark the site, follow me on Twitter, and spread the word for the site that will bring you analytical and critical draft profiles and scouting reports! Last Word On Sports is your new headquarters for everything “NHL Draft”! For a Complete Listing of all our 2013 Draft Articles Click here.
Edit: Drafted 75th Overall by the New York Rangers.
As we reach the late 2nd round, the dreaded “Russian Factor” or KHL Factor rears its ugly head again with our latest prospect. For those who haven’t been reading all of my profiles (Why Not?), you can see my feelings on the Russian Factor and what it means, and what it doesn’t mean, by checking out the profile on Valeri Nichushkin.
In Buchnevich’s case, the KHL is definetely a factor as he has two years remaining in a contract with Severstal Cherepovets and such the matter becomes complicated. With no transfer agreement in place, it is unlikely any NHL team should expect Buchnevich before the 2015-16 season. However this is a player who would be a first round talent if no such issues existed, so he might be worth the gamble and worth the wait where I’ve ranked him, late in the second round. He’s spent half the season in the KHL, and half the season playing for Cherepovets team in the MHL (Russia’s developmental league).
Buchnevich was very impressive at this spring’s IIHF Under 18 World Championships where his 11 points in 7 games left him tied for second in scoring. Unfortunately it was not enough for the host Russian team as they would leave Sochi without a medal. Buchnevich was also impressive at February’s Five Nations (U18) tournament where he put up 7 points in 4 game. He was a member of the Russian team which won gold at the 2012 World Under 17 Hockey Challenge.
Left Wing/Right Wing/Centre
Born Apr 17 1995 — Cherepovets, RUS
Height 6’1.5″ — Weight 176.7 lbs – Shoots Left
Buchnevich is a terrific skater. He has very fast top end speed, excellent acceleration and great first step quickness. This makes him extremely dangerous off the rush, and he is not afraid to go wide on a defenceman and then cut to the net. He also has great agility, and good balance on his skates. Buchnevich could stand to add some weight to his frame but even with that, his balance and strength on the puck is good at the Under 18 level. It will need to be much better though for the pro game.
Buchnevich is able to play all three forward positions which is a major plus for any prospect. He’s a pure sniper, with a fantastic wrist shot and snap shot. They are both powerful, accurate, and feature quick releases. He also has a very good one timer. Buchnevich is often able to force defenders to give him space due to his skating and it as at this point he can unleash is shot on the rush. He has good stickhandling skills and protects the puck very well. He’s not afraid |
out his remaining time on the fraud charge.
That prison sentence wasn't his first time in jail, either. He was 13 the first time he got locked up — rounded up by officers as he marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. on the civil rights icon's first trip to Jackson in the 1960s.
Officers hauled the teenager to the state fairgrounds, where they shoved him and other marchers in the cow stalls until their families "bailed them out."
In his speech at Jackson City Hall on Tuesday, Carthan talked of being imprisoned and accepted the city's honor on behalf of his distant cousin Emmett Till, a 14-year-old killed by two white men who were acquitted of murder but later confessed; the Rev. George Lee, a civil rights leader assassinated in Belzoni after registering black voters; his neighbor, Hartman Turnbow, whose house was set on fire by Klansmen; and Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights leader arrested and beaten in jail.
Carthan says it's his ties to the civil rights movement, along with his spirituality, that have helped him come to terms with everything that's happened.
"I guess this is what really drives me. I don't have any hate, any animosity, against anyone," Carthan said. "When I was first arrested on these charges, and I was in prison, and I questioned God, knowing that I hadn't done any of those things, why he allowed me to go to jail, and he spoke to my spirit, saying there were men and women who he supported, who he called to serve, much more popular than I was, who served time in jail, including Jesus Christ. So what seems to be a bad thing, turned out to be a good thing, and somehow I was proud to be there."
He laughed, "I was proud to be in jail."
Contact Anna Wolfe at 601-961-7326 or awolfe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter.
Read or Share this story: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2017/10/11/going-prison-point-pride-county-supervisor-civil-rights-activist/746094001/Radiohead have decided not to travel to the US for a promotional performance because of concerns over global warming.
The Oxford five-piece are due to appear on a special edition of NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
The band opted to record a live version of House Of Cards in London rather than fly over to the US for the one-off performance.
Radiohead will appear on the show on Wednesday as part of NBC's Green Week.
Frontman Thom Yorke said the band avoided leaving a carbon footprint equivalent to driving a car for a solid year by recording the track in London.
Climate Change
RADIOHEAD GREEN FACTS Radiohead always consider the carbon footprint when on tour Thom Yorke's fears over climate change made him back the Big Ask campaign which urges ministers to bring in laws to reduce C02 emissions He refused to discuss climate change with Tony Blair because he felt the fromer PM had "no environmental credentials"
The band have been long time campaigners on green issues with Yorke recently guest editing The Observer Magazine to promote climate change awareness.
Yorke also recently urged politicians to introduce sweeping measures to cut carbon emissions by 2020.
"If we don't get stuck in now, in 20 years' time it will be worse and things will be more extreme," he said.
The band kick-off their In Rainbows world tour with a show in West Palm Beach, Florida, on 5 May.Abstract
Objective: We evaluated recurrent intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) risk in ICH survivors, stratified by the presence, distribution, and number of cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) on MRI (i.e., the presumed causal underlying small vessel disease and its severity).
Methods: This was a meta-analysis of prospective cohorts following ICH, with blood-sensitive brain MRI soon after ICH. We estimated annualized recurrent symptomatic ICH rates for each study and compared pooled odds ratios (ORs) of recurrent ICH by CMB presence/absence and presumed etiology based on CMB distribution (strictly lobar CMBs related to probable or possible cerebral amyloid angiopathy [CAA] vs non-CAA) and burden (1, 2–4, 5–10, and >10 CMBs), using random effects models.
Results: We pooled data from 10 studies including 1,306 patients: 325 with CAA-related and 981 CAA-unrelated ICH. The annual recurrent ICH risk was higher in CAA-related ICH vs CAA-unrelated ICH (7.4%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.2–12.6 vs 1.1%, 95% CI 0.5–1.7 per year, respectively; p = 0.01). In CAA-related ICH, multiple baseline CMBs (versus none) were associated with ICH recurrence during follow-up (range 1–3 years): OR 3.1 (95% CI 1.4–6.8; p = 0.006), 4.3 (95% CI 1.8–10.3; p = 0.001), and 3.4 (95% CI 1.4–8.3; p = 0.007) for 2–4, 5–10, and >10 CMBs, respectively. In CAA-unrelated ICH, only >10 CMBs (versus none) were associated with recurrent ICH (OR 5.6, 95% CI 2.1–15; p = 0.001). The presence of 1 CMB (versus none) was not associated with recurrent ICH in CAA-related or CAA-unrelated cohorts.In November 2006, the Agudath Israel of America, the leading advocacy group for Haredi Jews in the United States, held a special session at its annual convention to focus on the dangers of Orthodox blogs. “Have bloggers declared open season on Torah Authority?” an advertising insert in the Haredi newspaper Hamodia asked in the weeks preceding the convention.
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zweibel, executive vice president of the Agudah, was quoted in the Haredi newspaper Yated Ne’eman as calling the proliferation of Orthodox blogs “troubling” and saying that their efforts had the “intended effect of undermining any semblance of Torah authority in our community.” According to a report in Yated Ne’eman, one of the speakers, Rabbi Efraim Wachsman, declared bloggers to be “actors in the tradition of Korach, the Tziddukim, and the Maskilim,” traditional archetypes for rebellion against Torah authority. Rabbi Matisyahu Solomon, a leading rabbi at Lakewood’s Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva, reportedly called blogs “a plague” and an “insidious … poison.”
Rabbi Gil Student, author of the blog Hirhurim, attended the session and was disturbed by what he heard. “They were using all this over-the-top language,” he told me, “declaring blogs to be a churban hadas [the destruction of the faith], and preventing the coming of the Messiah—or something of that nature.” Student disagrees: He believes that blogs serve an important purpose in analyzing Torah topics and the spectrum of Orthodox worldviews. “If you want to get people’s attention, you have to be where they are. If we’re not there, we lose the battle.” Student says that he sees the effects of blogs in the real world. Rabbinic figures with whom he is in touch will often mention things he wrote on his blog, even when they disagree. “There’s cross-pollination,” he said. “Ideas are moving.”
Those ideas have continued to move, and Orthodox blogs have become a widely accepted forum for scholarly discussions. In the years since that Agudah convention, scores of blogs have taken off. Some of the most popular are whistleblower blogs, such as Failed Messiah, Frum Follies, and Unorthodox Jew, which have sought to expose problems like sexual abuse cover-ups and other forms of social and communal misconduct. Frum Satire is a popular humor blog that skewers the idiosyncrasies of Orthodox life, while Pop Chassid offers insights on everything from Matisyahu’s transformation to tips for a happy marriage. Most notable, though, has been the emergence of online voices by Orthodox rabbis and scholars from across the Orthodox spectrum who have taken to blogs, as well as Facebook and other social media, to establish a frontline battleground for cutting-edge halakhic and ideological sparring. What makes these voices unique is their ability to straddle the line between promoting establishment rabbinic views and allowing previously unchallenged positions to be newly engaged with. As a result, a growing form of scholarly discourse is taking place not in the beit midrash or traditional rabbinic responsa but in a virtual space more accessible to the laity and the masses than ever before.
***
In April 2003, I started an anonymous blog called Hasidic Rebel about the challenges of living in an insular ultra-Orthodox community. In public comments and private emails, readers berated me for speaking so freely and frankly and entreated me to do teshuvah. Some called me a traitor; some sent death wishes. More telling, however, were the hundreds of messages I received in support, which showed the desperate need for alternative voices alongside establishment narratives. One email stood out from the rest, because its sender was a prominent Haredi rabbi, who told me that the community needed voices like mine.
The author was Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, who had been involved in Orthodox outreach and education for decades. Not long after sending that note, Adlerstein co-founded a blog of his own called Cross-Currents, along with Rabbi Yakov Menken. Cross-Currents was a platform not for dissent but rather for Haredi rabbinic perspectives, with some of its writers closely aligned with the Haredi establishment and the New York-based Agudath Israel of America. (Rabbi Avi Shafran, the Agudah’s longtime director of public affairs, is a regular contributor, as is Haredi journalist Jonathan Rosenblum.) “There was no one in the frum world responding publicly to criticism,” Adlerstein told me recently. And so he and others approached Rabbi Yakov Perlow, the Novominsker rebbe and head of the Agudah’s Council of Torah Sages, with the blog idea. “He was gung-ho for it,” Adlerstein recalled, noting that Perlow even supported allowing critical comments, as long as they’d be answered: “We assumed there would be hostile voices but we’d have enough voices to counter them,” said Adlerstein. “We wouldn’t necessarily win the argument, but we’d have a balance.”
Still, what Adlerstein and Menken were doing was unique at the time, creating a platform for spirited debate on timely issues outside of the controlled and sedate discourse of Orthodox publications and annual conventions. It fit into what Adlerstein sees as a broader pattern of openness engendered by the Internet age. “I see a democratization of Yiddishkeit, whether we like it or not,” Adlerstein told me. “Who gets to grab the mic at an Agudah convention? Only a few people. And there are a lot of frustrated people, thinking, ‘If only we had a chance to tell them what’s really on our minds.’ So, if they won’t give you the mic at the Agudah convention, people will create their own.”
While my own blogging efforts have since morphed into other projects, Cross-Currents continues to offer a forum for discourse around Orthodoxy. When, late last year, a principal at SAR, a Modern Orthodox high school in New York, announced that it would allow girls to wear tefillin during school prayers, rabbis on Cross-Currents and elsewhere debated online the underlying halakhic issues—as well as the broader question of who has the right to pasken, or issue halakhic rulings, especially on matters that carry broad communal significance. (Tefillin for girls, for instance, is seen as a flashpoint in the broader discussion on women’s roles within Orthodoxy.) Other heated discussions took place online about military conscription for Haredi yeshiva students in Israel, partnership minyanim that allow women to lead various parts of prayer services, and a controversial project called Project TABS that examines modern biblical scholarship alongside traditional rabbinic views—a project declared heretical by some Orthodox rabbis.
After nearly a decade, Cross-Currents is still posting new essays almost daily. To the left of it is Torah Musings, an outgrowth of Student’s Hirhurim blog, which publishes voices on the Modern Orthodox end. To the far left is Morethodoxy, a group blog for rabbis loosely affiliated with Rabbi Avi Weiss’ Open Orthodoxy movement. (To the right, alas, is no one—at least as far as rabbinic blogs are concerned—as those groups tend to shun Internet use completely.) Alongside these are independent voices such as Rabbi Natan Slifkin’s Rationalist Judaism, Rabbi Harry Maryles’ Emes Ve-Emunah blog, and the blog of Rabbi Eliyahu Fink, each with its own devoted—and often overlapping—readership, and lively cross-blog debates. Together, these rabbis and scholars from various strains of Orthodoxy have created an unusually vibrant platform for dialogue and an exchange of ideas while sidestepping the tightly controlled entry points of mainstream Orthodox publications.
***
Orthodox rabbinic blogs first achieved prominence in response to what would become known as the Slifkin affair. During the early 2000s, Slifkin, a Haredi author dubbed the “Zoo Rabbi” for his expertise on the intersection of Torah and zoology, published several books that sought to reconcile modern scientific knowledge with traditional rabbinic and Talmudic views. His books took what he calls a “Maimonidean approach to resolving conflicts between Torah and science”—that the account of creation is not to be interpreted literally, and that the sages of the Talmud erred in some of their statements regarding the natural world. Slifkin published his books with approbations from leading Orthodox rabbis, including Adlerstein. In late 2004, however, a group of rabbis declared Slifkin’s books heretical. They refused to meet with the author to discuss the matter, and posters bearing the signature of leading American and Israeli rabbis were disseminated in Israel and the United States, declaring the books forbidden and calling for them to be burned.
Continue reading: A watershed moment
“Slifkin was a watershed moment in contemporary yiddishkeit,” Adlerstein told me. “Many began to question what world they were living in.” Adlerstein still maintains his friendship with Slifkin and support for his books—although he disagrees with some of his current writings. Still, he told me, “to this day I think Slifkin’s treatment of evolution is the single best thing out there from the frum community.”
Orthodox rabbinic bloggers, such as Student and Maryles, took up the most spirited defense of Slifkin’s books, arguing that they were well within the bounds of acceptable Orthodox discourse. When Slifkin’s Haredi publisher and distributor, Feldheim and Targum Press, recalled the books from bookstores, Student took over the distribution through his own Orthodox book distribution company, Yashar Press.
The blogger responses to the affair caused panic in some rabbinic circles. In an essay titled “The Slifkin Affair,” Rabbi Aaron Feldman, the head of the Haredi Ner Israel yeshiva in Baltimore, attempted to justify the ban and decried what he called “tasteless, derogatory attacks on Torah authorities” by bloggers who express “unchecked and unedited opinion with impunity.” Bloggers, Feldman claimed, had caused a crisis of confidence among traditional Jews who, until then, had left the ideas of subservience to rabbinic authority unchallenged.
When the Agudah created its session about bloggers at its 2006 convention, the organization gave no indication whether its targets were the rabbinic blogs engaged in scholarly discourse or whistleblower blogs that publicized social and communal misdeeds. Ostensibly, the writers of Cross-Currents would be exempt from the Agudah’s opprobrium, as they generally were aligned with its worldview. But other blogger rabbis grew concerned. Maryles, in particular, wrote: “If my suspicions are correct, they are going to blast blogs like mine and by implication people like me for lacking Kavod HaTorah [respect for Torah].”
As dismayed as he was by the rhetoric at the Agudah convention, Student admits that a blog can pose real challenges. “Some people misuse it,” he said. “Certain tones are unhelpful and breed disrespect … jumping to conclusions, assuming the worst about people. It might make you feel like a smart guy, but I believe knee-jerk criticism is very damaging to the community.”
Student was raised within the Conservative movement; while attending an Orthodox high school he embraced Orthodoxy and went on to study at Yeshiva University. He is now a self-described traditionalist and sees much of value in the communal structures of the Orthodox world. And while he often uses his blog to critique both the Haredi and Modern Orthodox communities for their failures and excesses, he is inclined to see leaders more charitably. “I was never a gotcha kind of guy,” he said. “I don’t believe in rebellion and insurrection. I believe in influence.”
Slifkin himself continued publishing regular updates to his website, Zoo Torah, penning response after response to the rabbinic proclamations against his work and publishing much of his correspondence with the rabbis involved in the controversy, along with detailed critiques of their positions. In one letter to a rabbi who opposed his books, Slifkin offered 41 citations from rabbinic sources ranging from medieval to contemporary in support one of his essential claims: that the sages of the Talmud erred in matters of science. This letter and many others were then posted on his site, allowing readers a firsthand look at the back and forth between him and his opponents. “One reason why it exploded in such a unique way was that I had a website,” Slifkin told me in a recent email. “I was able to get my point of view out to thousands of people in a way that would not have been possible in the pre-Internet era.”
Following the ban on his books, Slifkin made some changes and showed his opponents a degree of sympathy. He went from using Nosson as his first name to Natan—signalling a switch from a Haredi to a more modern (or what he would term “post-Haredi”) identity, acknowledging that his works were not intended for more insular Haredi audiences. He also penned an essay, “In Defense of My Opponents,” in which he offered an understanding of his opponents’ position. (He also claims that he sold many more books after the ban than he did prior.) Aside from these concessions, however, Slifkin appeared unstoppable and launched a new blog, Rationalist Judaism, in March 2009.
Slifkin’s new blog would soon become enormously popular within the rabbinic blogosphere, with hundreds of comments on his posts and other bloggers frequently addressing his writings in their own blogs. His goal, Slifkin told me, was to explore and share “an approach to Judaism that was dominant in the medieval period, notably embodied in Maimonides, but which has since been on the decline, to the extent that many people today, even learned rabbis, are unaware that it ever existed.” According to Slifkin, “the major Orthodox weekly magazines do not allow expression for diverse points of view. The Internet in general, and the blogosphere in particular, has dramatically changed this. Blogs are able to reach thousands of people and have a genuine impact on society.”
By many accounts, he has almost single-handedly brought an entire new worldview to the fore. “Slifkin revolutionized modern Orthodox Judaism,” Fink told me. “[His philosophy] is now a legitimate issue.”
***
In addition to the Agudah’s 2006 convention session, campaigns against general Internet use have existed in some Orthodox circles throughout the decade, notably climaxing with the Anti-Internet Asifa in May 2012 at New York’s CitiField. The rabbis I spoke to, however, played down the view that Orthodoxy discouraged all Internet use. “I think that’s a mischaracterization of the Asifa’s intention,” Adlerstein told me. The appeal, he said, was for people to find ways to use the Internet more responsibly, such as by installing filters. (Adlerstein himself uses K-9 Web Protection.) “In my view,” he said, “it’s about keeping temptation at bay without losing a connection to the world out there.”
Continue reading: Drawn into the debate
Whatever effect the Agudah’s session and the Asifa had on blogs was minimal at best. Bloggers continued to blog, and rabbis continued to discuss both Torah topics and social issues online. If anything, blogger rabbis received a new burst of energy during the years following the Agudah’s session, covering topics from Orthodox theology, to practical halakhic matters, to the limits of contemporary Torah authority. Student’s blog, Hirhurim, which had for nearly a decade existed largely with him as its sole writer, morphed in July 2010 into Torah Musings, a magazine-type platform with a slate of its own rabbinic contributors, similar to that of Cross-Currents.
Not to be outdone, rabbis affiliated with the Open Orthodox movement, Weiss’ controversial left-leaning strain of Modern Orthodoxy, created Morethodoxy, a platform with its own slate of blogger rabbis. Rabbi Ysoscher Katz, the chair of the Talmud department at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Weiss’ rabbinical seminary, and a Morethodoxy contributor, told me: “There were a good number of blogs serving the conservative elements of Orthodoxy, and there was a sense that we needed a platform to thoughtfully share the progressive perspectives, to articulate ideas that would be censored elsewhere.”
The bad boy of blogger rabbis is undoubtedly Fink, whose blog at FinkOrSwim.com is in some ways the most ambitious, one that champions a view of Orthodoxy that goes beyond the rules and deals with the most pressing, often unspoken, struggles facing some in the Orthodox community. “We live in the modern world,” Fink said, “and we have to deal with whatever comes our way.”
Fink also maintains an active and lively Facebook page, where he publishes multiple posts each day and has an audience of nearly 3,500 friends and followers, with comments sometimes reaching over a thousand per post. He has posted over 47,000 tweets to his Twitter account since starting it in 2009. No topic appears too sensitive for discussion, and his posts do not shy from touching on the most essential aspects of Orthodox faith—such as the authorship of the Torah or the fallibility of the Talmudic sages. In fact, Fink has come under criticism, with some charging that such frankness only weakens the faith of his readers. Some rabbis, Fink reported in one blog post, have called his writings heresy and advised followers not to read him. He admits to feeling hurt, but he has few regrets: “I truly believe … that what I do on a broader scale outweighs the unfortunate negative consequences.”
If Fink has allowed himself to go where few other rabbis do, he has yet to earn much ire from his fellow rabbinic bloggers. That distinction goes to the bloggers at Morethodoxy and their Open Orthodox movement, whose support for headline-grabbing halakhic innovations—such as rabbinic ordination for women or proposing marriage annulments for some agunah cases—is considered by some to go far beyond what normative Orthodoxy allows. Of late, this subject has animated the rabbinic blogosphere like almost no other. Adlerstein compares Open Orthodoxy’s innovations to that of the Conservative movement of nearly a century ago, except that the threat, he says, is now even more acute: “We are in an age where there is so much skepticism, naturally fueled by the information available on the Internet, that things can erode even faster.”
Student agrees. In Open Orthodoxy’s rush to institute communal change, without proper guidance from leading Torah authorities, he sees exactly the kind of talk he once heard from Conservative rabbis. “I crossed that line in one direction, so I see very clearly where that line is. And they [Open Orthodoxy and the Morethodoxy bloggers] have crossed it in the other direction.”
To some of the Cross-Currents bloggers, however, the issue isn’t only Open Orthodoxy. Following the SAR principal’s announcement that the school would permit girls to put on tefillin during school prayers, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, a prominent New Jersey rabbi and Cross-Currents contributor, wrote, “Once again, what passes for psak [halakhic ruling] in the Modern Orthodox world is little more than cherry-picking the sources to find the single, even strained, interpretation of a rabbinic opinion in order to permit what it wants to permit or prohibit what it wants to prohibit.”
If some find such rhetoric inflammatory, it is precisely that which creates the kind of vibrancy to these discussions, and even rabbis who don’t have strong feelings either way, find themselves drawn into the debate, if only to disavow any shared sense of urgency. Fink, for instance, considers much of the debate on tefillin to be beside the point. In an essay titled “Women Wearing Tefilin Is Really Not Such a Big Deal,” he wrote: “We already disagree on plenty of things and we can get along just fine … I don’t accept that this particular issue is so vital that it must break us up now.”
To Adlerstein, of course, the issue is a very big deal indeed and in a sense is what guides his entire worldview and much of his work on the blog. For all his support for open debate, he considers dedication to halakha supreme and unbendable unless approved by the greatest of all Torah scholars. In his view, for a high-school principal to take such a step without guidance from leading halakhic authorities constitutes a severe departure from normative Orthodoxy.
“To an inveterate student of halakha,” Adlerstein said, “that’s the kiss of death.”
***
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Shulem Deen is the editor of Unpious.com. He is currently at work on a memoir, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2015.RALEIGH, NC - Ron Francis, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that the team has agreed to terms with assistant coaches Rod Brind'Amour and Steve Smith, as well as Video Coach Chris Huffine. Francis also announced that the team has added L.J. Scarpace as video coach. Head Coach Bill Peters signed a contract extension in July 2016, which goes through the 2018-19 season.
"We feel strongly that we have the right people in place to help our young team take the next step this season," said Francis. "The addition of L.J. Scarpace allows our staff even more capabilities on the video side."
Scarpace, 41, recently completed his 12th season under Red Berenson with the University of Michigan men's hockey program, and his third season as the team's director of player development. Prior to that promotion, he served as Michigan's video coordinator since 2004, managing the team's video and statistical systems. A native of Dearborn, MI, Scarpace attended Western Michigan University for two years before transferring to the University of Michigan, where he went 6-2-0 and had a 1.94 goals-against average and.910 save percentage as a goaltender for the Wolverines over two seasons. Following graduation, he played in the ECHL with the Dayton Bombers and Cincinnati Cyclones before returning to Ann Arbor.[ THE INVESTOR ] Preorders for Samsung Electronics'upcoming flagship smartphone Galaxy S8 are expected to start from April 10, according to industry sources on March 3.
Samsung plans to unveil the new phone at separate unpacked events in New York and London on March 29. The official launch is widely rumored to come on April 21.
Related:
Samsung Galaxy S8 rumor roundup: Here’s what we know
Samsung sets shipment target of 60m for Galaxy S8
Larger Galaxy S8 model to feature same battery capacity as Note 7
The phone’s predecessors Galaxy S7 and the ill-fated Note 7 each sold 220,000 and 400,000 units, respectively, during their preorder period last year.
The new S8 is expected to come in two variants -- 5.7-inch S8 and 6.2-inch S8 Plus. The larger-than-ever display screen will wrap around both sides.
A physical home button incorporating a fingerprint sensor inside is highly likely to be relocated to the back of the device near the rear-facing camera.
The phone is also said to have a separate button for Samsung’s new artificial intelligence assistant Bixby.
By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)BAGHDAD
THEY come from all over the world. Their supposed mission is to help the people of Iraq. Their concerned frowns and even their clothes all proclaim the message: “We’re the good, caring people... and you’re not.”
But if actions speak louder than words, then many of the international charitable organizations called NGOs (non-governmental organizations) here are less interested in doing good works than in moral posturing and haranguing the army that won a war most of them opposed.
Ask any soldier who patrols this city, and you’ll hear the same thing: The NGOs have been here for weeks, but they’re not out in the streets. They cite “security concerns” – though journalists and soldiers alike move around the city, using common sense and taking precautions.
(This absence is also true of the United Nations, which has a fleet of $65,000 SUVs sitting uselessly in the sun outside its headquarters at the Canal Hotel. One U.N. program is active – the food program – but on its first day on the job, one of its workers was caught looting and arrested by the U.S. Army.)
TO catch the NGOs in “action,” you must go to the daily meeting at 1700 hours at the palazzo occupied by CMCC – that’s the Civilian Military Coordination Center. (It used to be CMOC – the civilian military operations center – but the NGOs complained that the name implied that they were operating together with the military!)
At the meeting are NGO representatives, officials from the U.S. Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid (ORHA) and Army officers from headquarters around Baghdad.
At the head of a long table in the middle of the room sits an army “facilitator,” Maj. Tony Coleman – a man with the patience of Job. On rows of gilt chairs on all sides of the table sit about 30 civilians and a sprinkling of soldiers.
A few of the civilians are Iraqis. The rest are international bureaucrats, most of them shiny with privilege, all of them bursting with self-righteousness.
Army officers stand all along the walls. Compared to the aid workers (with their new clothes and expensive haircuts), they look dirty and tired.
The soldiers must doff their rifles and sidearms before they enter the area because the NGO folk – who depend on these men and women for their protection – object to the presence of firearms.
Many other complaints follow the lines of: I was over there yesterday. You said it was safe but I heard a shot.
AFTER the official briefings on health, power, sewage, security and even subjects like animal welfare, you get to hear the long discussions of how the next meeting should be run: Certain topics must be highlighted; it’s important that there be “break-out” sessions. It’s there that you’ll hear every shortage here blamed on the Americans and their war, even though there were severe problems here before March 20.
“All they do is complain,” said a colonel who attends these meetings. “And you know what, I’m getting school supplies here with the help of my church at home quicker than all these NGO guys. A lot of units here are doing the same.
‘ALL these guys do is talk, talk, talk. The only NGOs I’ve seen out here are the ICRC – and they’re driving around, not working. These guys are more bureaucratic than the Army!” (They’re also more secretive, excluding the media from their meetings and trying to keep them out of the CMCC sessions.)
Certainly almost every question is delivered in accusatory tones. Indeed, more often than not they aren’t really questions but statements: “You should understand that the military should not occupy schools because that’s an abuse of civilian structures,” admonished one NGO leader on Sunday.
A little later, another informs the room that “we as an organization will adhere to humanitarian principles and not use any military aircraft.... It is unacceptable for humanitarian supplies to come in on military transport.”
The issue of moral pollution by contact with U.S. forces sometimes seems to be the NGOs’ main focus.
A Frenchwoman from Medecins Sans Frontieres embarks on a long rant: “We all know that this war has been planned for a long time. You cannot deny that. So why did you not plan medical assistance?” She said that MSF – whose Web site in any case says that there is no humanitarian crisis in Iraq – is pulling out.
LATER, a blond girl from a group called “Innocent Victims of War” asks a question basically accusing the armed forces of not caring or doing anything about cluster bomblets and the children they injure. A British engineer major then calmly explains that there are 10 unexploded-ordnance teams all over the city and that a special U.N. dog-team is coming into town next week. The task is huge because “this whole country is a vast ammunition dump, and a lot of the stuff is booby trapped.”
She doesn’t relent: Next week “is a little unacceptable to me.” The major moves the subject on, assuring her that the children injured by munitions are “something that truly pains us all.”
ONE of the many sulky Frenchmen demands that the Americans remove the roadblocks on the road from the airport into town, only to be told by a bullet-headed Maj. Watkins that this simply won’t happen: The Army has to keep its main supply routes secure.
Then an armor major stands up, says that there’s a young girl in his area with a brain tumor, and asks: “Are there any NGOs out there who can arrange specialized treatment for her?” The answer is silence.
The same thing happens when Capt. Cory Davis of the 2nd Armored Cavalry requests NGO help in resettling 400 families who’ve installed themselves in government buildings that will soon be taken back by the relevant ministries.
“Look at Saddam City,” a senior officer liaising with ORHA said to The Post, referring to the city’s biggest Shiite slum, “There’s 2 million people living in that little spot. It’s so poor it reminds me of Haiti. That’s where the NGOs could make a huge difference. But you know who’s the only people coming in to help? The Iranians.”
THE NGOs do have some legitimate gripes. ORHA is slow and bureaucratic. As an institution, it sometimes seems primarily concerned with its own comfort and safety. And as these meetings make painfully clear, there are no military officials who keep track of the whole city in matters of security, health, transportation, etc.
And different parts of the Army here don’t or can’t communicate with each other. For instance, when the NGOs want to talk to someone who can arrange landing slots at the airport for humanitarian flights – no one at the meeting knows who they should talk to. (The number some have been told to call at Doha, Qatar rings unanswered forever.)
Moreover, some of the big problems, like the shortage of fuel for automobiles, generators, etc. can only be solved by the U.N. Security Council, which has been inexplicably, cruelly slow when it comes to lifting sanctions and ending the suspension of the Oil for Food program.
The NGO folk come in various types. There are the churchy-hippie guys, like the bearded, earringed representative from Christian Peacemaker Teams. There are the sullen Frenchmen in linen shirts. There are the pretty, privileged-looking girls in clothes that wouldn’t look out of place in the streets of SoHo.
WHAT they all seem to have in common is opposition to “George Bush’s war” – and a desire, conscious or not, to justify that stance retroactively by finding fault with the American regime here.
They are entitled to their opinion. But the Iraqi people need help, regardless of whether that help comes from people in camouflage uniforms riding in dusty Humvees, or from elegant men in ponytails driving gleaming SUVs.
It is fascinating to see how much more morally serious the people in the Humvees seem to be – and how much readier the people in the SUVs are to despise the Army than to effectively better the lot of the Iraqis.This post has been updated. See below.
Digby’s blog has published my insane tale of tax-related woe. Read it and weep (for me, and maybe for yourself if you’ve ever lived in a state that charges income tax.)
My pregnant wife just called me a few hours ago from SFO as she was boarding an airplane to Austin, TX. “I got an email from Chase saying that our checking account is overdrawn, and all our assets are frozen. None of our cards work. They gave me some number to call.”
Of course, I flipped out. But I also knew immediately what had happened. I’m currently disputing a laughably bogus 2007 income tax bill with the MA Department of Revenue, a state in which I have not lived or earned income in since 2003. I live in CA, and the Chase account in question was opened in Chicago. But I had a sinking feeling that, in the world of the multinational megabank, niceties like state borders don’t matter anymore. My guess was that MA had called Chase (they have not sued me or sent me any sort of court order) and Chase just handed |
British team to inspire a new generation of girls to get involved.
“Players like Jess Fishlock have been deprived of an opportunity to get major international experience, and to represent Team GB in the way that so many other Welsh sports stars do at the Olympics.”
ENDSPolice at Liberty University, a conservative evangelical Christian college, detained an evangelical pastor on campus this week after he called for a protest of the school — and later, authorities kept a watchful eye on students who may be sympathetic to his cause.
Jonathan Martin, an evangelical pastor and author, detailed the incident in a Twitter thread Tuesday morning. Martin says he visited campus on Monday as a guest of the band JOHHNYSWIM, which was performing at the college. But according to Martin, when he was backstage in the green room with the band after the event, police suddenly apprehended him and “served” him “papers.”
Tonight after the @JOHNNYSWIM show, 3 armed @LibertyU police officers (& I think 2 not in uniform)came & escorted me out of their green room pic.twitter.com/eigyE1LjaG — Jonathan Martin (@theboyonthebike) October 31, 2017
The detention comes a few days after Martin used Twitter to call for followers to join him in a “time of praise and peaceful protest” at the college, where President Donald Trump spoke earlier this year.
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Martin called the school “ground zero for the counterfeit faith that is sweeping many evangelical churches right now,” using the hashtag “#LiberateLiberty” to ask “students, alumni, pastors, church leaders, and people who simply love Jesus” to join him in “stand[ing] against the idolatry of nationalism & the politics of demonization in the name of Jesus Christ, & stand for the oppressed.”
Martin did not respond to ThinkProgress’ request for comment by press time.
In a lengthy statement provided to ThinkProgress, Liberty University insisted members of the school community “are always welcome to engage in peaceful debate, intellectual inquiry and protest,” but said this sentiment did not extend to Martin as he is not a student or faculty member.
“For public safety reasons, organized events by outside groups require advance notice and participating in the appropriate application process,” the statement read in part. “Given the late hour of the notice, the only effective way to prevent the unauthorized event from happening this morning was to issue a trespass warning to its organizer, Mr. Martin, last evening.”
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The statement said the school’s concern was rooted in a “climate of protests associated with campuses across the country,” but did not elaborate on what that meant.
Police did more than remove Martin, however. Liberty student Dustin Wahl told ThinkProgress that campus police—including the police chief—also showed up to observe a group of roughly 15 students at 7:00 a.m. Tuesday morning as they prayed for the school. Martin originally intended to participate in the event, but could not attend due to being barred from campus.
“They [the police] were all kind of milling around, kept about 100 feet between us,” Wahl said. “After we prayed for 20 minutes or so they dispersed.”
Liberty representatives declined to comment further on the police presence, pointing back to the initial statement they provided to ThinkProgress.
Liberty University has long been a staple of conservative politics. More recently, however, the school has become associated with one politician in particular: President Donald Trump, who spoke at the school both during his campaign and after his election.
Liberty president Jerry Falwell, Jr. has been one of Trump’s most vocally loyal supporters ever since he after endorsed him in May 2016. When the Trump campaign was rocked by scandal following the release of a video showing the then-candidate bragging about sexual assault, Falwell condemned the comments but stood by Trump, blaming the release of the tape on a “conspiracy” of establishment GOP leaders. When the president became mired in controversy this summer for equating white supremacists to anti-racist counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, Falwell praised Trump’s comments as “bold” and “truthful.” The White House declined to provide surrogates to discuss the remarks with news agencies, but reportedly suggested Falwell as a surrogate instead.
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The Trump administration’s near constant string of controversies have yet to shake Falwell’s willingness to back the president. Falwell said Trump could be “the best president since Abraham Lincoln” earlier this month, and last week conducted an interview with the website Breitbart in which he reportedly called for an “evangelical army” to defeat “fake Republicans” who resist the president’s agenda.
Martin decried Falwell’s robust support for Trump in his tweetstorm on Tuesday.
“Like the president for whom he serves as a full-time apologist, Falwell does not easily tolerate robust dissent,” he tweeted.
Like the president for whom he serves as a full-time apologist, Falwell does not easily tolerate robust dissent. — Jonathan Martin (@theboyonthebike) October 31, 2017
Indeed, Falwell’s support for the president has not gone uncontested. His endorsement of Trump eventually spurred a Liberty board of trustees member to resign in protest. Other conservatives such as Erick Erickson also called for Falwell to step down, and soon a student protest movement emerged: When school officials allegedly refused to run an op-ed critical of Trump in the campus newspaper, the Daily Beast ran the entire article in full anyway. Wahl and others formed a student group entitled Liberty United Against Trump, publishing an online petition decrying Falwell’s support for Trump that collected more than 3,000 signatures.A joint alert issued by both the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation noted the danger of potential cyberthreats against critical sectors.
Video: Researchers predict large-scale cyberattack against US infrastructure in the next two years Only 26% of respondents in a study published by Black Hat Research were confident that the US government, under president Trump, would be able to react correctly to a major breach.
Advanced hackers are increasingly targeting specific government entities and high-risk industries, according to a joint report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), released Friday.
The technical alert noted that certain government networks and organizations in the energy, nuclear, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors were at risk of targeted advanced persistent threat (APT) actions. The threat activity is multi-stage, with attackers first targeting low-value networks in order to gain access and potentially move over to high-value networks later on, the report noted.
The risks have been identified, but they haven't been stopped, the report said. According to the alert, "DHS has confidence that this campaign is still ongoing, and threat actors are actively pursuing their ultimate objectives over a long-term campaign."
SEE: Network security policy template (Tech Pro Research)
Some of the attacks began as early as May 2017, the report said. Others have led to network compromise, the report noted. For the energy sector, attacks in the past have ranged from cyberspying to physical service disruption.
Victims in these attacks can be either a staging target or intended target. Companies like third-party suppliers are initially targeted as staging targets. Once the attacker gains access to their network, they pivot to attack the intended target to compromise their network, the report said.
The report also noted that the attackers used the following tactics in their attacks:
Open source reconnaissance
Spear-phishing emails
Watering-hole domains
Host-based exploitation
Industrial control system (ICS) infrastructure targeting
Ongoing credential gathering
With the potential for attacks in these sectors, employees in firms that serve these areas should be vigilant about potential attacks that fit this framework. DHS said that anyone who sees these kinds of attacks should report them to the department itself.
Further prevention, detection, and response suggestions are offered by TechRepublic columnist Gregory Michaelidis here.
The 3 big takeaways for TechRepublic readers
Cyberattacks are targeting government entities and companies that service critical manufacturing, along with the energy, nuclear, water, and aviation sectors, a joint DHS/FBI report said. The risks are ongoing, and the attackers are using a two-stage attack plan with staging and intended targets involved. Attackers are using techniques such as spear-phishing emails, watering-hole domains, host-based exploitation, and more.
Cybersecurity Insider Newsletter Strengthen your organization's IT security defenses by keeping abreast of the latest cybersecurity news, solutions, and best practices. Delivered Tuesdays and Thursdays Sign up today
Also see[Warning: This story contains spoilers through season two, episode nine of Mr. Robot.]
The walls of Elliot Alderson's perfect little maze aren't just crumbling. They're full-on collapsing, caving in on themselves, trapping the people he cares the most about in the rubble.
Consider the list of casualties in the ninth episode of the USA Network drama's second season, written by Kor Adana and Randolph Leon. There's Angela Moss (Portia Doubleday), Elliot's childhood friend sucked into the vortex known as fsociety, left stranded on a subway car with fresh memories of a kiss long in the making, and two imposing strangers with unknown purposes. There's Darlene (Carly Chaikin), Elliot's sister who already killed once in the name of the fsociety cause, who almost does it again and instead ends the episode as a possible murder victim herself. Also in the crosshairs: Cisco (Michael Drayer), Darlene's Dark Army boyfriend with a one-way ticket to prison, if his shadowy colleagues haven't bumped him off already. And sure, dogged federal agent Dom DiPierro (Grace Gummer) is still standing at the episode's conclusion, but she's standing while covered in blood, closer to the deadly roots of the 5/9 Hack than ever before.
Then there's Elliot (Rami Malek) himself, fresh from prison, and once again lost in a sea of mysteries. After coming to grips with the reality that he killed Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallstrom), Elliot is now left wondering if the absent ex-E Corp exec is alive after all — and if so, why did Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) lie about it? Better yet, why is Mr. Robot hiding now, unwilling to address Elliot's doubts?
For more on these lingering threads, THR spoke with episode co-writer and series technology producer Kor Adana about Elliot's current concerns, the kiss he shared with Angela, the state of Darlene and Cisco, and more.
The episode titles on Mr. Robot often speak to the themes of the episode. In that regard, how does "Hidden Process" play into the stories and ideas presented this week?
The notion of a "hidden process" is working on a couple of levels here. Obviously, we don't know where Tyrell is and Joanna is motivated to find him. Joanna enlisting Elliot's help in order to accomplish this is an attempt at revealing the existence of a hidden process. You have the relationship between Elliot, Mr. Robot, and us, the viewer. As Elliot's imaginary friend, we are always a hidden process. More importantly though, you have Mr. Robot, who disappears halfway through this episode. He's always been aware of what Elliot experiences, but it doesn't work both ways, so I'd say that Mr. Robot is usually a hidden process. This episode sets up how one-sided that relationship really is.
Terry Colby makes his season two debut this week, just in time for Phillip Price to reveal his overarching motivation: He wants to be the most powerful person in the room, in every room in the world, minus maybe two exceptions. How is Price viewed in the writer's room? Is he as powerful as he says, or is he viewed differently?
In the writers' room, we view Price as one of the most powerful people in the world. It was important to us to flesh out his character more this season. In season one, he was just a very strong force of antagonism. This season, we got a window into his vulnerabilities, ambitions and weaknesses a bit more. This makes him much more compelling and relatable in my opinion, even when he's trading countries like playing cards.
Have we met the two people more powerful than Price? Whiterose is a strong bet for one of them... is Elliot the other?
Keep watching. You will eventually find out.
Shifting to Elliot's story, he focuses his attention on Tyrell once again this week, thanks to Joanna's urging. We've questioned along the way how much Joanna knows about Elliot. As of this episode, it seems she knows enough to link him to fsociety, but not much more. What can you say about Joanna's journey this season? For someone so measured and composed throughout the first season, what have you learned about Joanna by cracking into her cold exterior?
The story that Joanna tells Elliot about her first date with Tyrell is crazy, but it establishes the dysfunctional, power-obsessive nature of their relationship. When Tyrell was around in season one, he was the one who couldn't keep his composure while Joanna stayed calm and cool. In the wake of the 5/9 hack and the disappearance of Tyrell, we had an opportunity to really push Joanna to her limits. What would make her break? How would she react if she were vilified by the public, getting mysterious gifts and calls from Tyrell, all while trying to raise a newborn? I think, in her own twisted way, Joanna truly loves Tyrell. I think that's what's so interesting about her journey. She's sure that Tyrell is alive and that he has a plan... and she seems to be supportive of that.
As Elliot further explores the Tyrell mystery, Mr. Robot disappears. Elliot, like so many viewers, is now wondering whether or not he should maintain his trust with Robot, or if Robot is violating the truce now that he's out from behind bars. Was it important to get Elliot feeling suspicious toward Robot again, to keep him on the same page as us, his "friend" — not certain in an answer, but certainly suspicious of Elliot's titular alter-ego?
It was important for us to establish that Elliot tried every single method he could think of to deal with Mr. Robot while he was in prison. None of that worked for Elliot. This is why the truce was such a big step for the two of them. They finally reached an agreement. Last week, we saw that there was something definitely off between them. So it's possible that what happens in this week's episode is the natural progression of that "glitch." Of course, the other possibility is that Mr. Robot is up to something. Mr. Robot's disappearance makes us question everything that he and Elliot agreed upon earlier... most importantly, the death of Tyrell. That's why it's so interesting that Mr. Robot disappears when he does, when Elliot is in the middle of trying to track down the origin of these mysterious phone calls for Joanna.
At one point, Elliot invites us, his "friend," to help him solve the mystery by studying his apartment. The camera slowly pans across the room, lingering for a long time. How does this scene speak to the dynamic between the show, Elliot, and his "friend," us? The show's audience often searches for clues to explore conspiracy theories, and some even predicted the prison twist as early as the premiere. What does this scene indicate about the show and the audience's relationship in solving the greater Robot riddle, as Elliot directly asks us for help?
Honestly, I've been waiting for this moment for months. I'm so glad this ended up in an episode I got to write. This level of interaction is very much in the spirit of our digital Easter Eggs that are hidden throughout the series. Elliot asking for our help elevates the relationship we have with him. It gives us an opportunity to get ahead of him and solve a mystery, which is something our audience is very good at. We want our audience to be able to "hack" the show... and that can come from a technical, psychological, or narrative place. Inviting the audience to help in this way makes this show a real, interactive experience. It goes way beyond entertainment that's being passively consumed. It makes you a part of the story.
With that in mind, how much should we study this scene? Care to point at any particular corners of the room we should pay close attention to?
I'll do my Best tO be helpful here. There is definiTely a hinT in this scene. I dOn't know if I should tell you what Main corner to look in, oR if the hInt is even in the corner of the frame, but Go aHead and study that scene to see whaT you can find.
Tyrell's true circumstances remain a mystery on the show, both for the audience and many of the players. In crafting the season, was it ever a concern for Sam Esmail and the writers about how long you can play out the Tyrell mystery without frustrating the audience?
This was definitely a discussion we had in the room. However, I don't think there ever was a disagreement about how long we would keep Tyrell's whereabouts a mystery though. This question was always intended to be a driving force of this season. We did have many arguments regarding how the Tyrell mystery would be resolved this season. You'll have to keep watching to see where we landed with that.
Elliot and Angela share their first kiss in this week's episode. It's Elliot who makes the move both to hug Angela, and then kiss her. He's not exactly known for loving physical contact, so in its own way, this is one of the more extreme actions we've seen from Elliot. Can you talk through his head space during this moment, and why now was the right time for a romantic moment between Elliot and Angela?
We know that Elliot has trouble with physical contact and that he feels awkward in social situations. I believe Angela has always been a slight exception to that for him. Even in our pilot, he avoids going to her party, but by the end of the episode, he lets her hug him and he reciprocates a little. With this scene on the train, I think the realization of how much pain he's caused Angela really hits him. There are so many unintended negative consequences to Elliot's actions and this is an example of him trying to reconcile that. I think Elliot truly believes this might be the last time he'll see Angela for a long while, and he doesn't want the moment to end. Even with everything going on, if he could just hang on to that moment for a bit longer, it's worth it. It's the realization that this kind of human connection can be comforting for him, which is a big discovery for Elliot. For someone who spends so much time in his own head, it's important for him to get a taste of what he's been missing. Deep down inside Elliot, there is a longing for a deeper connection to Angela, but he can't have that now... especially after making her complicit in one of fsociety's hacks.
What does the kiss mean for Angela, who just openly confronted Elliot about fsociety for the first time, as if that wasn't a big enough breakthrough on its own?
Much like Elliot, Angela is in a very vulnerable place. She took a big swing at E Corp and came to the sad realization that she can't really change things from within. They will always win. On top of that, she knows how suspicious the FBI is of her. She's at the point where she wants to cut her losses and confess, but she still cares about Elliot. When she asks him why he started fsociety, I feel like she needs some kind of justification for why the risk was worth it, or if it was even worth it. I think a part of her also knew that she wouldn't see Elliot for a while, especially since she plans on turning herself in.
The episode ends with another Dark Army operative opening fire on Dom DiPierro, then killing himself in order to "erase his history" and evade capture. First up, how many traumatic firefights can you throw at Dom before you destroy her enthusiasm for the simple things in life, like popsicles?
Let's get one thing straight... Dom likes lollipops, not popsicles. Deadly shootouts are never going to change that.
Apologies. Next, if we're looking to point fingers at who alerted the Dark Army to Cisco's whereabouts, Dom's FBI boss isn't a bad pick, is it?
Is it? The FBI decided to release a BOLO (be on the lookout) and published Cisco's sketch, which put his life in danger with the Dark Army. Dom was the one who learned that Cisco couldn't have gone far from the hospital.
Will we see the other side of this scene next week — whatever conversation took place between Dom, Darlene and Cisco before the gunfire began?
You will have to watch next week's episode.
Dom emerges from the restaurant covered in blood. Darlene and Cisco are the two biggest and likeliest candidates to have been on the receiving end of the shooting. Can we expect a major casualty by next week?
You should always expect a major casualty.
Well before the shooting, Darlene and Cisco have a few heated and open conversations about how Darlene's handling her role as the leader of fsociety (or not handling it, as Cisco suggests), and some surprising details about Darlene's past. Before that, Darlene nearly makes the choice to execute one of her own foot soldiers, until Cisco stops her. Who is the real Darlene: the person willing to kill an ally in order to protect herself and further the cause, the person who's in way too over her head, or someone in between?
I feel like she's someone in between. Darlene is in over her head and she's already shown that she's capable of justified murder. This episode is special for Darlene because I think it's the first time she realizes just how unfit she is for that leadership role.
How about the real Cisco? The noose around his neck is as tight as it gets, whether it's through the FBI or because he's just been killed. And yet, in this episode, we learned something more about the guy: Despite being a Dark Army foot soldier, he's the one who tells Darlene that there's no justifying killing someone on her own team. He's the one who pushes to go to the hospital. For a series filled with characters willing to cross all kinds of moral lines in pursuit of higher plans, should we maybe appreciate Cisco a little bit more as one of the show's gentler souls — especially as it looks like we're about to lose him?
Cisco definitely serves as the voice of reason for Darlene. He stuck by her throughout the Susan Jacobs ordeal, but we witness just how far his loyalties go in this episode. The combative nature of Cisco and Darlene's relationship often makes it challenging for one of them to make a real breakthrough with the other, but it happens here. Cisco gets through to Darlene and her perspective shifts, which creates a great vulnerable moment later in the hospital where Darlene opens up to him about her past. Beneath it all, she loves Elliot and recognizes that it was his leadership that got fsociety to this point, not hers.
Finally, tell us more about how Elliot's trick with the Pringles can works. The world needs to know.
This is an old-school hacker trick that gets you access to a far away WiFi network. The Pringles cantenna is a concentrated signal that amplifies your WiFi capabilities. You take a USB WiFi dongle and mount it inside of an empty Pringles can, strategically aim it, and you'll be able to access distant SSIDs and increase your signal anywhere from 5-22db. Think of it as a shotgun microphone, but for WiFi connectivity. Elliot has been incarcerated for 86 days, so odds are he doesn't have a working internet connection at his apartment. He uses the cantenna to connect to a nearby, unsecured WiFi network.
Follow THR's Mr. Robot coverage all season long for interviews, news and theories.It was difficult to watch Bob Dole on “Fox News Sunday.” Despite his longtime reputation as a crotchety old man, the veteran Kansas senator once defied his age like a Republican Dick Clark. In nearly a dozen years leading Senate Republicans, including two stints as majority leader, he kept a pace that would have tired much younger men.
Dole received this writer’s first vote for president. It is so far my only ballot cast for a Republican presidential nominee without reluctance or regret. This was the era of the dawning Internet boom, when the Iraq War was still a gleam in Bill Kristol’s eye.
Now frail and confined to a wheelchair, Dole is disfigured as much by age and illness as injuries sustained in battle during World War II. Even his familiar voice seems a bit muted, his delivery suddenly slow and halting.
But the nearly 90-year-old Republican elder statesman still flashed his trademark mordant wit, especially when assessing his party. “I think they ought to put a sign on the national committee doors that says ‘closed for repairs’ until New Year’s Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas,” Dole cracked.
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Dole—who once chaired that national committee at Richard Nixon’s request—wasn’t much kinder to President Obama, whom he dismissed as a “greater golfer” who failed to engage even the Democratic leadership early enough. Naturally, his criticisms of the GOP received more attention.
The man who appeared on two national Republican tickets in 20 years said he doubted he could get very far within the party today. “Reagan couldn’t have made it,” Dole added. “Certainly Nixon could not have made it because he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it.”
This has become a common refrain among a certain kind of Republican. Jeb Bush said much the same thing, throwing his father into the mix of party elders who would be out of step with today’s GOP.
Dole’s legislative accomplishments ranged from being part of the bipartisan majorities that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to playing a key role in the passage of the Reagan economic program. The Republicans of his era were more temperamentally conservative, even if less ideologically so. They believed in balanced budgets and would have been horrified to hear a party leader say “deficits don’t matter.”
Newt Gingrich, who became Dole’s partner in crime during the GOP Congress of 1995-96, is a good example of the party’s evolved brand. He led Republicans to their first House majority in 40 years, displaying a creativity that past Republican leaders conspicuously lacked. But he was undone by his excesses, cultivating an image of partisanship, over-the-top statements, and a penchant for unpopular crusades.
Today’s GOP is as much Gingrich’s party as Reagan’s or Nixon’s. Chest-beating often replaces prudence, the party frequently makes use of both libertarian and traditionalist themes without taking either of them very seriously.
Yet the party of Bob Dole had its flaws as well. Its fixation on accounting didn’t stop the federal government from getting bigger. Its identity as the party that paid for Democratic spending or aped the same programs on the cheap doomed it to permanent minority status. Its supposed affinity for ideas was marked by indifference to whether those ideas were Nixon’s wage and price controls or Reagan’s deregulation.
Much as the Greatest Generation gave way to the Baby Boomers, the Gingrich Republicans are the frustrated children of the Dole Republicans. Not content to be good losers or to play low-budget liberals, they went for broke. Gingrich was in many respects right to criticize Dole for being the “tax collector of the welfare state.” It was bad policy and worse politics, though it added up better than war and welfare with nobody paying the bill.
Nevertheless, the Baby Boomers always get their way. In his final presidential campaign, ahead of a competitive Arizona primary, Dole lamented with Barry Goldwater that they were now the liberals in the Republican Party. “I’m willing to be another Ronald Reagan if that’s what you want me to be,” Dole would also tell Republicans.
Perhaps the Gingrich Republicans’ progeny will give us a real limited-government party, one that endeavors to keep both taxes and spending as low as possible. It’s an ambitious dream, but no more so than hoping to turn Doles into Reagans.
W. James Antle III is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and author of the newly released Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?The 1930s in Ireland were turbulent and uncertain, echoing in miniature and perhaps parodic form the political uncertainties of the European continent in general. The rise of extremist movements on left and right promised warfare and the long-expected war eventually arrived in 1939.
Democratic governments, many of recent provenance and with little popular support, were destroyed at the hands of authoritarian, romantic and racist mass movements. Italian fascism, headed by an admirer of Vladimir Lenin, became the model for other "shirt" movements, most fatefully the German Brownshirts: the Nazis.
Ireland has been seen as being no exception to this general pattern: between 1932 and 1936 the Blueshirt movement, at its height having 50,000 members, appeared to parallel similar shirt-movements elsewhere; a march on Dublin and a coup d'etat might have been expected, in imitation of Mussolini's notorious march on Rome of 1922.
However, as last night's RTE programme, Patriots to a Man: the Blueshirts and their Times, documented, following the argument of Maurice Manning's 1972 classic The Blueshirts, and Michael Cronin's more recent The Blueshirts and Irish Politics, the Irish movement owed far more to Irish local circumstance than it did to continental or even British example.
The National Guard, or Blueshirts, cannot be understood without an awareness of the rise of de Valera's Fianna Fail, then a radical nationalist party. Fianna Fail was built on the ruins of the anti-Treaty IRA of 1922-'23 and retained much of its national radicalism.
On gaining power in 1932, de Valera instigated an economic war with Britain, at a time when all of Irish trade was with the United Kingdom, the bulk of that trade being unprocessed agricultural products: cattle on the hoof.
The casus belli was de Valera's refusal to remit to London certain land annuities payable by Irish farmers under the Land Acts. The British retaliated with tariffs against Irish exports and the Irish cattle trade faced ruin. The Irish raised tariffs against British goods and commenced protectionist industrialisation within the tiny market of the Free State.
As Paul Bew remarks in the programme, while some of the leaders were indeed Mussolini-style fascists and looked to the abolition of democracy in favour of a corporate and authoritarian state, the bulk of the rank-and-file were essentially "angry rural conservatives", strong farmers and their sons, who saw their livelihoods being wrecked by a malicious and economically illiterate government.
Support for this non-fascist, "aggrieved democrat" view of the movement comes from unexpected sources. Mick O'Riordan, a veteran communist who served in the International Brigade in Spain, remarks in the programme: "I never regarded them as fascists. They saw themselves as involved in a Christian crusade against godless communism in Spain; at worst, then, they were dupes."
The Blueshirts were in large part a movement of rural defence; many of the leaders had been in the Army of the new Free State during the Civil War, and in a sense the Blueshirt versus IRA confrontation of the 1930s was an echo of the more serious conflict of a decade earlier.
T.F. O'Higgins and others make the important point that, despite its apparently totalitarian trappings and rhetoric, the movement was, at grass-roots level, a freespeech movement which saw Fianna Fail and the IRA as hostile to freedom of opinion, regarding all those who disagreed as being anti-Irish and unpatriotic West Britons. "Free speech at that time was more than a cliche."
There was no television, virtually no radio, commonly no loudspeakers. The press had small circulation, and culture was oral. It was easy for small gangs of wellorganised militants to shout their opponents down or intimidate them into silence. One prominent and not atypical IRA leader, Frank Ryan, remarked famously that "as long as we have fists and boots, there will be no free speech for traitors".
Strangely, many in this shirtmovement saw themselves as defending the law against a lawless and resurgent IRA, with the government egging it on. Many were veteran gardai. Even the blue shirt is somewhat misleading; as Michael Cronin points out, many communists also had "shirt-movements at that time".
The programme has a marvellous clip of de Valera condemning a proposed Blueshirt march on Leinster House in tones reminiscent of Kevin O'Higgins in 1922: no democratic government "worthy of the name" could tolerate the strong-arm tactics of an O'Duffy.
Dev won the political struggle, and did for both the Blueshirts and the IRA. However, Dev also abandoned quietly a central plank of Fianna Fail: the redistribution of land to smallholders, and the breaking up of large farms. From 1936 on, in the shadow of the approaching war, the economic war was wound down and the raison d'etre for O'Duffy's movement evaporated.
Cronin describes the movement as being the "drunken uncle" of Fine Gael: an elderly relative whose embarrassing behaviour is not to be aired in public.
My own impression is that many modern Fine Gael supporters remain rather proud of their militant predecessors of a militant time. They think the Blueshirts achieved something by putting some sort of halt to Dev's gallop.
Tom Garvin is professor of politics in University College Dublin. His most recent book is 1922: the Birth of Irish Democracy. His Mythical Thinking in Political Life will be published in 2001Press Release Greek Baseball Federation
The Greek Baseball Federation (HABF) hereby announces the signing of Mauro Mazzotti as the new Manager of the Greek National Baseball Team. His first big tournament at the helm of our team is going to be the 2016 European Championship in September that will take place in Hoofdoorp, Netherlands.
Greece is playing in Group B with Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, and Croatia.
Mr. Mazzotti has played and coached in Italy and brings with him many years of coaching and managerial experience at the highest of levels. Born on December 12, 1959 in the town of Cesena, Italy, he was the first coach in Italian baseball history to win 4 Italian titles with 3 different teams including Rimini in 1999, Bologna in 2003 & 2005, and Grosseto in 2007.
Since 2009 he was the Manager for the Spanish National Team and managed them for the 2009 Baseball World Cup, 2010 European Championship, 2012 European Championship, 2013 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers (in which he led the team to a spot in the Classic), 2013 World Baseball Classic and the 2014 European Championship.
He has also worked in the past as a Scout for the Seattle Mariners and the Houston Astros. Currently, he is the European Scouting Consultant for the Baltimore Orioles.
The Greek Baseball Federation and the Team’s players are very much looking forward to work with Mr. Mazzotti.
Photo: Mauro Mazzotti receiving the Coach of the Year Award by the European Baseball Coaches AssociationIt’s been a bad year if you are a conservative. In fact, from a foreign and defense policy perspective, it’s been a bad start for the new millennium. Coming from a traditional understanding of conservatism, a belief that the lessons and traditions of the past have inestimable value and that the world can never be made perfect and that attempts to urge it towards perfection often do more harm than good, then Clinton, Bush II, and Obama foreign and military policies have all failed, if not equally, then at least with similar results.
Clinton engaged in nation building in an attempt to bring about a progressive democratic expansion. Noble, but not conservative, and a failure in light of destabilization in eastern Europe, Africa and North Korean nuclear weapons development. The neoconservative Bush administration followed and, having been saddled with Clinton’s half-measures against terrorism, they attempted to transplant a preplanned democracy in the Middle East while decrying critics of their efforts for having low expectations. Ambitious, but now tragic in hindsight in terms of human lives lost and animus won. Neither Western culture nor democracy found soil suitable for their roots in the fallow Middle East. Obama’s progressive “lead from behind” policy, with its rejection of American exceptionalism and nonadherence to its own red lines, has left instability whereever it has touched and stronger authoritarian rule in the Middle East, Russia and China. This is not unsurprising given the trust that the left has extended to centrally planned governments over time.
All three foreign policies were progressive and all failed. Maybe it’s time to try a classically conservative approach to the world beyond our borders. What would that look like, many might ask? Do you mean isolationism? Do you mean a withdrawal from the world? Of course not. Classic conservatives recognize that the world does exist and that it will and must impact each nation and each must react to those impacts according to established principles and traditions. Certainly the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, in fact the most influential nation that has ever existed, must be prepared to play a leading role, a role that a conservative foreign policy must seek to, well, conserve. How should we go about that?
A Conservative Foreign Policy
A conservative foreign policy for the United States begins with an acknowledgement that the United States occupies a leading position in the present international order and has as its first goal the sustainment of that position and the current international order that extends from it. This can be accomplished through three principal paths; by strengthening the position of the United States in the realms of diplomacy, information, military competition and economics, by acting to prevent or stall the rise of competitors, or a combination of the first two.
Such actions acknowledge a central core tenet of conservative thought: that human nature is unchanging and that we are who we have always been—warring, competitive and wanting. To address these realities, humans have established rules or normative behaviors that funnel these negative impulses into actions that are additive to human society rather than destructive. Armies to defend borders, technologies and inventions to improve lives and free capital markets that lift all of society rather than just an elite few. Conservatives also believe that the knowledge of the ages continues to informs us, that most of the great questions have been answered and can be found in the writings of Moses and Plato, Smith and Ricardo, as well as Madison and Hayek. Again, there is an essential sameness about humans across the arc of their history on the planet that is unchanging.
No, conservatives are not isolationists. To be sure, a strict foreign-policy originalist would have the United States take up Washington’s injunction to avoid entangling alliances, but such an action would be regressive, |
win the NBA title next season.
One sportsbook, Bovada LV, lists the Knicks' odds to win a title at 150-1. Those are the second-lowest odds on the board.
Bovada LV also lists the Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings at 150-1. The Charlotte Hornets, Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers have the longest odds on the board at 250-1.
The Knicks' long odds are to be expected. They finished with the second-worst record in the NBA last season (17-65).
New York's odds to win the title, according to Bovada LV, didn't improve after its acquisitions in the draft and free agency.
Prior to the draft, the Knicks' odds to win the title were 100-1, per Bovada LV.
New York drafted Kristaps Porzingis with the fourth overall pick and has agreed to terms with Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo, Derrick Williams and Kyle O'Quinn in free agency.
Knicks talking contract with Jason Smith, Amundson: The Knicks have four players under contract and have agreed to terms with four more. They have two rookies who will eventually be signed to contracts and have signed Langston Galloway to a partially guaranteed deal. They are expected to keep Galloway on the roster, leaving five open roster spots.
Team president Phil Jackson and GM Steve Mills have been in "constant contact" with representatives for Jason Smith and Lou Amundson, league sources said Sunday. New York also contacted Lance Thomas on the first day of free agency.
Assuming the salary cap is at the projected $67 million, the Knicks have spent all of their cap space and have a $2.8 million exception and veteran's minimum contracts to offer free agents.
Summer league roster: The Knicks have not released their summer league roster yet, but the players from last year's roster expected to participate include Galloway, Ricky Ledo, Cleanthony Early and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, sources say.by
Beirut
During a workshop at the American University of Beirut last year on the subject of the right to work and to purchase a home for Palestinian refugees, a young business major from the Christian village of Bikerki posed a question that surprised some in the audience: “Why if Palestinian don’t like it in Lebanon do they not go home? Why did they even bother coming here in the first place?”
“Caroline” was not being antagonistic. Many of the younger Lebanese population are taught in private and religious schools by the various sects using a curriculum including subjects that are heavily politicized and skewed, none more than modern Lebanese history.
Talking with Caroline during a tea break, she explained that she feels very politically oriented, but admitted that she really doesn’t know much about Lebanese history and only vaguely why there are Palestinians in Lebanon. What she does know, she explained, came from her parents and family members and not from schools in her Christian hamlet which happens to be the seat of Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch, for whom she is a part time volunteer working with orphaned children.
In most private and public schools in Lebanon, sensitive political subjects have long been culled from textbooks by polarized confessional watchdog committees seeking a proper education for their children. UNWRA schools are forbidden to teach Palestinian history in Lebanon or even their history in Palestine lest the US Congress cut UNWRA funding.
This has prevented the development of a unified history curriculum. Most history lessons end in 1946, three years after Lebanon’s independence from French colonial rule. Many schools avoid teaching Lebanese history in order to prevent sectarian and political fervor.
According to Ohaness Goktchian, professor of political science at the American University in Beirut, “We are raising another generation of children who identify themselves only with their communities and not their nation… history is what unities people. Without history we can’t have unity.”
Sari Hanafi, a Palestinian professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, says a unified history curriculum is necessary. “I think in terms of social identity it’s important for the Lebanese to have a shared history which also highlights their differences. We hold absolutely different visions of Lebanon. We should admit this, and admit our own limitations.” Hanafi continues, “There should be no vote (the content of history textbooks) by the council of ministers or the parliament… It should be defined and approved by a committee of historians and that’s it.”
All sects, get involved is checking what is being taught. One of the Hezbollah officials this observer most admires is MP Mohammad Fneish, former Labor Minister and currently Minister of Agriculture. Fneish raised an issue with the Ministry of Education last week concerning the use of an American text book called Modern World History that is used at Beirut’s International College (IC), a popular private school. What the Hezbollah MP and others found disturbing was that the US book states that “Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are terrorist organizations.”
A solution was quickly agreed upon by the Ministry of Education, the International College administration and Hezbollah. The offending passage was simply covered over in each of the books with a sticker and everyone seems more or less satisfied for now.
As a consequence of this impasse in education, which often sees 1946, three years after the end of the French occupation, as the end of the period of history taught in Lebanon, Caroline honestly did not know why Palestinians came to Lebanon. When it comes to the second half of the 20th century, what happened during the Palestinian Nakba and its effects here in Lebanon are largely unknown among youth.
Caroline and I became friends and I gave her some articles from different scholars to read on the Nakba as I sensed she was becoming interested in this subject. Partly as a dare, she agreed to do research and get back to me with what she discovered about the Nakba and its effects on Lebanon. She wanted to write from the perspective of a Lebanese student and I in turn would try to help her get college credit for her thesis and maybe even published.
Frankly I had not thought much about our research arrangement for months, and was very happy and surprised when she contacted me the other day to say that she needed me to read her manuscript.
And quite a manuscript it is.
Why, Caroline asked her readers, did more than 129,000 Palestinians come to Lebanon during 1948 while a similar number arrived next door to Syria?
Then she laid out what she had learned and her conclusions:
The current fate of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, living for decades in inhumane conditions worse that any refugees on earth, is primarily the fault and responsibility of those who stole their lands and ethnically cleaned them during the 1948 Nakba. Additionally, the Palestinian refugees’ abject existence is the responsibility of those who have egregiously nurtured the nineteenth century Zionist colonial enterprise with aid and weapons while averting their eyes from the Palestinians Right of Return and the international responsibility to implement international law including many UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and UNGAR 194. In addition to the United States and Europe, responsibility attaches to much of the World community.
They were forced out of 531 villages and 11 cities in Palestine as part of a series of detailed and meticulous ethnic cleansing campaigns rarely witnessed since Germany’s Third Reich. Indeed, many of the same methods used to transfer the population of Palestine through terror and intimidation experienced under the Nazi administration of Germany were employed by the Zionist organizers of the Nakba.
“For more than six decades”, she wrote: “the Zionist colonial enterprise that still occupies Palestine, falsely claimed that the Palestinians left their farms and homes because they were ordered to do so by Arab governments in order to clear the way for a massive Arab army that would soon throw the Jews into the sea. It was nonsense of course, since the so-called Arab “army” was ten percent of the Zionist forces, had no such plan, and in the case of Syrian forces ran out of ammunition early on and the Jordanian did not want to fight at all and left after the fall of Lod and Ramle.”
But, according to Caroline, “the Zionist lobby in the USA and Europe repeated this and many other lies for more than half a century.” Caroline wrote that relatively recently, Walid Khalidi (1988), Zionist historian Benny Morris, the eminent Palestinian scholar Salman Abu Sitta and others exposed this lingering fraud.
Yet, during the 2012 American presidential campaigns in Florida, New York and elsewhere this shibboleth surfaced again without challenge or rebuttal by the main stream media, debate sponsors or claimed debate “fact checkers.”
A summary of Caroline’s research instructs us about the reasons Palestinians left their homes and land seeking sanctuary in Lebanon.
In approximately 90 per cent of the 531 villages, direct Zionist military attacks emptied the Palestinian population. This took the forms of expulsion by Jewish forces (approximately 15 per cent), direct military assault by Zionist gangs and militia (60 per cent) and approximately 18 per cent as a result of an imminent attack following the destruction of a near-by village sometimes in view of neighboring villages.
Other villages were emptied by insidious “whispering campaigns” whereby Zionist agents, posing as “friendly Jewish neighbors” would whisper to Palestinian villagers that a horrible bombardment of their village was imminent and they must, at risk of their lives, leave for a week or so until ‘the situation’ returned to normal. Another 38 villages were ethnically cleansed because of “fear of Jewish attack” and five villages were emptied on orders of a local leader or Muktar.
Palestinian refugees who were forced into Lebanon more than six decades ago were all part of the Zionist creation of the so-called “refugee problem.” They came as a direct result of a fanatical genocidal war waged against them by European colonial Zionists before, during and subsequent to the League of Nations British Mandate. Zionist tactics included military and psychological projects and both allowed for hasbara which generated some credence for the fake Zionist slogan: “Palestine is a land without people for a people without land”.
The myth that the Israelis were few and fought with sparse weapons against many well equipped Arab armies was only true in Hollywood’s “Exodus Fantasy.” The number of Arab armies participating went down during the war. The only ones who remained to the last rounds in October, November, and December were the Palestinians and Egyptians, according to Caroline. The Zionist plan from the very beginning emphasized the urgency of building a large army and out of a population of approximately 650,000. More than 100,000, or roughly 16 per cent of the colonial population were under arms.
Caroline is a credit to her religion, village, country and generation, in that she is determined to learn what Lebanon’s confessionalized education does not allow. She has pledged to send her research to all Member of Parliament and to support the intensifying campaign here in Lebanon to secure the right to work and home ownership for the ethnically cleansed Palestinian refugees.
FRANKLIN LAMB volunteers with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign and the Sabra-Shatila Foundation. He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com.A Heritage Temple
Prashant S. Bhardwaj is the head priest of the Veera Narayana Temple, Belavadi. The Veera Narayana Temple is dedicated to Veera Narayana, a form of Lord Vishnu, in the village of Belavadi, Chikamagalur district, Karnataka. The temple was built in the 12th century CE by the Hindu dynasty of the Hoysalas, based at Halebidu which was then called Dwarasamudra. They also built the famous temples at Belur and Halebidu.
It is not in the scope of this article to discuss the architectural or sculptural beauty of the temple. It would be enough to say that while other more famous Hoysala temples are popular for their sculpture; this temple is famous for its wonderful architecture. It is a trikuta temple, but with a peculiar and novel plan, which separates the two lateral shrines from the original shrine with two mandapams and a lateral open gallery and thus its facade is the most beautiful of all Hoysala temples. It has the largest joint mandapam of any Hoysala temple with 59 bays. There are 108 pillars in the temple and no two are alike. It is this great temple, which has its head priest as Prashant S. Bhardwaj.
An Ancient Community
He belongs to the very rare Vaikhanasa community of temple priests. The Vaikhanasa community are traditional priests in Vaishnava temples who follow the Vaikhanasa Agama. Agamas are the Shastras, which govern the worship rituals in temples. The Vaikhanasa Agama is also called as Bhagavat-Shastra by the Vaikhanasas. The Vaikhansa Agama is said to be the oldest of all Agamas, and the Vaikhanasa community is also said to be the oldest living community of temple priests. Most of them are found in Tamil Nadu and the adjoining areas of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The famous Venkateshwara temple at Tirupati is run according to Vaikhanasa Agama, by the Vaikhanasa community.
The serenity and calm of the picture-perfect village Belavadi is attractive to a visitor, but for a local youth to devote his entire life to the tradition is not easy, even when the tradition is as glorious as that of the Hindu temple and when the monument and heritage to defend and propagate is as spectacular as the Veera Narayana temple at Belavadi.
A Hard Choice between Tradition and Modernity
When I interviewed him in a rainy August of 2016, he was exactly my age, 33. The energy, optimism and the hope that comes with youth was on his face. He was wearing the traditional attire of a Vaikhanasa priest: white dhoti and angavastram. He had the Vaishnava tilak on his forehead and he had just arrived after offering worship to the deity. He was entirely reconciled with his role as the head priest of a provincial temple. As far as I could think, any young man in his position would be at best conflicted, forever on the crossroads of the security of tradition and the possibilities of the wider world.
I couldn’t help but ask: what prompted him to become the priest of a temple in a small village, following all the strictures that came with the job, especially when the wider world was open to him?
It must be hard for a youth his age, who is also educated in the modern idiom to abstain from all the ‘pleasures’ of the modern life and to immerse himself in the preservation of tradition for the sake of his family, his clan, his community and his dharma.
It appears, for Prashant, it was not so. Of course, the temptations to take wings and fly away to embrace the wider world were many. Of course, there were attractions of the ‘other’ life; the life which is normal for most of us. But the choice was never hard for Prashant. When it came to choose between upholding the great Vaikhanasa tradition of the Veera Narayana Temple, Belavadi on the one hand and to become a commoner and become ‘normal’ in the modern world on the other, Prashant easily chose his heritage over the rest of the world.
He had never been out of touch with his tradition and heritage and always considered it his first priority. He had completed school education in Belavadi and then took regular education in Bangalore, from where he got his Bachelor of Arts degree. It was after that he chose to take the path of becoming a priest.
Sometimes people rationalize the choices that they have made; often in retrospect. But Prashant’s claim that he always wanted to devote his life to the preservation of his tradition, was not an afterthought. The choice to become the head priest of Veera Narayana temple, Belavadi was deliberate. It was a conscientious decision, which involved a lot of forethought. He knew what he was getting into when he enrolled into the course of Agama Shastra at the Sanskrit Department, University of Mysore.
The course has been made mandatory by the Sringeri Sharada Peetham for anyone who wants to become a priest. And it is Sringeri Sharada Peetham, which takes care of the worship and other rituals in the temple at Belavadi. To become a priest is no longer a hereditary privilege only. One has to earn it.
The fact that Prashant consciously chose to undergo hard training for seven years shows his commitment to uphold his heritage. The seven years course is divided into three parts: 3 years Pravara, 2 years Praveena, 2 years Vidvata. Prashant underwent the entire course and upon graduating, came back to become a priest in 2010.
But there was one last dilemma. Prashant always knew he wanted to become a priest. But the choices are everywhere. Even when he had taken the training to become a priest, the choice for him was: to become the hereditary priest at Belavadi, or to take up the priesthood in a temple abroad. He was getting offers from many temples in US, UK and Australia from 2009, even before he had completed his Agama education in Mysore. One Lakshmi temple, London, had offered him a salary of one lakh and fifty thousand rupees per month.
The offer was very lucrative. He was to get a very comfortable salary, compatible with any free market job these days and he got to ‘live the life’ abroad. The other option was the hereditary priesthood at Belavadi. Sure, there was heritage. Of course the temple was ancient and the heritage was worth preserving. But the hardships were many.
Choosing Belavadi would mean choosing the provincial way of life for the rest of his life and also for his family. The salary, which the Sringeri Sharada Peetham paid was very meagre: only two thousand rupees per month. Apart from this salary and the meagre donations that the temple received he had nothing to go by as the head priest at Belavadi is forbidden to take up any other job.
Choosing Belavadi meant taking up a life of extreme discipline and restraint. Hindu Shastras forbid the Brahmins and the priests especially to cross the ocean. Once Prashant chose to stay at Belavadi, the wider world across the ocean would be closed to him forever. On the other hand, if he crossed the ocean once, the gates of Belavadi will close for him forever. And only someone from the Vaikhanasa family can become a priest at Belavadi. On the other hand, anyone could become the priest at Lakshmi temple, London. It was a hard choice.
Choosing Belavadi meant his family would have a hard time finding a bride for him. The Vaikhanasa community is a very small one and finding girls for marriage is a daunting task. For someone living in a village like Belavadi, it is even harder. As Prashant’s family is the only Vaikhanasa family in the village, they would have to seek elsewhere. But Prashant says that almost no girl wants to come down and settle in a village. He told the story of a nearby village in which there were forty unmarried young men of age. His own village has around fifteen Brahmin youth who are of age and still unmarried. There was a great possibility that if he chose Belavadi, he would never get married.
Prashant chose to go abroad and take up the job in London. Anyone would have. He started preparing for the journey across the ocean. He even had his passport ready. But somewhere in his heart, he felt that he was making the wrong choice. Even after he had decided to go abroad, the charm of Belavadi would not leave him. He had never been so conflicted. Just before he was about to leave, he went to a Jyotisha to whom he often used to go when in conflict. The Jyotisha advised him to stay. Prashant was elated! The Jyotisha had spoken what was already in the heart of Prashant. Somewhere deep in his heart, he knew he was never going to leave Belavadi.
The Call of the Road
Seven years later, in 2016, he was confidently doing his duties at the Veera Narayana temple, when I interviewed him. Elaborate Shodasha Upachara worship is offered at all the three temples twice a day by him. There are various monthly, yearly and other festivals: Abhishekams, Kumbahbhishekam, Brahmotsavam, etc. Rath Yatra is taken on many of these festivals. The humble complexity of a dharmic life cantered at the temple has him completely engrossed.
Even then Prashant has the travel bug. While I was asking all the questions, he would interject in between and enquire about my travels and congratulate me again and again on my luck that I get to travel so much. I couldn’t help but ask: how does he manage his desire for travel and seeing the world, while being the priest at Belavadi?
It is hard, agrees Prashant, as the call of the road is almost irresistible for him sometimes. The duties of being the head priest do not let him leave the temple for most of the time. But once every year, for fifteen days, at a stretch, Prashant lets loose his inner traveller. He goes travelling the length and breadth of India, seeing the great temples and heritage places. For this interval, his cousin from Bangalore performs the duties at the temple.
In his modern clothes, he doesn’t betray his priestly background while travelling. He always keeps his vow and abstains from every kind of food prohibited to a priest. This is how he balances his duties and his passion. By letting out his travelling demon once every year for 15 days, he keeps it within check so that he can devote the rest of his year to his priestly duties.
Almost nine years ago, Prashant chose to reject the world and chose Belavadi. But much to his amusement, the world came to him. For the Veera Narayana temple is an architectural gem. In the words of Gerard Foekema, the temple has “the most majestic temple front in all Hoysala architecture”. [1]
The larger hall (mandapam) is so majestic that it is seldom matched. Though there are other trikuta Hoysala and Chalukya temples in Karnataka and elsewhere, but no other trikuta temple has the peculiar architecture of Belavadi, where the oldest shrine is separated from the other two lateral shrines by not one or two, but three mandapams.
Compared to the temples at Belur and Halebidu, the one at Belavadi is not that famous, but the age of social media is gradually giving the Veera Narayana temple the place that is due to it. People from all over the world; especially the temple enthusiasts and scholars who are devoted to the preservation of the Hindu heritage keep coming to this temple and keep exploring it; bringing the world to Prashant.
The temple is a great magnet for scholars, authors, journalists, saints, Hindu activists and temple enthusiasts. He rattles off a few names with a proud smile on his face: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, temple scholars like Gerard Foekema and Adam Hardy and Hindu activists like Shefali Vaidya. For fifteen days every year, Prashant leaves Belavadi to see the world. For the rest of the year, the world itself comes to Belavadi, at the very doorstep of Prashant, the head priest of Belavadi.
And Prashant did get lucky in marriage. Just like he chose to defend heritage instead of chasing a lucrative financial career, Shweta, a girl from Bangalore, instead of choosing a ‘happening’ city life, chose to marry him and come to Belavadi to spend the rest of her life with him.
Conclusion
Prashant’s story is fascinating, inspiring and uplifting. But it is not one-of-a-kind. He is not the first to make the choices that he did. Many before him have made similar choices, many like his father, like his community. For ages, Brahmin families have been living by the dharmic code and devoting their lives for the preservation of heritage and culture. For centuries, individuals like him have been making the right choice and have been sacrificing their desires in order to carry on the knowledge tradition.
For when the Islamic invaders arrived in India and laid waste to our universities, libraries and other educational institutions, it was these ‘orthodox’, ‘discriminating’, ‘elite bookworms’ who preserved Hindu knowledge orally and transmitted it from generation to generation at great personal risk.
They have been much maligned for their ‘rigidity’, ‘caste orthodoxy’ and ‘hereditary privilege’, but it was precisely because they maintained these hereditary structures that they could preserve Indian knowledge traditions for posterity.
In a world where rights are more important than duties; individuals are more important than desh or dharma; activism is more important than knowledge; and where this activism is reduced to nothing more than the fight for the most basic of human desires, the code by which the Brahmins used to live is ridiculed and left to fade away.
Though Brahmins are migrating to different pastures and not doing so bad, as individuals, the Brahmana way of life is headed for extinction. Everything that a Brahmin held dear to his way of life has been so thoroughly abused and maligned by Marxist, left-liberal and secular intellectuals that no one dares own them up in public any longer.
What is at stake here is not a particular community, but the dharmic code of life. Brahmins will survive one way or the other. What is in danger of going extinct is the knowledge tradition of India; the Brahmana way of life. Prashant S. Bhardwaj, the head priest of Veera Narayana Temple, Belavadi chose to ignore the abuses and the ridicule of the world, and went on to preserve his tradition and heritage. But if the conditions remain the same, if India continues to remain apathetic to its glorious knowledge tradition, not many will choose to do the same in future.
Notes and References
Foekema, Gerard. Hoysala Architecture: Medieval Temples of Southern Karnataka Built During Hoysala Rule (2 Vol). New Delhi: Aryan Books, 2014. p. 108.
Disclaimer: The facts and opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. IndiaFacts does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, completeness,suitability,or validity of any information in this article.The practice of offerings and sacrifices is not universal among all Pagans. The Charge of the Goddess says “Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, for behold: I am the Mother of all things and My love is poured upon the earth.” I suspect early Wiccans wanted to insulate themselves against mindless and fearful accusations of animal or even human sacrifice.
But offerings were quite common in ancient times, and the practice has been revived by a growing number of Pagans and especially polytheists. Giving things to the Gods, to the ancestors, and to other spirits is a regular part of our spiritual practice.
What’s the difference between an offering and a sacrifice? While the two terms have different word origins and definitions (offering means “to give” while sacrifice means “to make sacred”), in contemporary practice they’re virtually the same. I joke that pouring wine is an offering, but pouring Lakewood Temptress Stout is a sacrifice.
Offerings generally (but not exclusively) take the form of food and drink: wine, beer, mead, or whiskey; grain, bread, meat, or sweets. It can take the form of money, of objects, or of service. It can take other forms as required by tradition or by the Gods Themselves.
If you’re new to polytheism, especially if you come from a Protestant or an atheist background where religion is all about beliefs, dogma, and the written word, the idea of offerings may strike you as odd, anachronistic, or unnecessary. But for many of us, offerings are the cornerstone of our religious practice. This is why we make offerings.
To express hospitality. If you invited a friend over to your house, as soon as they got there you’d offer them something to drink. If they were there a while, or if they showed up at dinner time, you’d offer them something to eat. You’d try to be a good, generous, thoughtful host who cares for their guests.
The same is true with our interactions with the Gods. We don’t want to invite Them to our rituals and start demanding They give us stuff. We want to be polite and generous. We make offerings to the Gods to show our respect for Them, and to demonstrate we practice the virtue of hospitality.
To promote reciprocity. The world runs on reciprocity – “I give so that you may give.” Sometimes this is quid pro quo – a gift for a gift, or payment for a service. Sometimes you don’t expect to be paid back right away – you do a favor for a friend and you know that some day, they’ll do something for you. Occasionally it’s even less structured – you do a good deed and you figure things will even out in the long run.
We give to the Gods so the Gods will give to us. This isn’t appeasement and it certainly isn’t bribery (as though a divine being could be bribed with a glass of wine). It’s demonstrating that we understand the world runs on honest exchange – I give so that you may give so that I may give again.
Because our ancestors made offerings. Contemporary polytheists aren’t building a religion from scratch. We’re reviving, restoring, and reimagining the religions of our ancestors. We need not – and should not – slavishly duplicate everything they believed and did, but where a practice was meaningful and helpful to the ancients, we are foolish if we do not at least explore it. Reviving their practices not only lets us learn from them, it helps restore the bonds across generations as we do now what they did then.
Our ancestors made offerings. The photo at the right is a display of some of the coins that were deposited in the waters at Bath over the 400 year Roman period. Historian Walter Burkert described the ritual process for animal sacrifices in ancient Greece. The practice was beneficial to them or they would not have done it. It’s worth following their example.
. If a good friend asks me for something, my first impulse is to say yes. When Sharon Knight asked for help with her “ Portals ” project, I said yes (the album is out and it’s great – I’ll have a review in the near future). When the Coru priesthood asked me to give up three hours working as a temple priest, I said yes.
Sometimes it’s just this simple: a God says “I want that.” Sometimes there’s a practical reason why They want it. Sometimes there’s a whimsical (to us) reason. Sometimes there’s no reason at all, just that familiar voice or feeling or intuition that They want something from us. I’ve learned to trust that if They ask for something, the best thing to do is to give it to Them.
Of course there are limits. I grew up hearing the story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac to Yahweh. If that was a test, Abraham failed. I’ve never been asked to give something I felt I shouldn’t give or that I had no right to give, and I don’t expect I ever will.
To remind ourselves we have enough. As the meme going around Facebook says, you can’t pour from an empty cup – you can’t give what you don’t have. By historical standards, though, all but the poorest among us have far more than we truly need. Offerings and sacrifices remind us that we are not lessened when we give.
We can and should debate how much we should give, who we should give to, and how our gifts should be made. But as we give to the Gods, we are reminded that we can also give to our fellow humans, because we have enough.
To remind ourselves to do what must be done. Let’s be honest. While I love being hospitable to the Gods and giving Them what They ask for, and the end of the day I really don’t like pouring out perfectly good wine that I could drink. I also don’t like going to work every day, wearing glasses, and putting up with Texas summers. But I do all these things because they must be done. They are necessary if I’m going to make enough money to live the way I want to live, if I want to read anything smaller than 16 point type, and if I want to enjoy the mild Texas winters and low cost of living.
When I make offerings I’m reminded that nothing comes for free. Even the most priceless choices involve a tradeoff of one thing or another – if I give a rare bottle of wine to the Gods, I cannot give it to a friend. Such is life – we do what must be done.
To express devotion. Why do we send flowers to a spouse, or bring souvenirs back for family, or take a close friend out for an expensive dinner? Because we love them and we want to do something nice and thoughtful for them – we want to express our devotion to them.
Likewise, as we come to know the Gods and to understand Their power and virtue, we not only want to ally ourselves with us by working for Their causes, we also want to express our devotion to Them. We make offerings because we want Them to enjoy what we have to give, however ultimately insignificant that may be.
I encourage you to make offerings a regular part of your spiritual practice, and especially part of your usual ritual liturgy. If you call (invite, invoke) a being into your ritual, be a good host and offer them food and drink. Practice good hospitality, reciprocity, and devotion with all your guests.MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - JULY 01: Robert Murphy of the Bulldogs looks on during the 2017 AFL round 15 match between the Western Bulldogs and the West Coast Eagles at Etihad Stadium on July 01, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media)
As part of his regular Wednesday segment on SEN’s Breakfast with Gary, Tim and Hamish, Western Bulldogs captain Bob Murphy delivered his Top 5 footy songs.
Bob’s Top 5 lists are fast becoming the highlight of the radio week for many – visit SEN.com.au for more.
5. Tim Rogers and You Am I– Heavy Heart
"It’s a great song, with a couple of good lines in it that talk about football, girls I kissed in grade four, and it also includes ‘like a waterlogged ball’ that no-one wants to kick around anymore’."
"It’s not specifically about footy that song, but it could be."
4. Holy Grail– Hunters and Collectors
“It just has to be in there.”
“It might have been flogged to death by every country footy team in the history of the game, but sometimes you’ve just got to have the foundations in there.”
3. Leaps and Bounds- Paul Kelly
"For anyone who has parked their car in Richmond and walked to the MCG on a Friday night to watch their team play has to appreciate the sentiment of that song."
"I don’t think the song was originally written with football in mind, but it’s been hijacked a little bit."
2. Monday’s Experts- Weddings Parties Anything
"This is a genuine football song and it’s got a bit of a St Kilda theme to it."
"The great line from Tony Lockett who was asked after a game by a journalist, a bit of criticism, and he quipped well everyone’s a Monday’s expert. That sums it up pretty well.
1. Up there Cazaly – Mike Brady
"It’s an iconic song."
"For some that might be a little bit corny, and maybe a little bit outdated, and we might be a little bit sick of that one too, but it still has the greatest line.
"It captures the whole game in a small paragraph – ‘there are days when you could give it up, there are days when you could fly’."(Jupiterimages)
Many health problems come with a tagalong: sexual dysfunction. Are the home fires burning less brightly lately? It might be time for a checkup. Here are a few medical conditions and situations whose impact can be felt in the bedroom:
Vascular disease. Several vascular conditions can express themselves as sexual problems. With time, they harm blood vessel, hardening and tapering arteries, which can restrict blood flow to the genitals. For men, this may translate into inefficient erections; for women, inadequate lubrication. Studies indicate that blood vessel disease could be behind 50 percent to 70 percent of men's erectile dysfunction, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Diabetes. Sex problems often coexist with diabetes and its attendant complications—especially vascular disease and nerve damage. Men may experience erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction, while women may face decreased arousal and difficulty achieving orgasm. The risks of these sexual side effects may be reduced by keeping blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol in check, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
Depression. Sexual dysfunction often accompanies depression, since the brain, commonly called the "the largest sex organ," is where that spark of sexual desire originates. If brain chemicals, or neurotransmitters, aren't properly balanced, libido, arousal, and orgasm can take a hit. Frustratingly, antidepressants such as selective and nonselective serotonin reuptake inhibitors that act on serotonin receptors may dampen desire, decrease arousal, and stall or squash orgasm. Luckily, antidotes exist. Studies (supported by Pfizer) have found that Viagra and Viagra-like medications may help, and some physicians have had success with the antianxiety medication buspirone. Switching antidepressants might work, too.
Menopause. Women's sex lives may change as certain hormones begin to wane. A drop in estrogen, which aids in arousal, often results in vaginal dryness and painful intercourse. Testosterone—a hormone tied to libido in both sexes—is on the decline as ovaries, which produce roughly half a woman's testosterone, shut down. While testosterone deficiencies won't always create problems, low levels of the hormone may kill a sexual appetite.
Medication side effects. Countless medications can affect what goes on between the sheets. Besides antidepressants that act on the brain's serotonin receptors, certain high blood pressure medications, and even the birth control pill, can sap libido and have other sexual side effects. Subbing a different drug or a lower dosage may make a difference.
Multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis, a disease of the central nervous system, is known to impair sexual function. Unsatisfactory erections and poor arousal and orgasmic dysfunction in women may sometimes be indicators of this |
much-disputed trade deal with the European Union that, once abandoned due to Russian pressure, led to the toppling of Ukraine's government.
Reuters characterized Ukraine's "$10 billion shale gas production-sharing agreement with US Chevron" as "another step in a drive for more energy independence from Russia."
Of course, Ms. Rice knows something about driving for more energy. She sat on Chevron's board of directors for ten years before resigning to become President Bush's National Security Adviser in January of 2001.
She was such a titanic figure at Chevron and so beloved by their corporate captains that they even named a 129,000-ton oil tanker 'Condoleezza Rice'. Do people name tankers after people? People do!
But four months after leaving Chevron, they "quietly renamed" the tanker, apparently sensitive to the implication that she might prioritize their interests in places like Kazakhstan (a de facto dictatorship never targeted by American Exceptionalists) or the Caspian Sea (where Chevron is heavily invested) or Afghanistan (where they've long sought a pipeline from the Caspian region to the Indian Ocean).
Corporate Interests Abroad
In the case of Ukraine, Chevron's deal continues a long tradition of intermarriage between 'national' and corporate interests under the guise of national security.
As the International Business Times stated immediately after the deal, "Chevron's agreement with Ukraine was supported by the US as part of its national security strategy to help reduce Russia's hold on Europe and Kiev."
As quoted in the article, US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said, "I'm very determined to cooperate with the Ukrainian government in strengthening Ukraine's energy independence."
That "cooperation" is couched in the language of "independence" - but it's actually about shifting to financial interdependence with powerful, American corporate interests. It's not about freedom or self-determination or human rights.
It's about the 'Open Door'.
Since the US proposed the Open Door Policy in China at the end of the 19th Century, American'soft imperialism' has exploited resource opportunities for American corporate interests in dozens of 'friendly'regimes - their commitment to freedom notwithstanding.
We have been there before
Whether it was oil in Iran, bananas in Guatemala or sugar-cane in Cuba, any move to close the door on US business interests has traditionally been met with dire warnings about the dangers of isolationism and specious claims about America's national interests - which, oddly enough, always seem to be located in another country.
Throughout the Cold War, those 'endangered' national interests inspired CIA hijinks around the world. US foreign policymakers supported regime change in places like Chile (calling Dr. Kissinger) and around Central America.
And they doled out generous foreign aid packages to a motley crew of anti-communist'strongmen'. If push came to shove, the US military might even get involved.
Since the end of the Cold War, US policy has been kicking open doors around the world and particularly around the edges of the former Soviet Union. Expansion of NATO and US involvement in the former 'Soviet Stans' around Afghanistan extended a semi-circle of US military might around Russia.
A declaration of economic war
And the Ukrainian energy independence trumpeted by Ambassador Pyatt amounted to a declaration of economic warfare on Russia's oil and gas-based economy. Like Condi Rice before him, Ambassador Pyatt's well-established priority is to ensure that well-connected businesses get in on the ground floor.
Once on the ground floor, they need insurance - either from local clients or from a neighborhood patrol by US forces. Perhaps that's why Ms. Rice used her Ukraine op-ed as an opportunity to advocate leaving a permanent military force in Afghanistan.
She doesn't want to hear "talk of withdrawal from Afghanistan whether the security situation warrants it or not." For her, nothing less than 10,000 troops will do. Otherwise, the US is "not serious about helping to stabilize that country."
Freedom, liberty, justice... and hydrocarbons
Yet, one wonders if she - like all the professional hand-wringers, truculent think tankers, and once and future policymakers who've grandstanded on the showdown with Russia - isn't quietly more concerned about something more basic than freedom, liberty and justice for all.
Perhaps the former Secretary of State, former Chevron big-wig and former oil tanker is more concerned with the ability of Chevron to realize its Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline dream.
Her old cohorts practicing soft imperialism at the US State Department have certainly been doing their part to help Chevron score that lucrative contract.
The banal truth is that America's long-standing policy is to help people anywhere and everywhere when those people just so happen to be living on or near valuable resources.
Unless, of course, it's Bahrain, Nigeria, Kazakhstan or anywhere else repressive and corrupt governments are already interdependent upon US corporate interests.
J P Sottile is a freelance journalist, radio co-host, documentary filmmaker and former broadcast news producer in Washington, D.C. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa.
Follow him on Twitter: @newsvandal
This article was first published on Buzzflash at Truth-Out.Features, / By STA, T. M.
The National Assembly endorsed the new cabinet of Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek with 52 votes in favour and 35 against on Wednesday, completing the formation of the 11th Slovenian government. The 14-member cabinet was sworn in immediately and will take over from the ousted Janez Janša
(Photo: Matej Povše)
Bratušek will lead a four-party coalition comprising her Positive Slovenia (PS), the Social Democrats (SD), Citizens' List (DL) and Pensioners' Party (DeSUS).
In her first statement after the vote, the 42-year-old Bratušek said she would lead the team "on the path of positive change and progress".
"We are faced by difficult decisions, but I'm confident that we have the wisdom, energy and perseverance to achieve our goals," she told reporters.
Bratušek had previously signalled a move away from the austerity policies towards an austerity-stimulus balance, a point she reiterated in her speech to parliament today.
Slovenia is a part of a big European story, but also of the big European illusion of how the world could be saved through austerity, she said.
The first task of her team, the youngest cabinet so far at the average age of 45, will be to bail out the ailing banking sector and kick-start economic growth.
The task has been entrusted to Finance Minister Uroš Čufer, who joined the government having spent nine years at NLB bank.
But Bratušek highlighted a calming of "political passions" and renewed patience in social dialogue as some of her top priorities.
The PM said she was aware that a government's mandate without a democratic election was restricted and reiterated her pledge that she will seek a vote of confidence in a year.
Though this creates an opportunity for an early election, a key demand of the anti-establishment protest movement and several established parties, Bratušek's government could still end up serving out the whole term.
But the parties which have moved to the opposition expressed doubt about the new cabinet's prospects of surviving so long.
"There is not much hope for a government with low level of integrity, expertise and efficiency," said Democrat (SDS) deputy group head Jože Tanko.
Even before taking office, Igor Maher, who took over as minister of infrastructure and spatial planning, was revealed to have an illegally built house on a plot of farmland on the coast.
Bratušek herself has been accused of plagiarising her masters thesis. The Faculty of Social Sciences is investigating the matter and Bratušek said she would down if her thesis is found to have been plagiarised.
Political analysts Matevž Tomšič and Igor Pribac fear that the new cabinet could be fragile and prone to infighting.
"I don't see a bright future for the government," sociologist Tomšič has told the STA.
Pribac, a professor at the Ljubljana Faculty of Arts, fears that infighting within the ruling coalition could start quickly if public pressure mounts for quick and unrealistic results.
With the government in place, former PS leader Zoran Janković made good on his promise to fully resign as party leader, though he plans to stay on as mayor and remain a party member.
But his ongoing presence has raised concerns about his influence on Bratušek.
DeSUS president Karl Erjavec, the foreign minister in the new government, warned that Bratušek would "quickly get into trouble" if she does not lead the government independently.
Bratušek denied the suggestions that Janković would influence her decisions. "Whoever knows Zoran Janković, knows that he can never be someone working from behind the scenes."COLUMBUS, Ohio – More that 600 union leaders from throughout Ohio stood and cheered Thursday as state AFL-CIO President Tim Burga announced that the measure to repeal union-busting Senate Bill 5 had just been certified for the Nov. 8 ballot.
“Labor is more energized than I have seen it before,” Burga said, referring to the record 1.3 million signatures collected by over 10,000 volunteers to place the measure on the ballot. Secretary of State John Husted determined that over 915,000 signaturewere valid – four times the number needed. In addition, the requirement that at least 3 percent of voters sign in half of Ohio’s counties was reached in all 88 counties.
“This is an unprecedented achievement,” Burga told the meeting, convened at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Hall here to kick off the next phase of the fight to repeal SB 5. The law, passed in March, strips public employees of the right to bargain collectively.
It was a standing-room-only crowd gathered in sweltering heat to hear Burga, national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other officials rally the troops and map plans to mobilize 1.7 million voters in union households as well as all of labor’s allies for a successful grassroots campaign.
The crowd was buoyed by a Quinnipac poll released the previous day showing the effort is gaining momentum. According to the survey, voters back repeal of SB 5 by a margin of 56 percent to 32 percent and disapprove of Republican Gov. John Kasich 50 percent to 35 percent.
“You will take this fight over the finish line,” Trumka said. “You will restore the rights of 365,000 public employees!”
“The corporations bought politicians. They thought they could knock us down and knock us out. They gave us their best shot and we’re still standing,” he said. “Now it’s our turn.”
“This will affect the entire labor movement across America,” Trumka said. “Either way, the outcome of this fight will be a game-changer. The right wing sees this as an opportunity to defeat all working people and you are going to put an end to it right here.”
Warning of a massive “anti-union ad blitz,” funded by ultra-right groups tied to Karl Rove and the billionaire Koch brothers, Trumka said “every member must be educated and mobilized to answer their lies.”
“We must educate every last voter and show how this affects our families and children,” he said. “Voters in Ohio are furious now. Politicians were elected promising to create jobs and they turned on working people.”
Twenty-five million are desperately looking for work, Trumka said. “We can and must do better. We must create a future of long-term broadly shared prosperity. We need a future where CEOs aren’t the only ones to make ends meet.”
Evidence of the growing fightback was demonstrated that evening as 70,000 Ohioans took part in a telephone town hall meeting with Trumka, Burga, Alliance of Retired Americans President Barbara Easterling and former state AFL-CIO President Joe Rugola. For over an hour the leaders took calls from rank-and-file workers and retirees discussing the threat of SB 5 to education, public safety and community services and how to win the repeal campaign in November.
“The time has come to stop these right-wingers in their tracks,” said Don Stiltner, a retired sheet metal worker.
“We are going to canvass labor-to-labor and labor-to-neighbor,” Trumka responded. “We are going to distribute worksite leaflets, make phone calls, run radio and TV ads. We are going to reach out to our allies in the religious community, to the NAACP, to students and retirees.
“We are going to stop these right-wing extremists who are scapegoating workers and public employees and doing nothing to create jobs.”
Photo: ProgressOhio // CC 2.0Although similar to the somewhat larger and generally faster-moving two-toed sloths, the two genera are placed in different families. Recent phylogenetic analyses support the morphological data from the 1970s and 1980s that the two genera are not closely related and that each adopted their arboreal lifestyles independently. [3] It is unclear from which ground-dwelling sloth taxa the three-toed sloths evolved or whether they retain their arboreality from the last common ancestor of sloths; the two-toed sloths appear to nest phylogenetically within one of the divisions of ground-dwelling Caribbean megalonychids, [4] thus probably either descended from them or are part of a clade that invaded the Caribbean multiple times. Both types of sloth tend to occupy the same forests; in most areas, a particular species of three-toed sloth and a single species of the larger two-toed type will jointly predominate. Famously slow-moving, the sloth travels at an average speed of 0.24 km/h (0.15 mph). [5]
A study of mitochondrial cytochrome b and 16S rRNA sequences suggests that B. torquatus diverged from B. variegatus and B. tridactylus about 12 million years ago, while the latter two split 5 to 6 million years ago. The diversification of B. variegatus lineages was estimated to have started 4 to 5 million years ago. [2]
Three-toed sloths are about the size of a small dog or a large cat, with the head and body having a combined length around 45 cm (18 in) and a weight of 3.5–4.5 kg (8–10 lb). Unlike the two-toed sloths, they also have short tails of 6–7 cm (2–3 in), and they have three clawed toes on each limb. They are frequently referred to as three-toed sloths, but all sloths have three toes; the difference is found in the number of fingers, meaning that they are now more appropriately referred to as three-fingered sloths. This idea was first implemented by Judy Avey-Arroyo, cofounder of the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica, but is now recognized in numerous publications as the correct terminology for these animals. [6]
Unlike the two-toed sloth, three-toed sloths are agile swimmers. They are still slow in trees.[7] The offspring cling to their mother's bellies for around nine months. They cannot walk on all four limbs, so they must use their front arms and claws to drag themselves across the rainforest floor.
Three-toed sloths are arboreal (tree-dwelling), with a body adapted to hang by their limbs. They live high in the canopy, but descend once a week to defecate on the forest floor. Their long, coarse fur often appears greenish, not due to pigment, but to algae growing on it. Sloths' greenish color and their sluggish habits provide an effective camouflage; hanging quietly, sloths resemble a bundle of leaves. Large, curved claws help sloths to keep a strong grip on tree branches.[5]
They move between different trees up to four times a day, although they prefer to keep to a particular type of tree, which varies between individuals, perhaps as a means of allowing multiple sloths to occupy overlapping home ranges without competing with each other.[8]
Three-toed sloths are predominantly diurnal, although they can be active at any hour of the day, while two-toed sloths are nocturnal.[9]
Lifecycle Edit
Members of this genus tend to live around 25 to 30 years, reaching sexual maturation at three to five years of age.
Three-toed sloths do not have a mating season and breed year round. Females give birth to a single young after a gestation period around six months. They are weaned around nine months of age, when the mother leaves her home territory to her offspring and moves elsewhere. Adults are solitary, and mark their territories using anal scent glands and dung middens.[8]
Male three-toed sloths are attracted to females in estrus by their screams echoing throughout the canopy. Sloth copulation lasts an average of 25 minutes.[10] Male three-toed sloths are strongly polygamous, and exclude competitors from their territory. Males are also able to compete with one another within small habitable territories.[11]
The home ranges used by wild brown-throated three-toed sloths in Costa Rica include cacao, pasture, riparian forests, and living fence-rows. For the first few months after giving birth, mothers remain at just one or two trees, and guide their young. At about five to seven months of age, when the young have become more independent, mothers expand their resources and leave their young in new areas. The home range for mothers are larger than those of young. After separation, only the mothers use the cacao agro forest, but both use riparian forest. Different types of trees are used by both mother and young, which indicates that this agricultural matrix provides an important habitat type for these animals.[12]
Dentition and skeleton Edit
Three-toed sloths have no incisor or canine teeth, just a set of peg-shaped cheek teeth that are not clearly divided into premolars and molars, and lack homology with those teeth in other mammals, thus are referred to as molariforms. The molariform dentition in three-toed sloths is simple and can be characterized as dental formula of: 54-5.[13]
Three-toed sloths are unusual amongst the mammals in possessing as many as nine cervical vertebrae, which may be due to mutations in the homeotic genes.[14] All other mammals have seven cervical vertebrae,[15] other than the two-toed sloth and the manatee, which have only six.While Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne creator Hidetaka Miyazaki is sort of busy with Dark Souls III, that’s not stopping the From Software president from looking to the future, beyond the Souls series, even.
According to an interview between Miyazaki and Gamespot, Dark Souls III is just the “turning point” in the franchise, and will essentially set up something entirely new.
“Dark Souls is my life’s work,” he replied when asked if he’d expand the Souls franchise into other genres, like fantasy or sci-fi. “Everything I came up with for Dark Souls 3 is based on my personal preferences. However, Dark Souls 3 is also actually the turning point for the franchise.”
Here’s where things get really interesting – when he was pressed further into talking on other genres and maybe applying the “Souls framework” to them, Miyazaki said that he “definitely wants to bring the Miyazaki Touch” to them.
Finally, Miyazaki talked up his role supervising games within From Software as president, saying that he plans on launching “several new projects,” but wasn’t keen on naming which games to expect. “I do want to work on something new,” he added. “I’m pleased to hear people are interested in seeing that.”
Would you guys like to see Miyazaki’s take on sci-fi, or mecha? Sound off in the comments below.Nope, way too big. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images
At the moment, millennials are a generation of renters. Part of the reason is obvious: Money’s tight and houses are expensive. But some—myself and the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson included—have wondered if there might be a cultural component to our apparent aversion to homeownership as well, given that we’ve gotten our start in adulthood post–housing bust.
The below graph is from a newly released Federal Reserve survey about America’s overall economic well-being, which asked renters why they didn’t buy a home. Among 18-to-29-year-olds, the most popular answer by far (49 percent) was that they couldn’t afford a down payment. A plan to move soon was the second-most popular reason, with 29 percent mentioning it. Meanwhile, 24 percent said they couldn’t qualify for a mortgage. Only 14 percent said they actually preferred renting to the idea of owning. Finances really are the big issue.
These results are both obvious and meaningful: There are a vast number of young people who would purchase real estate if they could find something within their price range. Real estate developers are already building smaller, less expensive houses in order to cater to millennial budgets. It’s possible that we’ll end up as the generation that shrinks the American home back down to size—not out of desire, but necessity.The Labor NSW conference in February saw no fewer than seven motions – most put forward by local Labor branches – calling for boycotts against the settlements or other action by Australia to oppose the settlements. None of the motions was passed by the conference. These motions represented an important opportunity for practical action by the ALP in the face of the serious threat to peace posed by the settlements.
This matters for Australian taxpayers because of the significant political support Australia, particularly Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his government, provides to Israel and its settlement policies. It also matters given the lucrative contracts the government has awarded to Israeli arms companies – the same Israeli arms companies that actively support Israel's occupation and associated settlements.
Analysis of a key set of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade financial records, made available to the public for the first time here, show that over the past 10 years the Australian government has spent more than $1.5 billion on contracts with Israeli arms companies, primarily the company Elbit Systems. (The data is also summarised here.) Elbit supplies surveillance equipment for the highly controversial wall Israel has built throughout the occupied Palestinian West Bank, a wall that is integral to Israel's occupation and settlement activities. The wall, like the occupation and settlements, is illegal under international law.
Last month, it was revealed that Mary Easson, one of five members of the NSW branch of the pro-Israel lobby group the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue, is also a lobbyist for the Australian subsidiary of Elbit Systems. The Australia Israel Labor Dialogue was highly active in lobbying ALP members to reject motions at the NSW Labor conference critical of Israel or its supporters, including those calling for a boycott of the settlements. In response to the revelations about Easson's Elbit role, former foreign minister and former NSW premier Bob Carr called for greater transparency from the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue in how it raises its funds.
Australia's political support for the settlements and continuing trade with Israeli arms companies that profit from the wall associated with the settlements is deeply problematic. It reveals a deep and dangerous double standard in how Australia responds to human rights abuses in one the world's most volatile regions. Compare it with the range of punitive sanctions Australia levels at other governments and groups in the region that also have highly problematic human rights records: Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Iraq, Hamas and other Palestinian groups.High resolution infrared satellite image of Typhoon Vongfong on Tuesday. (NOAA/NASA and RAMMB/CIRA)
Super Typhoon Vongfong has rapidly intensified over the past 24 hours, from the equivalent of a category two hurricane to a monster typhoon with 155 mph wind speeds, and an estimated central pressure of 908 millibars.
Based on satellite estimates of central pressure, Vongfong is now the most intense storm on Earth so far in 2014, and forecast models suggest it could rival the intensity of deadly Typhoon Haiyan of 2013 over the next 24 hours.
During the 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday mornings, Vongfong ballooned from wind speeds of 89 mph to 168 mph, based on satellite estimates. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center estimates that Typhoon Vongfong has maximum winds of 155 mph on Tuesday morning, though this is likely a conservative estimate.
Vongfong is now the sixth super typhoon of 2014, with winds speeds over 150 mph.
Typhoon Vongfong has rapidly intensified into a category four typhoon with winds of 140 mph. (UW-CIMSS)
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center points to a favorable environment for the cause of the rapid intensification, including low wind shear and excellent outflow, which helps to ventilate and strengthen the storm.
Forecast models are suggesting that the super typhoon could continue to intensify, tanking to 895 millibars — a typhoon intensity not seen since Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, which killed over 6,000 people. A pressure that low would beat this year’s second most intense storm — Typhoon Genevieve — by 20 millibars.
Luckily, this monster storm is not expected to make landfall while it’s at such high intensity. Over the next 24 to 48 hours, Vongfong is forecast to make a sharp turn north toward Japan. By Saturday morning, the typhoon is forecast to weaken to the equivalent of a category three, and then a category two with wind speeds of 105 mph, as it approaches the southern islands of the Kagoshima Prefecture of Japan.
Beyond this, global forecast models are suggesting Vongfong will continue to turn northeast and potentially making landfall in the southern Japan mainland, which will undoubtedly bring torrential rain to a region already soaked from Typhoon Phanfone.× New interactive map shows where people are spotting UFOs
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Are we alone in the universe? Are aliens from outer space visiting the Earth? Where are all the UFO’s to be found?
Well, according to a new interactive map from a California company, spotting a flying saucer is all about location, location, location.
“We downloaded UFO sightings from the National UFO Reporting Center and took all of the locations and tried to standardize them,” Lane Allison, product manager of FindTheBest, a California-based company that collects and interprets data, told the Huffington Post.
FindTheBest took information from some 61,000 UFO reports, then narrowed those down to 39,000 reports from across the nation to create their county-by-county UFO sighting by capita map.
“After we got latitude and longitude pairs, we could determine the number of UFO sightings that have been reported in counties. Then, we cross-referenced that with the American Community Survey population estimates of those counties, resulting in UFO reports per capita number,” Allison told The Huffington Post.
Here in the metro area, there are 19.8 sightings per 100,000 people in Jackson County, 12.1 sightings per 100,000 in Johnson County, Kansas, and 22.1 sightings per 100,000 in Wyandotte County.
The truth is out there, maybe. Scroll over the map below to get a county-by-county UFO report from across the nation.Looking for news you can trust?
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This week, the president of wicked-Catholic Portugal announced that he’s ratifying a law that legalizes gay marriage, even though he doesn’t want to, because liberal lawmakers would just overturn his veto. Oh, to have that problem in your government!
I was excited to hear the news, of course, but how quickly a little reflection turned into embarrassed head-shaking about how far behind this country is. I don’t know about you, but as you may know, when I get moody about the ridiculous discriminatory laws against homos here, I make maps of weird stuff I can legally bone or marry. The longer the US holds out on this equality thing, the more wrong these are going to have to get. Today’s: There are, you’ll probably not be surprised to learn, three times as many states with no direct prohibitions against the sexual assault of an animal (according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund) as there are states that allow gay marriage.
* In New Jersey, I DEFINITELY could.Metro
Chinese dissident billionaire treated me as sex slave: suit
The personal assistant to a dissident Chinese billionaire says the New York-based real estate tycoon treated her like a sex slave — allegedly raping her at his homes in Manhattan and London and threatening to have her jailed and tortured if she escaped, according to a new lawsuit.
Guo Wengui, 50, also known as Miles Kwok, fled China in 2015 following a fraud conviction. A year earlier he had summoned Rui Ma to New York from his Hong Kong real estate offices, according to her $20 million suit filed Monday.
Once in the Big Apple, Guo took Rui’s passport and monitored her communications, the suit alleges.
He told her that if she tried to return to China “she would be arrested and thrown in prison, where she would be tortured,” court papers state.
She “became [Guo’s] captive,” the suit says.
The billionaire’s “program of terror” started with Guo allegedly making Rui “work until 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. seven days a week — depriving her of any real opportunity to sleep.”
Then he tried to force himself on her in the cinema room of his $68 million penthouse at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue, the suit says.
Rui “narrowly avoided rape on this one occasion” until “not long after” when she woke up with Guo “on top of her and attempting to separate her legs,” the suits says. She yelled at him to stop but he refused and “engaged in forced sexual intercourse with [Rui] without her consent, according to court papers.
“After this violence concluded [he] left [her] alone, bleeding in her bed,” the suit says.
A second alleged rape occurred in Guo’s London home when he locked her in a room, threw her onto the floor and tore at her clothing.
Rui begged him to stop, but he “coldly responded that [Rui] must stop shouting,” the suit says.
She eventually fled to the Chinese embassy earlier this year.
The suit does not includes dates for the incidents and Rui never contacted U.S. authorities about the alleged assaults.
But she has filed a criminal complaint in China, her New York attorney Lisa C. Solbakken told The Post.
“Defendant’s decision to flee China and take up residence in the United States is one that insulates him from answering for his inhumane and egregious conduct,” Solbakken said.
“Our courts are entitlted to hold him accountable for his wrongs,” she said.
Rui is one of at least five recent suits filed against Guo in New York. Guo believes the suits are orchestrated by the Chinese government, which he said is trying to silence him for exposing corruption in his home country.
He’s recently applied for political asylum in the U.S.
Guo did not immediately respond through an attorney.
Filed under billionaires, china, lawsuits, rapeAlbert Almora Jr. has two more hits, extends hitting streak to seven games
Albert Almora Jr. said when he was optioned to Iowa that he would go down, work hard and be prepared when he was called up again to help the Cubs win games. And Almora Jr. has produced offensively since returning to Triple-A Iowa.
Almora Jr. batted third in Sunday’s 8-3 win over Omaha. Almora Jr. went 2-for-5 with a run scored and a RBI.
Almora Jr. has hit safely in each of the seven games since he’s been back in Iowa’s lineup. Almora Jr. went yard Saturday with a two-run homer and drove in three runs.
Almora Jr. has three multi-hit games in his last four and he’s 11-for-33 in his last seven games. Almora Jr. walked in his first game back and three of the 11 hits have gone for extra bases. Almora Jr. is batting.333/.343/.485 with two doubles and a home run for a.828 OPS.
• Albert Almora Jr.’s Page on MiLB.com
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Aug. 17, 2016, 1:21 AM GMT / Updated Aug. 17, 2016, 1:25 AM GMT By The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — A former Marine whose appearances in widely shared videos made him one of the most recognizable figures during the armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge pleaded guilty Monday for his role in the weekslong standoff with authorities.
Jon Ritzheimer, 32, admitted that he conspired with Ammon Bundy and others to prevent U.S. Interior Department employees from doing their jobs at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and they did so by threats of force or intimidation.
This Jan. 27, 2016, file photo provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office shows Jon Ritzheimer, who was arrested in Arizona Jan. 26, 2016, in connection with the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. AP
Prosecutors dropped two charges as part of a plea agreement — theft of government property and possessing a firearm on federal property. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel said prosecutors will recommend 2½ years in prison when the Arizona man is sentenced in May. Ritzheimer's attorney, Terri Wood, can argue for less.
Ritzheimer arrived in Oregon shortly before the Jan. 2 takeover. The group sought local control of Western lands and opposed the prison sentences two local ranchers received for setting fires.
In a video posted Dec. 31, Ritzheimer sits in the driver's seat of his truck and emotionally explains to his daughters why he missed Christmas and won't be home for New Year's.
"Your daddy swore an oath," Ritzheimer said. "He swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution."
The YouTube video spawned parodies and the hashtag #DaddySworeAnOath. It has been viewed more than 600,000 times.
Later, in a video released during the occupation, he reacts angrily when opponents respond to a call for supplies by sending sex toys to the refuge. "Rather than going out and doing good, they just spend all their money on hate and hate and hate and hate," he said, before knocking the mail from a table to the floor.
The takeover occurred on the same day as a rally for the two ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond.
Ritzheimer was part of the initial convoy that arrived at the refuge near Burns, Oregon, and took control, authorities say. They informed Bundy, who was at the rally, that they had seized the place.
Occupier Jon Ritzheimer help supporters Joe Rigney, left, and his wife Amanda Rigney unload firewood at the refuge on Jan. 10. JIM URQUHART / Reuters
Ritzheimer used his own truck to block an entrance during the occupation and organized armed guard duties, said Gabriel, the prosecutor. Authorities seized a shotgun that he brought to the refuge.
Ritzheimer told U.S. District Court Judge Anna J. Brown that he helped "take the protest to the next level."
After the hearing, Ritzheimer said he pleaded guilty because he reviewed the charge and, though he may not agree with it, admits he violated the law as it's written. "Marines believe in integrity," he said.
Ritzheimer made news outside of Oregon last year by organizing an anti-Islam protest at a Phoenix mosque and threatening to arrest a U.S. senator for treason because she supported the Iran nuclear deal.
He also led a protest at Walmart after the company removed Confederate flag merchandise.There’s not just the Swing. The Kettlebell is a versatile tool, and it would not do it justice to use it only for one exercise. So we have asked 12 Kettlebell experts to share their favorite exercise – besides the Swing. Here is the result.
Ryan Shanahan
Ryan Shanahan has been a fitness trainer for over 25 years and is the #1 selling Kettlebell instructor with over 2 million DVDs sold all over the world, translated in 5 different languages.
What’s your favorite Kettlebell exercise besides Swings?
Irish Get Up a.k.a The Bottoms Up Half Get Up.
The Kettlebella.k.a
Why do you like it?
Because a single set of 5 to 8 focused reps per side is all that is needed to feel it. You will see results the next day.
What does it do for you?
EMG tests have shown that the Kettlebell Get Up has 100% peak activation of all core muscles including Rectus Abdominis, External Oblique, Internal Oblique and Erector Spinae. Plus my Irish version also engages your gluteal muscles, rotator cuff and deltoid. The Kettlebell community has praised the core-activating benefits of the Turkish Get Up for many years. It’s taken quite a while for some strength coaches to catch on but nowadays most coaches are having their athletes perform this exercise in their warm-ups. Good job, Kettlebellers!
Lisa Balash
Lisa Balash is a Pilates and Kettlebell trainer in Las Vegas, NV since 2003. Certified in weight loss management and worked with NFL Quarterback, Tyler Palko to Sister Wives reality television star, Janelle Brown. Released two instructional DVDs, Kettlebell Bombshell Vol 1 and 2, reached #26 on Amazon’s top 100. Webside: www.kettlebellbombshell.com
What’s your favorite Kettlebell exercise besides Swings?
Clean and Jerk or Long Cycle as it is referred to in Kettlebell competition.The Jerk is explosive as you use the lower body to “bump” the weight from the hips which uses the leg muscles and the upper body stabilizes the weight in the under squat position and overhead in the lockout position. This exercise requires strength and stamina and it burns far more calories than any other exercise and it is also the exercise I teach all of my clients and especially ones who need to lose weight. Jerks are a safer way to press as there is less stress on the shoulders since momentum is used to get the weight overhead instead of isolating the shoulder muscles. Check the video below:
andoras it is referred to in Kettlebell competition.The Jerk is explosive |
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